Attending to business

Colin Mariano looks after the pool and beach for the Sheraton Moana Surfrider Hotel

Colin Mariano Title: Pool and beach attendant Job: Maintains the pool and beach areas at the Sheraton Moana Surfrider Hotel in Waikiki

Colin Mariano at work has it good. He likes his hours, his colleagues, the many new people he gets to meet each day, and the fact that his "office," so to speak, is practically right on the ocean, where it's easy to go surfing if the waves are any good. The Damien Memorial High School graduate is a pool and beach attendant at the Sheraton Moana Surfrider Hotel in Waikiki, which he joined almost seven years ago. Before that, Mariano tried his hand at being a police officer, a security guard, a telephone company contact representative and even a restaurant worker. ("I helped open the Hard Rock," he said last week.) Mariano also attended Regis College in Denver for a while, and the University of Hawaii, taking liberal arts courses and thinking he might go into law (which he did, sort of, as a police officer). But eventually all roads led to the Sheraton Moana Surfrider, where he tends its pool and beach for its many visitors -- including some from Japan whom he, in turn, looked up when he traveled to their country a couple of years ago to go snowboarding. Mariano, 43, is single and lives in the Halawa area.

Question: What time does your workday start and end?

A: It depends. Mostly my regular shift is from 10:30 to 7, but if someone goes on vacation, we have an early shift that starts at 4:30 to 1 p.m.

Q: So the pool facilities are closed by 7?

A: Yeah. We open at 7 and we close at 7.

Q: What exactly do they expect you to do each day?

A: Usually, we get the beach all set up. In the mornings, in the early shift, the person comes in and they rake the beach, they put up the umbrellas. ... We also take reservations the day before, so we have to reserve the umbrellas and chairs for the guests. We try to get that all done before 7 o'clock; that's when we open.

Then the pool person has different opening duties. He comes in at 5:45, and he gets to leave at 2:15, and he's basically in charge of setting up the pool decks, cleaning the pool, like checking the water chemistry, and bringing out towels for the pool desk.

Q: Is there only one pool attendant at a time when you're working?

A: There's actually two. There's the beach attendant and the pool attendant.

Q: So you do one or the other?

A: Yeah.

Q: Which do you do mostly?

A: My shift is usually the 10:30 to 7, so I have to bring in all the equipment by 6:30. Breaking it down -- all the umbrellas, chairs and tables, and putting them in the storage area.

Q: For the beach area?

A: Yeah. Only one day out of the week I close the pool.

Q: Are you technically a lifeguard, too?

A: Yeah, we're certified. To be employed here, you have to be lifeguard-certified and qualified in CPR and first aid.

Q: So you have to go rescue people if you see somebody in trouble?

A: Yeah, definitely. Our pool deck says "No lifeguard on duty," but we're actually lifeguards, so if something does happen, we have to respond.

Q: Is it generally pretty accident-free?

A: Yeah, pretty much. But we did have a (near-drowning) in the past month.

Q: In the pool?

A: Yeah. An 8-year old Japanese child. He was on the bottom of the pool. His dad jumped in, then the dad gave the child to me, and I brought him onto the pool deck. One of the guests was a registered nurse, and she started doing the ventilation, and after 40 seconds, we brought him back, and he was breathing on his own. They took him to Straub (Clinic & Hospital) and he was released later that night. So everything was good.

Q: Oh, that's great.

A: Yeah.

Q: What about people using the ocean in front of the hotel? Are they sort of your responsibility, too?

A: No, not really. That's the City & County lifeguards' responsibility.

Q: When you say the hotel has a beach area, what do you mean?

A: We have a little private area fronting the hotel, on the beach.

Q: So you can say, "Hey, you can't sit here"?

A: Yeah, it's zoned strictly for the guests. But people often try to sneak in and sit under the umbrellas. We constantly are checking people. We can tell because they don't have our towels.

Q: But people can walk past the area?

A: Oh yeah, definitely. There's a public access.

Q: Do you have a lot of lifeguard groupies?

A: Lifeguard groupies? No, no. (Laughter) The city lifeguards do. They have all the young girls hang out. I hear all the stories. They're pretty cool guys.

Q: But I presume you get to meet a lot of interesting and different people every day.

A: Oh, definitely. That's one of the fun parts of my job. I get to meet nice people from all over the world. Every day is different. And we get a lot of return guests. Some of them have been coming, like, 20 years. We have one couple that comes three or four times a year, some times for two months at a time.

Q: Do you interact with them much?

A: Oh, sure.

Q: Or are you pretty much a silent observer to the side, just keeping an eye on everything?

A: No, no. In fact, our bosses like us to interact with the guests. It's good for us, too. Gives us a break from the monotony of doing our daily jobs. We get to know about their families, and pretty much their lives.

Q: How do you keep track of all the towels and equipment?

A: We have a set amount of chairs and a set amount of umbrellas -- I think it's 35 umbrellas. And as far as the towels, a lot of the towels don't come back. A lot of them get stolen. We're trying to keep track by getting the names of the guests and taking their names off the list when the towels come back. But for now we're not charging if they don't come back.

Q: Are you supposed to try and keep non-hotel guests from using the pool or poolside facilities?

A: Yeah, but sometimes we can't tell. People will jump in the pool, and we can't really tell. But usually it's no problem. If we see them without our towels, we'll go up to them and see if they have a room key, and if they don't, we'll ask them to leave. That applies to the beach, too. But a lot of people walk through the hotel, and they'll say, "Oh, let's hang out here." We get that a lot.

Q: So you must have to be pretty diplomatic.

A: Yeah, of course.

Q: What was it like being a pool attendant during the more-than-40 days recently that we had rain every day?

A: Was kind of boring. (Laughter) We sat out there and it was just raining, but we had to work our full 8-hour shift.

And, actually, there were people that weren't deterred by the rain, because they're here from the mainland or wherever. They'd just sit under their umbrellas, hoping for the break in a weather, but it never happened. (Laughter)

Q: What do you do to guard against getting too much sun?

A: Actually, all of us we wear sunscreen a lot. But I'm pretty dark because of surfing. I have a tan because I'm out in the sun a lot, so I don't really burn. Plus we're not always in the sun; we're also under the pool desk, where there's a roof.

Q: So are you happy with the job? Are you going to stick with it for awhile?

A: Yeah. I've been here for seven years, and I'm still going strong. We have one employee, Bobby Brilliande, he's 67, and he's been working the beach for 20 years. He's in pretty top shape, too. He's one of the longest working attendants here. And everybody recognizes him. The guest will come in, and the person they will ask for is Bobby.

Q: So are you kind of hoping that someday they'll be asking for you?

A: Nah! People change, and you never know what will be happening 20 years from now. But I'm really comfortable here. The people are really nice. It's a good company.

Q: And you surf, too. Right?

A: Yeah.

Q: So that's a good perk, too, yeah -- working right off the beach where you can see the waves?

A: Hey, the ocean is my office. The only bummer is that when the waves are good, we gotta work. Can't go surfing until after work. (Laughter)

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