Why I Love My Job

Madeline Bubb

July 12, 2018

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My summer feels pretty average to me, but I guess things become normal when you’ve done them for all your life. If you didn’t already know, I’m on the sailing team at Stanford and hence, know a bit about sailing. So naturally, my first real job I ever got was teaching kids how to sail. I started working at my yacht club (Balboa Yacht Club) when I was 15 years old, and 5 years later I’m still an employee there. Sure, it wasn’t necessarily my plan to be there for this long - I had intended on getting a film internship this summer - but here I am.

Now, I know it sounds like I might be about to complain about doing the same thing over and over again, but surprisingly, I’ve learned something new every year and still love it to this day. My first summer as a coach, I worked with kids ages 7-12 and had no clue what I was doing. The staff I was working with at the time was experienced, fun, and well… old. And by “old” I mean they were college students while I was a mere sophomore in high school. I remember thinking to myself that I would have a real job once I got into college because I “couldn’t possibly imagine working there past my high school years.”

In my boat helping a struggling kid

I realize that before going on, I should explain what a sailing coach does and what goes on at a summer sailing program. For one, it’s not just a bunch of kids cruising around in big boats while I watch from the comfort of a motorboat. Instead, each kid has their own 10-foot boat and we teach them how to race against other sailors by sailing around a course that has a start and finish end. To help visualize it, you could compare a sailing course to a racetrack for cars, except, instead of the track being made of concrete, it’s on water potentially filled with obstacles like currents and sand banks. And instead of cars, each person sails in a tiny boat called a sabot that is designed for only one person to compete in. At work I teach the kids the rules of sailing, like how to rig and de-rig their boats and how to tie knots, and I also teach them about respect and hard work. Sometimes the kids come out of the program not only as better sailors, but also as more behaved and well mannered people.

Coaching is second nature to me now. Over my five years as a coach I’ve seen it all, from concussions to super windy days where everyone is flipped and even to summer sailing romances. There’s not a lot that surprises me these days. The only thing that has changed is now I’m the “old coach” (obviously I’ve grown more than just in age but you get the gist). Our staff this year is brand new and I’m the only returning employee; it’s pretty crazy. I thought I'd be miserable trying to teach the new employees all the ins and outs, but they’ve all done incredibly and I’ve had a blast with them so far. One of the new employees is my younger brother Harrington. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed messing with him throughout the past couple of weeks.

all my kids threw me in for my birthday (I tried not to get thrown in but they all huddled around me and slowly pushed together which worked surprisingly well)

At a summer camp you can imagine people playing practical jokes and having long standing traditions. Sailing camp is no different. One of our traditions is that if it’s your birthday, we throw you into the bay. My brother has a summer birthday and it also happened to be a day when we had work so I devised a plan to get him in the water. It all started in the morning. Harrington and I have different kids we coach in the morning session but we work together in the afternoon with the same kids. So, I subtly found some of my kids that I coach in the afternoon when they arrived early and told them my plan. Because it’s not my first rodeo, and I knew my brother would be on high alert, I told my kids they were the one's who would have to fake a reason at the very end of the day that would make him go on the dock. I then assigned a few other kids to make sure that they could clear an opening on the dock so that there would be no boats in the water to get in the way of me pushing him in. Last in my morning preparation, I notified all the other staff members that I “had everything planned out for Harrington’s demise” and told them to “not bring up pushing him in so that he would think no one was planning anything.” Flash forward to the end of the day. I gave my afternoon kids the signal to go to their battle stations and pretend to be busy on the dock to look less suspicious. Upon my command, one of my kids then asked my brother for help. He naively went on the dock, she stopped at her instructed spot, stalled for one extra second and then I body checked my brother into the water and screamed “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!” All of our kids swarmed him as he hit the water and I towered over him in sweet victory as he slow clapped me on my success.

a selfie with a co-worker and me while we were probably supposed to be attending to our kids

It’s all the goofing off and messing around that I love most about the summer sailing program. Next week, a few other employees and I have decided to start an annual instructor pranking war and I’m already planning my attacks. I’m glad I returned for one final year to not only teach kids how to sail, but to get to teach coaches how to coach. I’ve taught the coaches little details like where equipment goes and secret areas that they can escape to for some peace and quiet, and I’ve taught them bigger things like how to discipline children with parents that tolerate bad behavior or how to manage a bullying situation.

Not getting the internship that I wanted, although frustrating, has opened my eyes to new pathways and opportunities. I now realize that next summer, I can, should and will apply to work at Stanford Sierra Camp because the internships can wait till I’m a washed up senior with an existential crisis. I also have devoted more time to my writing this summer and I am currently editing a pilot I wrote which is a mockumentary half hour comedy about the Founding Fathers called “Seventeen-Seventy-Dicks.” And just the other day I found out about a 10 day internship in Toronto that I’m going to apply for which is in September, so maybe I will get a bit of film experience under my belt after all.

my kids sailing and racing in their sabots

I hope I leave a lasting impression on these coaches. You never really know what your legacy will be with your staff, but I’ve watched so many of the kids I coach grow up and if anything, I hope I’ve inspired them to want to sail as hard as they can and to eventually become a coach just like me.