July 29, 2026: You're only as fast as your slowest team member.
Good Morning,
I spent all day yesterday at the hospital with a family member for a scheduled orthopedic surgery. This was the second time having this procedure done in the last few months with the same surgeon at the same hospital, right down to some of the same nurses on shift (different limb, not revision!) Sidestepping the conversation we could have about stress on medical infrastructure since the Pandemic, the experience was smooth in May and - in the words of the surgeon - "a disaster" yesterday.
This brought me back to aquatics because the root cause was the same: siloing.
The orthopedic surgeon, the anesthesiologist, the OR nurses, the patient, the pre/post-op care team, etc. are all on site & ready to go at a specific time on a specific date, but the whole system fails if the operating room (OR) isn't ready. They can only be as fast as the slowest team member, and that hurts (costs) everyone.
In this specific case, I don't know the root cause. Is the housekeeping department short staffed? Undertrained? Underpaid? Overworked? Undermanaged? Uninformed? I truly don't know, and - like I said - I'm not wading into this from a medical funding perspective. Maybe the team was just having a bad day? It's a full moon after all.
But what I do know is that the same work load that was manageable in May was too much for the team to handle yesterday. The surgeon can't make the housekeeping staff move any faster (he's not their boss) any more than a lifeguard or front desk attendant can make the pool operator show up quickly to deal with a fecal contamination response, and that's the problem. It all comes down to very common siloing in complex multi-use facilities, whether it's a hospital with many departments or a building with many use spaces, including a pool.
We tend to think of roles & responsibilities in the aquatic industry as exclusively the job description (I know what I have to do day-to-day), but it's never considered in the bigger scope of what the facility needs to actually operate from minute-to-minute.
A classic example I see often is neglected occupational health & safety equipment in the pool mechanical room. It's a workplace with employees, so the health & safety department should take care of it, but they often don't inspect don't inspect non-office or industrial areas.
The lifeguards assume the facilities staff are swapping (e.g.) out the saline in the emergency eye wash squeeze bottles ("they work in there"), the facilities staff assume the lifeguards are doing it ("they're the safety people"), and the end result is the bottle is 5 years expired and someone ends up with corneal erosions because muriatic acid wasn't mitigated immediately when a chemical feeding line separated from an injector and sprayed into an employee's eyes.
In the hospital, everything ended up getting done, but the financial costs (overtime rates), personal costs (individuals who missed child care pick up), emotional load costs (rescheduling every aspect of the procedure), and more to the organization and individual is substantive and compounding.
To bring this back to aquatics, going into your strategic planning for 2027 (which is already on the horizon!), it's important to zoom out and look at all of the stakeholders in aquatic operations. 'Stakeholders' is just a fancy term for saying people who have skin in the game and are impacted in some way if the pool isn't open and operating the way it's suppose to.
The thing is...we assume that everyone KNOWS the stakes (lost revenue, bad press, angry customers, higher staff turnover, etc.) but without clearly identifying clear common success criteria, each department may have individual objectives and competing goals. It's also pertinent that key assumptions be spelled out in writing and cleared up because it makes an as* out of you and me if we don't talk about it in advance.
Further, in anything complex, there's codependencies - if you don't do this, I can't do that. Yes, we shouldn't have to spell out to housekeeping that if the OR is delayed, procedures may have to be rescheduled and people are left in pain, but sometimes we have to call a spade a spade. Often in 1:1 coaching of pool managers I ask: did you actually clearly say/email it, or did you just think it?
Here is a template you may find helpful to start this process. I did not create this, I received this at a job about 10 years ago from a consultant called Eileen Kwan. She's mostly retired, so there's no website I can link back to.
Lastly, this graphic won't be a surprise to anyone who works in operations, but I still find it illustrative to understand where our time bleeds in 2026 with so much documentation & communication expected of us.
I'm happy to share a very comprehensive look at the recently-released Guidance for Public Cold Plunge Pools in Alberta.
Even if you're not in Alberta, or not yet operating a cold plunge pool, you may still find value listening to me talk through a lot of the permitting and operational challenges I've encountered working with many of these facilities over the last two years.
Here's everything else going on in terms of aquatic news this week -
A 2-Year-Old’s Drowning and a Fight Over the Line Between Life and Death
6-Year-Old Boy Found at the Bottom of Pool During Lifeguard’s Lunch Break: Authorities
Minto Group begins construction on new Airdrie outdoor swimming pool
New entertainment complex with indoor water park and hotel proposed for Ottawa’s west end
Battle of the Beaches for the Cruise Lines
'Beaches' is the wrong headline: they're all building water parks with beaches.
Therme's $850 million Dallas wellness resort eyes 2031 opening
Click here if paywalled.
Weston has spent $102,000 on its pool this year and still can’t find the leak
Person found dead in a chair at a community pool
Is your team watching areas around the pool? This happened at my facility back in 2006 when a man was thought to be stretching on an exercise mat after his work out. By the time a staff member checked on him, it had been so long that the AED was unable to locate any electrical activity in the heart to deliver a shock. He died on site, and no one liked that a car labeled CORONER was outside the building for nearly 12 hours.
Swim RVA faces state deadline to comply or close after drowning of 9-year-old
Overstored pool chemicals and corroded sprinklers led to Georgia chemical plant fire, report says
Nudist group says swimming-pool ban is ‘discrimination’
Click here if paywalled. Seems a bit late to be enforcing "swimsuit policies" when this group has been renting pool time since 1982. Ditto, you suddenly can't find staff who agree to lifeguard the swim? It's possible, but seems unlikely. When I routinely staffed a trans swim in Toronto (potential for topless nudity; genitals legally have to be covered), some lifeguards definitely opted out of the shift (we disclosed in advance what it would be), but others wholly did not care because they wanted the money.
The 33 Most Anticipated New Wellness Resorts And Residences, According To A Global Wellness Summit Survey
If money is no object, there's many way to innovate pool design!
Calgary actor hopes city will give northeast waterslide a proper send-off
Sewage, rat pee and toxic algae: Open water swimming is booming, but is it bad for your health?
I'm making a summer at home feel extra special for my family. Paying for access at fancy hotel pools has been a game changer.
I love ResortPass. I've used it many times between hotel checkout & flight or after disembarking a cruise at 9am. I always check it anywhere I'm traveling because it can be a relatively inexpensive way to experience truly amazing pools.
Broken glass shuts down Catalina Pool in Tucson
I've been reading Google News Alerts for 7 years, and there have been so many broken glass pool closures this summer.
Viral iPhone App Warns Users When Smart Glasses Are Nearby
If I had an iPad, I would definitely be trying this!
Climate change is now threatening a pillar of childhood: summer break
Rockford Fire warns of quarry dangers after 19-year-old drowned
Unfortunately, this is an issue every summer. ICYMI, I spoke with Beckie Ramsey who founded Doing It For Dylan after her son experienced cold water shock & died while swimming in a local quarry.
Drowning risk 14 times higher for teens born outside Europe
Thanks for reading. If you have any feedback, comments or anything that requires a temperature check, please don't hesitate to hit reply and let me know.
Katie Crysdale
Lakeview Aquatic Consultants
PS. If you want to hear the story about how I got pink eye (conjunctivitis) from my own adequately-disinfected commercial swimming pool while teaching preschool lessons, click here to listen to last week's episode.
PPS. Registration for the August 7 CPO Fusion will be closing this Friday.
PPPS. Anonymous advice column submissions can be made here.