best job I ever had was manually removing aquatic plants from like, golf course ponds. I started out wearing waders, but the plants would be in too deep, so I just started wearing a bathing suit and water shoes and diving down under and just pulling cattails and stuff out by the roots. The thing was, when I’d first get started, the vegetation might be so thick it took up most of the pond, and I’d start in the deepest section so as I got tired I could move toward shore and start standing instead of swimming.
So I’d dive in and virtually disappear into the reeds
and it wasn’t until recently I thought about how many random tourists just saw some girl walk into an aesthetics pond in a swimsuit and dive under water and then just……….Not come back out
job description: golf course alligator
My fav part of this job is that it’s so bad for the golf course. Every year golf courses contact fish managers bc all of the fish in their ponds keep dying, and golfers’ families are upset bc they like fishing the ponds.
So we go test some water indices and usually find out that fertilizer runoff from the lawns has turned the pond into an oxygen void, so the fish all essentially suffocated, so we say “you need to build up a riparian buffer [wet habitat vegetation and trees that can absorb nitrates before they get into the water] around your pond”
And they’re like “no that looks ugly” and then they hire undergrads like me to remove the vegetation they do have
And then they’re like “wtf my fish are DEAD again!!!!”
It doesn’t end.
Golf course manager: I will pay you $8 an hour to destroy part of my business for aesthetic purposes
Me, putting on my goggles: say no more
