Helpful Tips when Considering a Skate Park Security Job

When considering a security job at a skate park keep in mind that it is a very big responsibility. You are responsible for the safety of everyone that visits. Enforcing the safety rules like wearing helmets, elbow and knee pads, no eating or drinking and no one without a skateboard allowed in the skating area are accentual to the safety of all visitors.

Taking a CPR and first aid training course at your local college or taking CPR Certification and First Aid Certification courses on line may be required and if not you may want to consider taking them anyway. Accidents happen quit often and if there is an emergency you will need to know what to do.

When I was a security guard at the skate park I saw a few accidents. One teenage boy broke his arm by skating up a cement wall and not sticking the landing. A young man broke his figure I'm not to sure how he did it though.

It is also very important that you care about children because as you may know the majority of the visitors are children and of course having good social skills is a must when working in a public place. Being kind and helpful will put the parents of children's minds at ease when they drop them off. They need to know that their children will be safe. You want everyone to have a great time and visit again soon.

Having knowledge of how to fix skateboards and helmet straps will come in handy. Skaters are hard on their skateboards sometimes their wheels fall off, need tightening, need new bearings or they may need new trucks (the T shaped metal piece that holds the wheels on).

Having a cell phone with you at all times is accentual to use in case of an emergency to call an ambulance and a parent or a family member. It comes in handy if a child needs to call their parents when they want to be picked up also.

Please do not take a job like this if you want to just sit around and not enforce the rules like my supervisor did or maybe does now. He didn't enforce helmets and a young man hit his head. My supervisor had him moved and everyone knows that you DO NOT move someone with a head or neck injury. Called his father which is the mayor because he freaked out and his father told him to call the ambulance. To this day I don't know if the young man is alive or not. The young man use to keep me on my toes, I was always catching him with his helmet off.

My supervisor and I had a lot of problems because of him not enforcing the rules. Whenever I came to start my shift I had to go around and clean up food and drink containers, tell everyone to put their helmets on, take their food and drinks out of the skating area and have the non - skaters go to the bleachers.

Sometimes they would rebel. One teenager threw his drink over the fence that was around the skating area. Some of them would skate with their helmets off but I had the authority to ban them from the skate park and I did, most of them was just for a day but one man wanted to cause problems by staying in the skating area without a skateboard. I told him the rules and he still wouldn't budge so I called the police and they made him leave the skate park. He sat outside in his car until the people that he brought were threw skating. He wasn't allowed to come back.

One day the famous Paul Rodriguez III (P-Rod as he likes to be called) son of the famous comedian Paul Rodrigues came to the park. Of course I could not let him skate around without a helmet so I told him he needed to wear a helmet, that he was no better than anyone else there and it was for his own safety, a family member told me that he didn't have one so I offered him one that we loan out but he wouldn't wear it so I called my boss and he said that he would buy one for him. My boss showed up with the helmet, shook his hand and gave it to Paul. Paul wore it until my boss left then took it off and threw it down and had a fit like a little child. Goes to show you that being famous and being spoiled go hand in hand.

The skate park is named after Paul Rodriguez III because his father donated some money towards building the skate park. They are also from here, they have a house not to far away from where I live.

Oh yeah and be prepared to put up with a lot of rebelling.

I still miss being a security guard and that was three years ago. It was very rewarding.

Good luck on whatever job you decide to do.