I'm the Pariah again

[lowviz]

You can also be a man about it.

Me and an insta-friend were yapping overlong on a return trip while sitting on the bench. Cap'n was in reverse going into final manuvering, and couldn't see through me. SCREAMED: "GET THE F*** DOWN!!!!" Me and insta-bud pushed off the bench in unison and our asses hit the deck. Gales of laughter from the galley. We both sat there laughing while discussing the social skills of past boat captains we knew.

While unloading, Cap'n mentioned that the weather looks good for next week, we should think about coming along...

@DD: dangerous, yes of course. Even 6'-8' with the occasional 10' rollers. Me drive a boat in that, hell no.

My shoes in pic, lots of space on deck.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Imagine that every customer on the boat was your mother. I am sure you would figure out a way to effectively deliver a message to your mother even in an emergency situation without being disrespectful, or you would simply apologize afterwards. I suspect that you would not say to your mother "I am through with you", or ask her the same questions three times in a row as if she were retarded. A little bit of imagination should suffice to appreciate the thin line between being rude, and speaking in a decisive and even commanding, but respectful manner in an emergency. Fortunately, in this case the captain did realize his mistake, and all was well...

One guy has never been offshore and the other DEFINITELY has never met my mother.

 

[gcarter]

In an emergency, I want a captain who will get 'er done, not one that wastes time worrying if someone might get their tender feelings hurt. Including my mother. I would rather she be safe and offended rather than not safe because the captain was more concerned with not being rude.

Yes, there are ways of being commanding and not rude. But sometimes it takes rude to get through to people who are otherwise not paying attention or who think they know better or who think that the manner in which they are addressed is more important than the message.

In my opinion Matt's biggest issue is that as an MD he is used to people deferring to him. He does not handle being challenged very well. He doesn't like not being viewed as the smartest person in the room and that gives him an attitude that rubs people the wrong way.

Whatever he did right here is overshadowed by his attitude. If people react negatively to that attitude, that is on him. Many SB members have attempted to be helpful in a tactful way, but he seems not to get it and not to care.

I also find it interesting that the majority of his posts are directed to the basic forum. This thread, IMHO, does not belong here.

 

[lowviz]

...//...I also find it interesting that the majority of his posts are directed to the basic forum. This thread, IMHO, does not belong here.

The TOS in "Basic" is most conducive to passive aggression.

 

[vladimir]

The TOS in "Basic" is most conducive to passive aggression.

To be fair, probably the most useful aspect of the thread is the clear definition of the OK signal and its alternatives for those who didn't know. That seems perfectly suited to the Basic forum.

 

[lowviz]

I know, I've been bad.

Don't get me wrong, Matt has a lot of ground to cover and I, personally, am rooting for him.

 

[Agility]

Thank you Matt for sharing your experiences

What I learnt from this thread:
The OK sign only covers me personally (not the buddy team)
There is a sign for "collect me" (touchdown)
The sign for "I need assistance" is a fist streched up in the air
How to signal "lost buddy" on the surface

I have little experience with diving from boats as most of my dives have been shore dives and many of those in lakes.
On the other hand I have not found a permanent buddy yet and have been instabuddying most of the time.
It took me some time to realize that my perception of buddy team protocol seems to be very different from the attitude I saw in some of my assigned buddies who seemed to think diving the same ocean was diving in a buddy team.
They must have learnt that somewhere that this is o.k.

 

[BabyDuck]

matt, i liked your last post. thank you for *really* thinking about what people posted and trying to take what they said at face value, both the positive and negative. i understand why you didn't want to respond 'ok' when in fact things in your opinion were *not* 'ok', and i learned some good stuff from the 'what is ok?' discussion. i also agree that your hypothetical captain conversation would have been much better.

so, lessons learned, take a breath, shake it off, and approach next time as TOTALLY NEW, WITHOUT THIS BAGGAGE, BUT *WITH* THIS INFORMATION.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

That was very well said Marci. Good advice for life in general as well.

No one died or got hurt. Learn from it, save that knowledge, and 86 the negative bs. People and life will piss you off. No getting around it. What you can control is how long it controls you, if at all.

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Mike]

Seriously, have you been offshore at all? One of the things I explain to my children when we go offshore is that it is DANGEROUS... Even when they were 5 they knew this. When I give them a direction, they are EXPECTED to do it immediately and not ask why. Same goes for adults on a dive boat....when the captain gives an order (or direction) it is generally very important that you DO IT and then if you don't understand why... then maybe ask afterward. Unless the order sounds completely unsafe or crazy, then you follow directions.... I doesn't matter one damn bit that you paid for a spot on a charter or that you feel that the captain is essentially a "customer service representative".. .

Get off the soap box.

WE ARE TALKING ABOUT AN OK SIGN HERE.

Not being caught off shore on the Andrea Gail in the perfect storm with life or death consequences with every moment.

There are a lot of captains that are egotistical jerks

That's what I said many pages ago. Glad we are on the same page now.

You can try to paint me as somebody who thumbs their nose at all captains or authority, and ignores every comment question or order from them if that's what you need to do to make your point, you are wrong however, or you can actually read what I've said in regard to this incident in this thread, which is about an ok sign, and put it all in perspective and admit the over reaction from a egotistical ass of a captain trying to embarrass and humiliate Matt on the dive boat for being nothing more than a confused diver trying to do the right thing while an ass of a captain over-reacts to the entire incident.

Had Matt's dive buddy acted correctly, they would have been in the process of trying to find Matt the missing diver instead of trying to beat an Ok signal out of the poor guy. Again - this thread is about Matt, and I applaud him and his efforts and say he did very well dealing with the situation with the knowledge and experience he had at the time.