OP
Hotpuppy
Guest
I'd like to point out that I went out of my way to avoid naming the instructor or shop and don't believe it is necessary for the purposes of my discussion.
The incident was referred to PADI QA and I trust that they will ensure remediation is taken. To clarify, if it were my decision (and it's not) I think Anger management is a good place to start as a condition of continued active status to teach. Perhaps some remedial customer service training as well.
Being point on with your knowledge and piss poor in your delivery still makes you a crappy instructor. The art of teaching involves connecting with your student AND imparting knowledge. Being professional means setting examples and knowing when you aren't comfortable teaching someone and setting it aside.
"Git R Done" in diving gets people killed. In training it's not always going to be clear water and cool things but there is no reason to lose it when something doesn't go as planned. The purpose of training is to plan, execute, evaluate, correct, and re-do.
Deep is one thing. Dark and low-viz make it seem deeper and there is just no prize for seeing how quickly you can go down and come back up.
The reality is that when you are doing 3 deep dives in a 6 hour training period (yes that was the plan) and you are essentially "bounce" diving... when something screws a dive up you have shot your training agenda for the day. PADI doesn't allow more than 3 training dives per day. So if you screw one up now you can't complete the agenda in a single day. So is that greed? or just lack of flexibility? Does it matter?
It's a whacked set of priorities that don't place mastery of skills and knowledge and safety at the top of the priority list. That's dangerous and it doesn't need to be that way. After all, you don't teach diving to get rich, you teach it because you enjoy it and love helping others... or at least that's the fair tale.
