Lies, corruption, unethicle and unsafe practices in Commercial Diving School

[DeepSeaDan]

I have some comments and questions.

1. Why would anyone pay $16,000 for dive school? There is a place locally that will teach you hard hat diving, tending etc... for about $2,000! What a rip off you got yourself into!
2. In diving, there is far more money to be made working in less than 10 feet of water on SCUBA then there is wearing a hard hat. I made $50K this year... but I only worked about 15-20 hours a week for 6 months. That works out to about $104.00 an hour. Guess what... I didn't spend a penny on commerical diving school. I built my business with basic Open Water certification.
3. Why hide the name of the school? You might save someone else from the same mistake... speak up... what are you afraid of? They damn near killed you!
4. Glad you made it out alive... happy diving... and maybe you should take that telemarketing job.

Ken

...what you do Ken, is undercut the kind of inshore commercial operator I used to work for up here Canada. The company policy did not allow scuba equipment to be used on working dives; any shallow job that went out was equipped with a standard air diving spread :a 3-man crew, 2 of which were divers ( main & stby. ) with umbilical supply & comms., dive control rack, l.p. comp., stored h.p. air backup in "K" bottles manifolded to the rack, air filtration pack etc., etc.. The whole deal ran about 50k way back then.

I did alot of jobs in < 10' of water.

Overkill you say? Well, perhaps. But I can cite you too many examples of fly-by-night scuba-ists who have either been killed or maimed by trying to do more than they could handle with inadequate resources. Your operation appears quite respectable vis-a-vis your website, but if things go sour for the diver in the water, you have little recourse to assist them.

This "no exception" policy afforded our diving crews the highest possible safety standard on the job. In Ontario, we are fortuneate to have diving regulations that back up my former company's policies. There are provisions within the regs. for a limited use of scuba equipment, though the rules are quite restrictive, & the operators must be commercially trained / certified. To my knowledge ( a little out of date now ), all other Provinces in Canada have similar legislation to protect the working diver. I know there is a battle brewing in Nova Scotia right now as several operators out that way are trying to introduce the use of scuba in the seafood harvesting industry.

It is patently unfair for legitimate operators to spend thousands of dollars to make the working dive site safe, only to have people with a scuba cert. undercut them. The regulations in Ontario levelled the playing field, & Site Inspectors for the Ministry of Labour are out in force to insure compliance.

The States should be as lucky.

D.S.D.

 

[PaulSmithTek]

See this is what I am talking about.... At least some one understands that spending the money for the education and training that you recieve is not dumb. I completely agree with you, people in scuba that have no other experiance is what gets people killed. Thank you for understanding.

 

[Randy43068]

Hey Paul, download Google toolbar. It's got a spell checker built in. NO, I'm not kidding.

 

[garyfotodiver]

Wow,here we go again.........
I think I'll just stick to the rec diving and avoid all the BS. Cant imagine getting screwed outta 16,000 smackers. I could get me another Harley with that.
Chris

Amen to that.

 

[ghostdiver1957]

...what you do Ken, is undercut the kind of inshore commercial operator I used to work for up here Canada. The company policy did not allow scuba equipment to be used on working dives; any shallow job that went out was equipped with a standard air diving spread :a 3-man crew, 2 of which were divers ( main & stby. ) with umbilical supply & comms., dive control rack, l.p. comp., stored h.p. air backup in "K" bottles manifolded to the rack, air filtration pack etc., etc.. The whole deal ran about 50k way back then.

I did alot of jobs in < 10' of water.

Overkill you say? Well, perhaps. But I can cite you too many examples of fly-by-night scuba-ists who have either been killed or maimed by trying to do more than they could handle with inadequate resources. Your operation appears quite respectable vis-a-vis your website, but if things go sour for the diver in the water, you have little recourse to assist them.

This "no exception" policy afforded our diving crews the highest possible safety standard on the job. In Ontario, we are fortuneate to have diving regulations that back up my former company's policies. There are provisions within the regs. for a limited use of scuba equipment, though the rules are quite restrictive, & the operators must be commercially trained / certified. To my knowledge ( a little out of date now ), all other Provinces in Canada have similar legislation to protect the working diver. I know there is a battle brewing in Nova Scotia right now as several operators out that way are trying to introduce the use of scuba in the seafood harvesting industry.

It is patently unfair for legitimate operators to spend thousands of dollars to make the working dive site safe, only to have people with a scuba cert. undercut them. The regulations in Ontario levelled the playing field, & Site Inspectors for the Ministry of Labour are out in force to insure compliance.

