Out to lunch

I deal with them all the time at work: the people who believe that my job is easy and that they might like to do the same thing. They have some really unrealistic expectations about what exactly we do and how much training and work we do. I guess that as professionals, we make our jobs look easy. What I don't understand is how I seem to be a magnet for this type of people.

The other day I was innocently scanning the water when a woman started asking me all sorts of questions about how she could become a lifeguard. She explained that she couldn't swim very well and she failed the CPR exam twice, but that she had been watching Baywatch reruns religiously for several months and now she knew exactly what to do.

I don't think she'll ever succeed at it, but I don't want to be the one to say it. I told her to get a pen and paper and as I dictated everything that she needed to do to get a lifeguarding job I couldn't help but notice that she wrote everything down wrong. She asked me if the courses were free, and I said that they all cost between 1 and 2 hundred dollars. She was a little upset by that. Then I repeated everything so that she would get it right but when she finally left, she still had it wrong. It doesn't matter much because I'll never see her again.

But what do you do when it is one of your closest friends that is completely out of touch with reality? Do you play the bitch and tell her what you think, or do you play the supportive friend and watch her flounder?