Originally Posted by ZenDiver.3D
You are wrong. Either a professional acts like one or they don't. It's hard to tell people to obey their training and the standards when they don't model it themselves.
I'll be frank with you. I did not become a DM because I love teaching and it was one step on the way to becoming an instructor. I'm going to get flak for what I am about to say but quite frankly, its an internet forum and while I appreciate everyone's input, I have the awesome option of not giving a damn. I became a DM to get free dives. I'm not a rich student and I cant afford to pay a couple of hundred bucks every time I want to go diving. I worked in a shop for a while so that I could dive and I became a DM so I could dive and if the catch was having to take care of people, thats fine by me. I don't ignore the divers under my care and I take good care of them to the best of my abilities. But the underlying reason to become a DM? free dives. I happen to be a DM who does not appreciate PADI standards and believe me, the minute I have enough funds to flip a bird at PADI and walk off, I will. For now, I do it the way they like me to do it, demonstrating ridiculous fin pivot in refreshers instead of practicing trim together with the students.
Then you are not, on fact, a professional. You simply want free dives. That explains these responses. And I am not PADI. I am SDI and TDI. You seem to think you had no choice but to go PADI. You do realize that there a a great many other agencies. Or feel free to start your own looking for your free dives....
If you are going to pick and choose which rules you follow of the agency you chose to represent as a DM, a professional rating, then you shouldn't be one. Do I agree with all the standards of my agency? No. But I am professional enough and I like my reputation enough, not to break them.
You do it your way, I will do it my way. Despite having extensive knowledge, you choose to stick to the standards by an agency that clearly doesnt give a hoot except when it comes to making money. I choose to use that knowledge and make reasonable decisions. The world isnt black and white but its difficult to explain the gray area in the OW manual, so PADI makes it black and white. If I take one step into PADI's black area does that mean I will die and kill someone with me? No.
Again- Not PADI. So the scathing point you were going for is kind of lost...
No he's not. An awesome instructor would have waited until the pool session was through with his students, and then taken the kid himself. Standards not breached, kid has a phenomenal time, and instructor is a rock star. No charge, no card, just a try-dive within standards and showing proper safety training.
There's another thread right now about a 12 year old newly certed diver whose mom took him on his first dive to 120ft, took on a night dive, where newly OW certed dad lost him, he had to be assisted by a dm because of in-water exhaustion, and Mom thought it was great. If someone doesn't model obeying training and rules, then it just continues.
Perhaps there was a better way for the instructor to do this. If I were him, I might not have allowed the kid to dive if for nothing else, then for the liability. Or I could've thought, what the heck, my dive buddy of over 20 years in supervising him, I can trust him. Go ahead and brand him evil, I think it depends on a case by case basis.
I didn't brand him evil. I did say that he should have waited until he was done with other students and taken the child himself. Yeah. That was harsh, huh?
Financial constraints my friend, what can i say. Read the above post. Like I said, I follow the rules most of the time, its once in a blue moon when the standards feel completely idiotic to follow and at those times, I make up my own mind.
I dont openly flout the agency standards trying to be a rebel within the ranks. A professional rating, to me, is just another cert card. There can be effing lousy OWSIs and there can very good, very experienced mentors who I can learn from who aren't anything more than OW divers.
A DM rating, a OWSI rating, a whatever rating, is a means to an end. How many people actually became instructors because they loved TEACHING? And how many more became instructors to feed themselves, or to be able to live their lives diving?
There can be a darn good instructor who chooses to edit the standards to come up with a better guideline in the location where he teaches. Can you label him unprofessional just because he doesnt follow all the standards to a T?
If you can, please label me unprofessional too. I'll proudly wear that badge.
I can label you as unprofessional, based on the drivel above. Every good instructor works within the standards. And the instructors who make up their own rules as they go along and have the ego to believe that they know all, are the ones who eventually give the good ones a bad name. They end up bending, breaking, and creating their own rules. Standards are loose enough for interpretation in lots of areas and you have play and leeway. But not where it concerns allowing an untrained diver in the water without direct professional supervision.
And you can believe anything you like. But I am not only an instructor. As a shop owner, I have even more to lose if my instructors make a call like that.
Also, as someone who's had to perform CPR on a child who was under direct parental supervision by his dad and mom, yet still managed to have his child end up severely brain damaged to near drowning, I have seen the "what if" happen. I hope never to have to watch that again.They will never be the same and the child is permanently disabled. I can only imagine if it were my child. Follow the rules, or go find an alternate playground. Really simple.
