Thank you for the interest. Don't remember names. But the primary instructor owned Brownie's dive shop in Florida.
Starting Technical diving GUE Vs TDI VS PADI?
- Thread starter YahiaAhmed
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How long ago was this?
Doesn't matter. The bad attitude went all the way to the top of that organization. I spent thousands of dollars getting doctor's notes for the GUE courses, paying GUE course fees, buying airline tickets to Florida for the GUE course, paying for hotels and rental cars during GUE courses, etc. And what did I get in return? Absolutely no one in GUE has ever done anything to change my experience.
Was this 15 years ago? 10 years ago? 5 years ago? If I felt that I was hosed as bad as you feel you were hosed and use such libelous language, I would like to think I would have remembered the relative dates and instructor names.
It just came to me
Dean Marshall
BTW
By definition, truth is not libel, and I will tell my story over and over again.
Corporations need to learn to not to piss off vocal consumers.
ginti
Contributor
First of all, sorry for your experience; nobody would like to live anything like that.
However, many people here have a very different experience with GUE, exactly the opposite of you to be fair. So, if you really want to have a point, you need to clarify more the part I quoted. In fact, it sounds obvious to me that the headquarter would not take immediate action, they first need to investigate; did they make fun of you again? or did they tell you that they would investigate or ask you for more details?
Just to be clear, there is one intervention of JJ in this forum, and his attitude here was absolutely different from what you are describing.
Also, your experience does not mean that you can generalize. It's full of amazing instructors out there, at least according to SB users experiences.
Btw, Dean Marshall is not GUE any more; now it would be nice to know the reason... also, there are good feedback about him on SB. But yes, what you described was awful
Not saying that you have to be more specific if you don't want, but what you wrote loses a lot of its value if you don't specify better...
I'd be happy to, if you could be more specific about what information you want. I only touched on a few of things that happened during that course. I could write several pages detailing other events. And I'll be happy to go into as much detail as you request.
No, GUE never, ever responded to any of my calls and letters. It's clear that GUE management either did not care about the unacceptable behavior of their instructors, or GUE tacitly approved of such behavior. Take your pick.
Perhaps some GUE instructors are decent human beings. I haven't met any, though. And no one in GUE has ever done anything to change my experience. I have, however, had many GUE instructors ridicule me and call me liar for telling this story about my bad experience, behavior which is completely consistent with what I experienced personally with GUE.
You want more detail?
Like I said, this was my first experience in doubles. Dean had me use twin AL80s but the horseshoe wing he loaned me was huge, for steel doubles. The wing taco'd around the tanks, and made it very difficult for me get trimmed out. It was not possible to shift small amounts of air from one side to the other to get trim. I told him that I wanted to buy a properly-sized wing, but Dean told me I would be just wasting my money because I never going to be good enough. Dean constantly ridiculed me for not getting trimmed out properly and struggling.
I also wanted to buy a center weight, but Dean gave me the same story about wasting my money because I was never to going be good enough. Instead, he stuffed a bunch of soft weight between the back plate and tanks. The wing nuts barely went on. I told him that I was not comfortable with this "jerry-rigged" setup, and besides that was contrary to GUE philosophy of not using "jerry-rigged" setups. He insisted that we just use a wrench to crank down the wing nuts. During the first training dive, the top wing nut came off. The tanks rotated on the back plate, the weights fell out, and I rocketed to the surface from a depth of 20 feet. Dean threatened to immediately fail me on this first dive if I didn't immediately fix the problem that "I" created. Yeah, I created that problem. Right.
Like I said, this was my first experience in doubles. Dean had me use twin AL80s but the horseshoe wing he loaned me was huge, for steel doubles. The wing taco'd around the tanks, and made it very difficult for me get trimmed out. It was not possible to shift small amounts of air from one side to the other to get trim. I told him that I wanted to buy a properly-sized wing, but Dean told me I would be just wasting my money because I never going to be good enough. Dean constantly ridiculed me for not getting trimmed out properly and struggling.
I also wanted to buy a center weight, but Dean gave me the same story about wasting my money because I was never to going be good enough. Instead, he stuffed a bunch of soft weight between the back plate and tanks. The wing nuts barely went on. I told him that I was not comfortable with this "jerry-rigged" setup, and besides that was contrary to GUE philosophy of not using "jerry-rigged" setups. He insisted that we just use a wrench to crank down the wing nuts. During the first training dive, the top wing nut came off. The tanks rotated on the back plate, the weights fell out, and I rocketed to the surface from a depth of 20 feet. Dean threatened to immediately fail me on this first dive if I didn't immediately fix the problem that "I" created. Yeah, I created that problem. Right.
CptTightPants21
Contributor
Dean Marshall hasn't been a GUE instructor in years, at this point it might be over a decade as I can't seem to find any activity after 2009. I am sorry you had a bad class, but this is not the first time you have brought this example up in discussion. You are not the first student to have a bad experience with a scuba instructor from any agency nor will you be the last. Sometimes an instructor is at fault and sometimes the student has a completely warped perception of events, I don't know what this story is, but I will not make judgment one way or the other. If you want to have a personal issue with Dean, fine, it is a grudge over a ten year old scuba class (that you apparently can't remember the exact dates for or the instructor's name) but leave it at that; Stop throwing a whole organization under the bus for something one person did a decade ago.
I have had bad experiences with instructors. I don't keep ranting and raving for ten years. I check them off my list for any future instruction or referrals and move on with my life.
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