What to do when an instructor is out of line?

[RJP]

As for the DM Trainee... I hardly think one classroom session qualifies me to be a DM Candidate on a dive. Enrolled in the class? yes..... qualified to work with students in the water.... HELL NO.

Puppy... have you ever heard the adage "Living well is the best revenge"?

Time to move on, no?

Perhaps when you have as many dives in your logbook as you do posts in this thread you'll be closer to being qualified to be a DM candidate on a dive?

 

[orm]

Wow... 35 pages on this.

Can somebody sum up what happened in this thread... I'm really far too lazy to go back and read every page.

 

[Hotpuppy]

I'm saying that IT DOESN'T MATTER! None of us know who the instructor/dive op ARE! None of us are doing ANYTHING but having a simple conversation about something that somebody said happened. We're TALKING, man! Talking. That's all! Why get so in a lather about it? What are the responses doing? NOTHING! It's just typed words on a monitor.

Yeah, I for one personally believe, based on what I've read, that it happened. So what? What do I really know? Nothing! Some nameless, faceless guy on a message board...some unnamed instructor at an unknown dive op in Texas. The dude asked our opinions. We gave them. That's what a message board is for!

Seriously, if the concept of talking about things that we didn't personally witness is too upsetting for you, perhaps you shouldn't be participating in a discussion forum.

I think it's now 5am in this conversation that started at 6pm figuratively and it bears pointing out that the reason this post exists is because the "Director of Training" questioned my judgement and tried to make it out like I was the one who screwed up by having a problem. I posted on here to get a point of reference outside the chain of authority in the dive shop.

I find it mildly amusing that Divealicious who is an attorney (supposedly) can't see that my request not to name the shop is to prevent a libel/slander claim against myself and against SB. The shop was informed on multiple occassions including a email with a link to the post that the post existed. They have chosen not to respond. Only they know why. That is their perogative.

 

[Hotpuppy]

Nobody is raging over the fact there has been a conversation at all. In fact the vast majority of the raging has come from people who bought the OP hook line and sinker, with zero evidence to back it up.

I suppose you never saw the copy of the dive profile that I posted..... What I don't get is how some people incessantly ignore the facts and my side of the story and instead focus on discrediting my story. Makes me wonder how many professionals put profit first.....

I would love to hear the other side of the story. I'd love to hear either an outright lie (my first vote based on behavior) or the facts from the instructors point of view. Why do I think it would be a lie? Because any professional instructor would have sat down, called, or otherwise had a conversation with me after any sort of disagreement regardless of who started it. That's just what you do as an instructor when you are a professional. When you are in it for the money and want to get it over with as quickly as possible you bury it under the carpet and hope it goes away.... which is precisely what was done.

 

[Hotpuppy]

I've read just the first and last pages of this thread. I was working as a DMT on a dive in similar conditions in Portland Harbour on the south coast of England. Instructor, six OW students and me. No qualified DM or other staff. Dreadful viz - no matter where I put myself I couldn't see all six students, so I resorted to swimming up and down the line behind them. After doing some skills on a shallow wreck, the instructor led off for a "swim for pleasure", telling the students to follow in buddy pairs and for me to take up the rear. The instructor swam fairly quickly, and although I couldn't see him the lead students later said that he never once stopped or looked back. After a while the student pair I was following (I couldn't see the pair in front of them) stopped because they had lost sight of the crocodile. The three of us had no option but to make a controlled ascent, surfacing some way from our moored RIB. The other divers weren't on the surface yet, so we swam slowly on our backs to the RIB. When the instructor surfaced he cussed me loudly in front of all the students for losing control of the dive and endangering his students.

There are some very bad instructors around.

Sounds like you had a similar experience where the instructor lost it literally and figuratively. Swimming off like a madman irrespective of your student's skills is irresponsible at best. When separated the right thing to do is to ascend, not to hunt in the darkness in hopes of bumping into them.

 

[Hotpuppy]

Puppy... have you ever heard the adage "Living well is the best revenge"?

Time to move on, no?

Perhaps when you have as many dives in your logbook as you do posts in this thread you'll be closer to being qualified to be a DM candidate on a dive?

RJP, when people stop responding with intelligent questions I'll stop responding with answers..... As in all discussion you are free to stop reading, walk away, and stop participating anytime you feel you have had enough.

So the answer to your question, NO, it's not time to move on. I gave it a rest for 2 weeks and got an email yesterday that there were new posts. One of them was out of line, fortunately the moderators got to it. A few of them raised questions or points and so I responded.

This reminds me once of another board I'm on. I suggested closing a thread once and a wise moderator said to me: People stop participating when they want to, the thread serves its purpose of facilitating conversation until then.

As for my dive log.... how about you let me worry about it? I'd say you could come carry my gear for me if you still wanna be involved... but the problem is I look after my own gear and carry my own tanks. Even when I dove in the carribbean I carry my own gear and if tanks have to be carried I'll be happy to carry my own. Sure some people do it differently, but I like to watch after my own gear and I treat others with respect. I still tip as if they had carried my gear... makes no difference to me. I just believe in pulling my own weight because it's the right thing to do.

Someone who works for free here in the US (which is probably illegal) or makes crap for wages in the Caribbean is still a person who deserves to be treated respectfully and it's just plain rude to expect someone to lug your gear around. I'd much rather cash in my "guest" points asking where I should go eat or what the cool stuff on the dive is.

Lastly, when you dive with me you will earn the right to critique my dive skills and dive log. Until then, we're just internet buddies okay? I'm just sayin..... I guess I see life a little differently. I don't give a rat's ass if the dive makes or not. No dive is worth doing unsafely and I'm picky about it. Unless life is in danger, no dive is urgent. I take my buddy committment seriously even if someone else doesn't. I earned the certifications I have and I read the books, did the exercises, did the applicable parts, and took the tests. That doesn't make me an expert. But I'm capable of making sound decisions. We are free to disagree.. that's the beauty of this country.

