I read your bio information and you have an educational background in economics. You should know that capitalism allows you the freedom to make career choices. Noting that you are already dissatisfied with the economic outlook afforded by a diving career consider some other means of making a living and dive for the joy of it all.
Pretty much what I've already done...paramedicine instead of dive instruction will be my career.
You are to be lauded for this attitude. I admire an employer who is willing to take money out of his own pocket to give extra to his employees. Well, I will admire him, if I ever meet him. I have broad discretion over the bonuses of the traders who work for me and I'll tell you what I pay them: as much as it takes to keep them from leaving and no more than it would cost to replace them. That is what scuba instructors get paid too. If that is immoral or unethical, then so is capitalism. Which is certainly open for discussion, comrade.
Capitalism is just fine as long as everyone remembers there are people involved. In the US we have taken capitalism too far, and the country is showing signs of it.
When a company lays off employees at Christmas just to get under budget so the stock holders don't bail, and the CEO takes a 20 million dollar bonus, we have a problem.
We need more government regualtion of business practices, but first we need politicians with scruples.
Crap, thats not going to happen either. See what happens when I have been out of the water too long?
EMTTIM- forget working as an instructor full time. Get job with a great pension, then in 20 years or so retire and then persue it, when you don't need the money and can pick and choose where you work. On top of that you will have alot of experience you can bring to the table for your students.
Vlad, Seaducer has pretty much hit the nail on the head. The beauty of capitalism, and the U.S. in general, is that for the most part (I say most part because the government is actively attacking our rights and freedoms more and more everyday) you are still free to conduct business however you choose. If someone is ok paying an employee only what they need to in order to keep that employee, then that's great, it's at will employment so they are both obviously happy enough to not change the arrangement. However, I know from personal experience that the more well paid a person is, the better he/she will do their job. Therefore, while I know most people won't employ this business model and in fact will shake their head at it, I accept that and merely plan to use this model for myself. I don't necessarily recommend it to others since capitalism is all about maximizing profits.
Now this may be a very good idea! I wish you much luck! It also doesn't sound like settling to me. It sounds inspiring! I dive with an emt and he is a really great guy! Cool as can be. Nothing phases this guy.
One thing that I found helped to increase my dive numbers was to marry a girl who loved diving and wants to take diving trips as much as I do. Both my wife and I wanted to be marine biologists but we chose other things. Now, we get to pretend to be marine biologists when we dive. Hopefully my daughter, who is due in 3 months, will want to be a marine biologist too. Whatever she wants, as long as she goes diving, lol.
Yeah you tend to see enough stuff in EMS that nothing generally does phase ya after awhile, although considering some of the stuff you have to see to get to that point, dunno if that's good or bad, lol. I'm definitely going to try to get my next gf to be a diver or be interested in diving, that way like you said I can increase the amount of dives I do.
Go find a high school economics text. Look up "supply and demand." There's no shortage of people with stars in their eyes with romanticized view of what it would be like to work in this amazing new activity they just discovered. That's the supply. The demand isn't anywhere near as big.
Pay is an inducement to do something you wouldn't otherwise be willing to do. The less inclined people are to do a job anyway, the more an employer must pay to get it done. If you could dive every day, you would, without pay, so nobody's going to pay you top dollar to do it. The ability to do so, and not have a "day job" in a cubicle, is the rest of your compensation.
I'm not debating supply and demand here; that's not my focus and I find it laughable that you're making the assumption I need a high school textbook to teach me a concept I already know. I'm discussing ethics here, not economics. What is the point of stating the painfully obvious? I don't see your reason for it, but if you did have one, then I'd be interested to know what it was.
And by the way, not having a "cubicle" job for the rest of your compensation is all fine and peachy until you get injured then not only can you no longer do that job, but because you /weren't/ getting any compensation, you don't have any savings to fall back on.
Quite honestly I'm amazed at the number of replies that started preaching about supply and demand and how I should "know" this since I'm an economics major. Of course I know supply and demand. Quite frankly, nowhere did I say that I'm
confused as to why dive instructors are getting paid so little...I said that I'm
disgusted. If you can't make the distinction between those two words, sorry but you're probably an idiot. I say probably because maybe you had a good excuse for your stupid post such as being drunk at the time.
The simple fact of the matter is that yes, there's plenty of supply of dive instructors so hence the pay is not too great, however when you're getting a massive flow of customers (even during only the summer), charging $500 per person per class, and you're paying your instructors a low, flat salary regardless of how many classes they teach, that's just plain ridiculous as I stated in my original post.
Your posts have been somewhat confusing... 
