After the Cafe Table Debate - Swimming Pool Cubicles...

[BathshebaKnickerStickers]

My eldest daughter swims a lot. One of the pools she swims in twice a week is in a school and itt doesn't have many cubicles - about 12 I'd say.

There is always 1 group coming out, and 1 group going in - so double the amount of people in the changing rooms.

Children leaving their things in the cubicles has always been a problem, despite the signs etc...but that's not really the problem.

The comparison with the café tables is as follows...

Often the parents of the children leaving the pool often go to the changing rooms as the lesson finishes, empty the child's locker into a cubicle. The child then goes and has a shower. Now, there are only 3 showers, lots of children, so what can happen is that the parent is standing outside the cubicle, with the child's things in, for 10 minutes which child waits on shower, showers, chats etc...

So there are children running late for the next lesson who cannot get into a cubicle to get changed, and children who don't shower at the pool needing to get changed (my daughter always showers at home), and the children who have been first in the showers and are finished waiting to get changed, whilst parents are reserving the cubicles for when their child returns from the shower. (Sometimes the parents accompany the children to the shower to help with hair etc so leave the cubicles filled but unattended)...

So - what is right and what is wrong - back to the café table scenario - the parents have ensured that their child has a cubicle to change in when they are ready to change, however as the child isn't actually ready to change, they are preventing others who are ready to change from using the cubicles...

(these are popular swimming lessons - approx. 24 children in each session - I don't know what happens in the boy's changing rooms - I can only speak for the girls...)..

So, simply, cubicle reservation or no cubicle reservation....

No cubicle reservation.

The cubicle reservation in this scenario seems ridiculous. I'm surprised any parent would think that was acceptable.

But, I am a table reserver so maybe I'm being hypocritical.

I used to swim in a hotel that had 4 cubicles. People would change their kids in a cubicle and leave all their stuff in there and go for their class.

Really annoying as you wouldn't know if someone had just gone for a shower or sauna, or nipped to the loo.

We went to Splash Landings at Alton Towers in February half term and you couldn't get a cubicle that wasn't a teeny tiny single so people were sending their kids under the doors and opening the cubicles and dumping the stuff in the (wet) corridors.

I would pick their crap up, put it outside the cubicle, then proceed to use the cubicle.

I used to swim competitively and train in public pools.
In the morning we'd be there at 5am and left for 7am. On a weekday evening we'd be there 5pm to 7pm. We always left our belongings in the cubicle for the 2 hours as there were never that many people in the pool and our huge bags and kit bags would never fit in a locked/caused havoc poolside.

Never have I done this using a pool as a member of the public and see it as rude. When I'm with DS we leave our stuff in the locker, shower and then go to find somewhere to get changed. For DS swimming lessons we done the same, however I would also put him in his swimming gear and fling clothes on top meaning I could whip off the top and trousers and he could get in to the pool, cubicle or not.

At the DCs swim club the same problem occurs and the staff there are fab; if anyone leaves anything in a cubicle then wanders off the staff swipe it all into a container and place it behind the lifeguards desk and the adult has to do the walk of shame to retrieve their stuff. Makes loads of them cross but solves all the problems.

There are signs to say not to leave things in cubicles as they will be removed and emails go around - which is why I guess that most of the mothers in question stand guard over the cubicles that they have emptied their child's things into...

I have removed things before -and left them in a puddle- because there was a little girl shivering so hard because she couldn't get changed