How common is this?

[Ravzie]

Wow, you folks are really deep in the weeds!

There is one point floating through my mind - sorry if has been made back there somewhere, but I couldn't possibly read all of that...

If quality DMs cannot make a living SOMEHOW, students and those of us who expect a DM to have a clue and be a person we can rely on are in trouble!

 

[Boxcar Overkill]

Working really hard and being really good at your job isn't a basis for demanding lots of money for your work.

If it were, I would be the world's best, and hardest working, "female topless jump rope contest" judge by now.

But like the majority of dive instructors, the supply and demand just didn't work out that I could make a good living doing what I love. So I had to give it up for something a little more lucrative.

But I say kudos to all of you for going through with your dreams despite it all - whereas I'll have to always wonder what might have been.

 

[Mr.X]

Wow, you folks are really deep in the weeds!

There is one point floating through my mind - sorry if has been made back there somewhere, but I couldn't possibly read all of that...

If quality DMs cannot make a living SOMEHOW, students and those of us who expect a DM to have a clue and be a person we can rely on are in trouble!

Depends greatly on who the Divemaster is + their level of experience. I've seen guys/gals doing it for years who were far more qualified than some newbie instructor hatched from a instructor mill. These individuals just liked diving, guiding without the headache of paperwork.

Most DM's/AI's go through a standardized instructional program, but for the most part are really at the apprentice level.

X

 

[bfw]

You either have not read any history or you're so locked into a doctrinaire political/religious view that you choose to neglect what you did read.

Back at ya. Apparently, you've only read leftist revisionist history.

We can all cherry pick for any persuasion, but you, sir, are the first here to descend into calling names and ad hominum attack.

Nice accusation. Substantiate it.

Deal with things on the facts not by attempting to smear people with stupid labels.

BTW, what is "socialist agitprop" anyway, and what do you have against it?

Again, cite the smearing. As for agitprop, look it up.

 

[bfw]

I didn't ask any questions to begin with...if you can't read, then I can't help you since any instruction to correct that deficiency would obviously have to be read.

Is THIS a question?

"Is it normal to get paid salary or is it more typical to get paid per class?"

How about the thread title - you DID type that in as well, right?

Then there's the implied question in calling instructor pay ridiculous then inviting discussion. You said it, now own it.

A

If you actually took the time to investigate my degree, which you obviously haven't since you seem more interested in making statements without necessarily having the facts behind them,

I've made no such statements. I slightly misstated your major, in a context where it was irrelevant. Despite you snobbery about business students, it's just as reasonable to expect them to understand HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL economics as it is to expect it of you. None of your puffery about your major in any way impacts my point, which is that it's perfectly reasonable to expect you, or anyone with the word economics in their program title, to understand why instructors are not well paid. It's not my problem that your insecurity compells you to get your knickers in a knot because someone might have misconstrued your distinction from the riff-raff at the Business school. There are plenty of past Business majors who can buy and sell everyone on this thread, so maybe you shouldn't be so touchy about being seen in their company.

 

[bfw]

The best protection individuals have against big business is tort law.

No, it's competition, choices, and informing themselves. Big Brother is never your best protection. Government is a watchdog that can't wait to turn on its master.

 

[bfw]

Does your insurance agent make enough to support a family and buy a house?

Why is that my concern, for the insurance agent, OR the dive instructor?

I remember a conversation with a striking UCFW member in front of our local supermarket. 24 years old, working as a bagger. He justified the strike because the supermarket only wanted to pay him $11 per hour, to BAG GROCERIES, IN 1984!!!
When I said that struck me as overly generous, he responded that it wasn't enough to support his wife and two kids. I asked him, what inspired him to think it was remotely responsible to go and father two kids when the most lucrative skill he'd acquired was bagging groceries, something a 14 year old or even a chimp could do. End of conversation.

The economic burdens you choose to shoulder are no one's problem but your own.

 

[bfw]

Professionals do not get tipped. Take your pick, can't have both.

Get off your snobby horse. A professional is someone who engages in an activity for pay. PERIOD.

 

[bfw]

If quality DMs cannot make a living SOMEHOW, students and those of us who expect a DM to have a clue and be a person we can rely on are in trouble!

That's right - best advertisement for individual competence and personal responsibility in diving I've ever seen.

However, helpless divers everywhere can sleep easy tonight. There is no shortage of bright eyed new divers with romantic visions of glamorous diving careers to feed PADI's Go Pro pyramid scheme. They'll hold your hand and take you to see the fishies for 3 to 5 years before they burn out and begin/resume their real careers.

All but one of the people I know who jumped into diving as a full time profession are now doing something else - software training, web development, roofing and mold remediation, marketing, engineering, Law, you name it. Half of them stopped diving altogether. The one who took diving the furthest refers to his time captaining 3 liveaboards as "the time I ran away to join the circus." I never heard the idea summed up better. He also said there was no other job that required so much training and preparation and garnered so little respect. For every one posting here who holds DM's in high esteem, there are a dozen people out there who treat them like furniture.

 

[Cajuncru Diver]

Wasn't the basic premise that started this thread the view that a divemaster was underpaid considering the gross billing of the operator. Get serious, this isn't a novel concept to the dive industry. How about the big Washington DC law firm that pays it 0-5 year associates $75,000 per year to handle 5 clients that pay a $150,000 annual retainer + $450.00 hr. Take the independent oil drilling company that pays the beginning mud engineer $95,000 and has an annual billing of $42M The guy on the back of the garbage truck who gets $16.50hr, while Waste Managment or BFI takes in $100's of Millions. If you want to lions share of the profits (1) own the business and assume the headaches of making payroll each week and turning a profit, (2) be upper managment or the CEO, or (3) TAKE THE EASY ROUTE AND GO PLAY FOR THE NFL OR THE NBA!!!!!!