The States should be as lucky.

D.S.D.

I understand some of your concerns, howwever I respectfully disagree on some of your points. The biggest reason I started my business was that there was a lack of "commercial" companies offering the services I provide. I have a handful of competitors here and all started the same way I did. They all run respectable businesses , fully insured and we all follow OSHA recommendations... with only one exception. We generally have two-man teams instead of three. The big problem in this area is that the "commercial" dive companies in our area do not have the time or desire to service the recreational boating industry. They say there is not enough money in it. Their lack of interest led to a shortage of divers willing to service the industry.. which left a void that myself and a few others decided to fill. Most of these commercial companies are out working on bridges, damns, offshore, at the steel mills (rack cleaning) etc... as well as doing major underwater construction projects and inspections.

We consider our industry a niche area between recreational and commercial. We call it professional. I have also written a booklet on the practices and safety for the job and I offer training to individuals looking to get into the business. Myself and my competitors discourage recreational divers from doing it without getting training from one of us. Inevitably every year we see some guy that just got his open water certification trying to make a few bucks. They're out there undercutting our prices and have no clue how unsafe it is to be doing what they're doing. Honestly I consider it a miracle that no one hear in Maryland has died recently. We have recreational divers jumping in the water cleaning boats everywhere without regard to safety.

You said that we are undercutting... well imagine that... we are being undercut as well. It is a cuthroat world, but my business is the largest and most respected at what we do in this area... and I take great pride in our 100% customer satisfaction record. It's not because we're cheap and undercutting prices... because we are the highest priced business in this area and we make no bones about it. Premium price for premium quality and service.

I respect the commercial companies in this area. I often get calls for jobs that are over my head... and they are referred to the commercial companies. In turn, the commercial companies refer smaller jobs to me. This has been a great relationship... and so I'm sorry that you think otherwise. Working together has benefited all of us here.

 

[Fish_Whisperer]

Listen dont talk crap and act like you are god. I was sharing my experiance and I know I made a mistake. But who are you to say i did it wrong. I dont appriciate it and yes I am making great money inland diving. The knowlege I gained was great.

Paul, just an observation, but it looks like people were just asking questions, and you got upset and defensive and accused them of talking crap. No one's trying to talk crap, but the chip on your shoulder is getting in the way of any kind of discussion. Sheesh...

 

[PaulSmithTek]

Paul, just an observation, but it looks like people were just asking questions, and you got upset and defensive and accused them of talking crap. No one's trying to talk crap, but the chip on your shoulder is getting in the way of any kind of discussion. Sheesh...

Let me say something. When someone accuses me of trying to get money from the school yeah that pisses me off. See the whole issue here is no one knows what they are talking about in the commercial end of things. Except deepseadan. I mean Fish wouldnt you get a little pissed off when people accuse you of blackmailing someone. I mean come on. People need to get a life. This board is about sharing experiences and learning new things. Not to cause issues.

Paragraph deleted by moderator due to ToS violation

Have a nice day and Dan keep in touch.

 

[NSDiver]

Let me say something. When someone accuses me of trying to get money from the school yeah that pisses me off. See the whole issue here is no one knows what they are talking about in the commercial end of things. Except deepseadan. I mean Fish wouldnt you get a little pissed off when people accuse you of blackmailing someone. I mean come on. People need to get a life. This board is about sharing experiences and learning new things. Not to cause issues.

(Paragraph deleted by moderator due to ToS violation.)

Have a nice day and Dan keep in touch.

Respectfully - this forum is for discussion. If you post something up, you are opening yourself up to criticism. If you are too insecure to handle that, you might reconsider next time you want to write about your experiences. And if "no one knows what they are talking about," as you say, what was the point of posting something here?

Also, I'm quite certain that no one here thinks of you as less of a person for your lack of spelling and writing ability - some of your posts are just plain difficult to read.

Regards.

-Nick

 

[PaulSmithTek]

I am still here, right! I can handle Critisim. But what ever. I appologize that I type so fast and my brain, works faster then my hands. I will slow down so people can understand what I am saying.

Thanks for the feed back.

 

[Randy43068]

Chill out Paul. It's not picking on you, but sometimes hard to tell what you mean when things aren't spelled correctly. It only takes a moment to spell check. It's a little hard to take someone seriously when they don't take the time to check their spelling. No offense intended.