Despite living in Burbank for almost five years since my move from NYC, I had never gone to the aquatics facility. My son is two and we thought he'd enjoy the activity pool.
I researched online and saw that you must reserve a session online the morning of. If you are a Burbank resident, then 9-11am is when you would log onto the site to reserve a session. Each session is an hour and 15 mins. You pay the fee upon entering after showing your ID & reservation.
Since it was our first time, we showed up at 12:45am which was when the session began and there was a very long line. We were finally third in line at around 1:20pm and weren't able to purchase a second session because we had another commitment that day. The gentleman in front of me, who was already very upset at the lack of organization, asked his older children (prob pre-teens) if they would like him to purchase the next session and they agreed. He got even more upset when the gentleman in front of him was able to purchase three sessions for the whole day without any reservations. He then said, "this is going to take awhile. I need to have a long conversation with them" to which my response was, "please do not have a long conversation." Post-lockdown I've been a little unaware and occasionally say what I'm thinking. I also gathered the information that his children agreed to play during the next two sessions which meant he had the time to spare. It was 1:30pm at that point and we did not have the option of taking a later session so my son only had about half an hr and if the gentleman's convo took another 15 minutes then we wouldn't have much time and toddlers are not historically reasonable.
When the gentleman got upset, which I thought was valid, because I didn't properly articulate what I meant, I then asked if it would be okay if we just checked in quickly so he would be able to have the longer conversation that he needed to express his disappointment since we are unable to make the next time. He replied, "Since, you are more important than me" while wildly avoiding eye contact which is just what people do when they are upset and we are all a little tender right now so I let him know that I absolutely did not think that and he said he had contacted the facility ahead of time to find everything out and that the dept head said he could show up on time and it wouldn't be a problem, etc. His frustration was valid and I agreed that logistically this could have been communicated better. He let me go first and perhaps maybe realized what I had actually meant by my comment, but maybe he didn't. Regardless, we took about 70 seconds to check in and my son was able to enjoy the activity pool for the short time we had left on the reserved session.
I will note that the gentleman without a reservation was there with his two younger children and his mother. He had a big bag of Porto's and he seemed as if this was his day with his children and he was trying to make it very special. I don't like to judge people on their appearance but it was possible that his socioeconomic status was not the same as mine or the gentleman directly in front of me who was very angry (in fact I'd venture to say that the angry gentlemen is probably considered "important" in whatever role he holds at work). The employee at the counter, who may have also sensed this, treated the man with no reservation with a lot of respect and was friendly and didn't ask him for proof of residency. He didn't give him a hard time nor did he tell him he couldn't bring in the food and I think that was the right and kind decision. Kudos to the employee working on 6/26 at 1:30pm.
Some people do not have access to the internet or have a computer in their home so it is understandable that exceptions be made for those people and there should not be an assumption that everyone attending a public pool facility (regardless if it's in a studio exec town) has access to these utilities.
I think a few easy things could resolve these issues:
- reservation confirmations should indicate that you should show up a bit earlier for your reserved session to avoid cutting into your session time.
- employees should be trained to explain to the angry folks that overhear passes being purchased in person without reservations (despite the website listing that absolutely no on site purchases can be made) that there are exceptions to those without access to a computer/internet.
- add another staff member to check folks in during the sessions especially during peak times, there was only one employee when I was there.
Anyway, that's all. Thanks for reading. read more