Promise

"Can I go play over on that pile of broken glass on the edge of that cliff with those rabid wolves?" -Camper

"No, that's not safe, you could get hurt." -Me

"But I promise I won't get hurt." -Camper

"You promise promise???" -Me

A little while later, camper comes to me crying and bleeding.

"But you promised you wouldn't get hurt!" -Me

This isn't an actual scenario, rather, a culmination of experiences from early in my career. As an 18 year old, with little experience with kids, it's difficult to say no. Kids will say anything to try to convince you and even though you've been trained in safety procedures, 8 year olds can be very convincing.

Convincing until you have to go to your boss a few times and ask for an incident report and you learn that kids can't actually promise not to get hurt, accidents are, by nature, unintentional.

A month ago, my dad fell and broke his ribs while working. I wanted to file a worker's comp report but because my dad hates all things official, he was completely against it. We argued for 2 days and it was difficult for me to make a decision against my dad's wishes, even though I knew it was the right choice.

But then he said, "I promise this isn't a big deal and nothing else will come of it" and a GIANT red flag shot up and I remembered every similar conversation I'd ever had involving campers making that same promise, and my decision became clear. Even more convincing than my commitment to running this camp according to policy and procedure (which is strong), was the fact that "I promise I won't get hurt" is an almost guarantee that blood is imminent.

Cut to a month later (ie- Thursday of last week) and I miss 4 calls during the time it took me to shower. Willy was driving my dad to the hospital because he couldn't breathe. Which soon led to him being moved into the ICU. Which led to a helicopter ride across the state to a level 1 trauma center intensive care unit, 2 chest tubes and a possible upcoming chest surgery.

As of today, he's been in the ICU for 4 days and his hospital stay is going to be at least another week.

He promised that nothing would come of a little cracked rib. Luckily I'm not 18 and worried about being the "bad guy" anymore. I learned my lesson, a few bloody campers ago- making the right choice and dealing with a crabby kid (or dad) is tough, but not nearly as tough as a conversation that starts with, "but you promised..."