 

[Dominantly]

I remember during my OW exam, when the question was posed on what I would do for a lost or missing buddy, I put "locate their bubbles, and find them". Well, I was marked wrong and shown why in the manual; the correct answer was to surface (and obviously for them to do the same) and then reevaluate.

There is a big key in all of this, your instructor was not paying attention. On every course I've participated in, the instructor has eyes on the students nearly full time.
If the instructor (or your buddy) was paying attention, they would have known you were having an issue. If they were paying attention, they would most certainly have made an ascent and met you at the surface fairly quickly. I know in poor conditions I am on my buddy like white on rice, sometimes even make physical contact with a piece of his gear.

If that had been me, I would have lost it the minute he popped off.

 

[seaducer]

I suppose you never saw the copy of the dive profile that I posted..... What I don't get is how some people incessantly ignore the facts and my side of the story and instead focus on discrediting my story. Makes me wonder how many professionals put profit first.....

I saw it, and too be honest, it is not proof of anything other than a dive happened.

The facts I am supposed incessantly ignoring are almost zero in number. There are no facts, which was what I have been saying from the beginning. Ordinarily I could care less and would have stayed out of this thread all together but the reaction from others asking repeatedly for the names, I felt like we needed to point out that none of us knows if this event even happened, that the only evidence is the testimony of one person with a stake, and we should back off on the rhetoric and calls for lynching.

I then reposted the same AFTER someone else went to the trouble of posting the name of the shop.

Honestly your story is a bit far fetched and hard to quantify when you look at all the points. I am not going to rehash all that but I will say that it all is posted in a way to direct all blame towards the instructor and shop and none towards you. And that is consistent with human nature, people tend to distort the facts to suit their needs.

And further more I do not think for a minute that you were simply trying to gain an outside perspective on whether you screwed up or not. You are far too articulate to be that stupid. An instructor who screws up a plan that obviously, and loses a student in low viz and then publicly dresses down that student who really didn't do anything wrong, and you aren't sure who might be out of line? Just as that sentence is making my English teacher puke, the concept doesn't sit well with me.

No, I think you probably engineered this thread knowing the reaction you wanted, perhaps hoping you could use that as leverage in your dealings with the shop. your posts are full of language that indicates you are very business savvy. Whatever, I could care less. But lots of other people fell for it, and were attempting to ID the shop for whatever purpose, and it is my duty to cry foul if that is what I think. You and others don't have to like it, feel free to report this or any other post if you really don't think we should be speaking our minds. It is only censorship if the government does it, not Netdoc or his agents...

 

[peterbj7]

You know, I couldn't care whether this is a true incident or whether the OP has made it up to illustrate a point (though actually I do believe it). I recognise the type of person he describes in the errant instructor and have too often come across similar people myself, and the unprofessionalism and worse that he describes are also sadly all too familiar. He has at no point identified the people concerned (though I haven't read most of the thread, I'm sure it would be clear if he had named names) and is not maligning anyone. But what he has said is prima facie absolutely appalling, and as I say all too common in our sport. Instead of castigating him and trying to trip him up, wouldn't we do better to recognise what he is describing and try to stop it at source?

The OP has admitted to not having a lot of experience. I have been teaching diving at all levels (rec & tech) for 14 years and running a busy resort operation for 7, so I do have an idea what I'm talking about. There are way too many dreadful recreational instructors around.

 

[redacted]

I saw it, and too be honest, it is not proof of anything other than a dive happened.

The facts I am supposed incessantly ignoring are almost zero in number. There are no facts, which was what I have been saying from the beginning. Ordinarily I could care less and would have stayed out of this thread all together but the reaction from others asking repeatedly for the names, I felt like we needed to point out that none of us knows if this event even happened, that the only evidence is the testimony of one person with a stake, and we should back off on the rhetoric and calls for lynching.

I then reposted the same AFTER someone else went to the trouble of posting the name of the shop.

Honestly your story is a bit far fetched and hard to quantify when you look at all the points. I am not going to rehash all that but I will say that it all is posted in a way to direct all blame towards the instructor and shop and none towards you. And that is consistent with human nature, people tend to distort the facts to suit their needs.

And further more I do not think for a minute that you were simply trying to gain an outside perspective on whether you screwed up or not. You are far too articulate to be that stupid. An instructor who screws up a plan that obviously, and loses a student in low viz and then publicly dresses down that student who really didn't do anything wrong, and you aren't sure who might be out of line? Just as that sentence is making my English teacher puke, the concept doesn't sit well with me.

No, I think you probably engineered this thread knowing the reaction you wanted, perhaps hoping you could use that as leverage in your dealings with the shop. your posts are full of language that indicates you are very business savvy. Whatever, I could care less. But lots of other people fell for it, and were attempting to ID the shop for whatever purpose, and it is my duty to cry foul if that is what I think. You and others don't have to like it, feel free to report this or any other post if you really don't think we should be speaking our minds. It is only censorship if the government does it, not Netdoc or his agents...

Perhaps you should contact the shop and then you will know "the rest of the story".

No doubt, we are only hearing one side. Could it be a total fabrication? If so, the fabricator was thorough enough to pick a day when that shop was conducting OW classes and other classes at Lk Travis. Perhaps there is just more information about the OPs actions before and during the dive that are being ommited. I believe there probably are, but I just can't come up with anything that would justify dropping the
F-bomb. Maybe there was no F-bomb but the shop has decided they would rather just explain the "truth" to each customer when they broach the subject rather than attempt to address it here. Interesting decision on their part. What is your guess about what really happened other than it is not what the OP says?