What are your biggest pet peeves?

[MXGratefulDiver]

After all it's "life support" and you will die if you do "whatever".

Breathing air is fatal, yanno ... everybody who does so ends up dying ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

douchebagery at its finest.

Yes, I can see that ... I didn't realize you were self-evaluating ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Piers]

AOWs with 9 dives!!

 

[dwhthediver]

Not me ... there's a lot of satisfaction in learning. I'm down in Florida right now learning how to dive sidemount. It's been an amazing week, taking me places inside the caves I never thought I'd even want to see, much less actually go there.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

My new sidemount rig should be in this week, so stoked getting ready for my sidemount class!

 

[daniel1948]

AOWs with 9 dives!!

Too many, or too few? PADI gives AOW on five dives. Personally, I think five dives is ridiculous. I'm all for instruction even if it's only one dive, but calling someone "advanced" based on five dives of instruction??? I took 3 dives of an AOW program (it was cut short for unrelated reasons) and I learned useful stuff. I'm glad I took those dives. But two more would not have made me a truly "advanced" diver.

 

[FlyingPig]

Divers who cut my dive short.........

 

[matt_w]

Divers who cut my dive short.........

Seems a little general...

 

[FlyingPig]

Seems a little general...

Yup....it can be anyone from dive nazi local DM to someone who just decided today is not a good day to dive.....

 

[Cacia]

I always wait for them to bang the ladder for at least ten minutes, lol

you can sort of tell how mad they are by how fast they bang....

 

[SharkWhisperer]

Show offs. (I guess that's not limited to diving, but there seems to be one on every boat!)
Example: The diver in a group of Malaysians I had not too long ago who would do his giant stride holding his fins in his arms. The less experienced divers were impressed by his "coolness" and tried to imitate him. I had to retrieve more than one lost fin.

And related to that, Elitists. It really bugs me when divers claim that their gear/camera/preferred style of diving/air consumption/weighting requirements/etc. are the gold standard against which all else must be measured.
Example: I recently met a young female wreck penetration diver who stated matter of factly that recreational diving was for wusses and that the only fish she was interested in seeing was the one on her plate. Talk about a conversation killer!

I couldn't agree more, this has got to be my all time pet peeve. Nothing is worse than bringing a new diver into this sport, sending them out into the "real world" only to be bullied by some jackass who seems to think his/her skills are the shiz-nit. I've listened to countless conversations about how awesome someone's gear is to hear (publicly) that (X) gear is crap because they've seen it fail or "heard someone had a failure". I caution all of my new divers to watch out for what I call the chest thumpers. You know who I'm talking about. Someone who brags about the most intense life threatening dives and claims to have walked the edge..... YAWN...boring.
This has such an adverse effect on a new diver, it can discourage them, embarrass them, deter them from the sport or worse yet, cause them to fear being ridiculed when asking for help and not react appropriately when something does happen.
I was sitting in Catalina's dive park a few year ago, talking to a friend. I'd overheard a group of divers (who were clearly inexperienced by their gear assembly method), with one of the divers (and I hate to generalize but it's usually a male, c'mon guys, we know it's true) bragging about his amazing adventures and his gear being the bomb. 30 or so minutes later I noticed a group of divers at the surface and something just didn't look right. 1 of them was flailing around while the other 3 floated at the top and watched. I thought it best to kick out to them to check if they were alright, turns out it was the same group, and the braggard had been tangled up in kelp. He was overweighted, had spit out his regulator, removed his mask and was in the first stage of panic. The other three in the group sat there watching him, no one reacted, no one called out for help. I reassured him, handing him his regulator telling him to breathe into it (his BC was not inflated and he was being pulled down by his weight and the kelp) I went under him and removed the kelp, towing him in by his valve. When we got back to the stairs, I walked him up the stairs, his friends didn't follow...they simple resumed their dive....
The moral of the story is; unless you're being paid to this job, it's a hobby....it's supposed to be fun, enjoy it, don't ruin someone else's fun and never hesitate to ask for help if you need it, the only person who will make fun of you is the one you'll want to identify quickly anyway...
I'll step off my soapbox now.