Dive only on boats where the DMs are treated fairly and paid a living wage

[TMHeimer]

My local DMs all have nice full time jobs and just DM the boat on the weekend. We’re mostly weekend warriors here.

Same here, but do your DMs get pay?

 

[JackD342]

If you want to dive with the McDonalds's of Key Largo/Upper Keys dive operations, you will pick Rainbow Reef. That is how the local dive community refers to this operation.


I was a former intern that got trapped into the advertised offer of working for free for six months with housing provided and Rainbow would sponsor to get me to my Dive Instructor. Six months of free labor traditionally turns out to be 9 months of 60 hour plus weeks of free labor, with no guarentee they will actually pay or get you through all the classes and dives required (100 minimum dives) to become an instructor.


The reason they offer "free" guides is at the expensive of these interns who willing signed up for free labor (until they realize they can actually get paid and work at regular dive shops in the community and get free or highly discounted classes and still get their instructor rating but actually get paid doing it). The interns are awesome people that got wrapped up in the wrong dive shop and now need to see it through.


Some love it at Rainbow Reef and continue to stay on as an employee but others realize the treatment and quality they are missing out on at other professionally run dive shops in the area, and the best dive instructors in the Keys go elsewhere for employment.


Rainbow Reef is a revolving door of staff and interns (some of which should not be caring for divers safety) and the owner is laughing all the way to the bank at the expense of the interns that make up a majority of his workforce.


The clients are also missing out on much better dive experiences and dive operations in the Keys because they get lured in by great reviews, free guides, and the like.


Always expect crowed to the limit boats, rushed dives, being told to arrive at the dive shop at 7:45A.M., with the staff inside looking at 20 people locked out of the shop (while it is raining outside) and telling you to wait until they are ready to open the door (don't tell clients to come check in at 7:45 A.M. if you aren't ready for them at 7:45 A.M. and then make your clients feel stupid for getting there on time).


If you want to experience real diving in the Keys please head to Horizon Divers or Quiescence in Key Largo (they go to all the same locations that Rainbow Reef does and a much better and relaxing dive experience), Florida Keys Dive Center in Tavernier and Keys Dives in Islamorada. All of the listed shops are well liked, treat their staff well, focus on safety, give back to their communtiy, and help with reef clean up efforts and other volunteer activities.

Above is the post from another thread that started this one off, and provides more context of where this started - more about internships than about about gainful employment.

 

[NAM001]

you are not going to get any shop to pay a living wage to DM's any more than you are going to get eating places to pay wait staff 15 an hour. and for the same reasons.

 

[Vicko]

Why would you pay a living wage to a low skill over the weekend worker?
I live off of being a DM, the thing is that I also drive the boat(s), run the sales, do Discovery and Refresh dives, service the gear and compressor, run the gas blender, run social media, work with online bookings....

The owner could literaly leave for a week and come back to the buisness still runing properly and I'm being paid for that, the diving part is just a nice bonus on the paycheck.

 

[Lorenzoid]

I live off of being a DM, the thing is that I also drive the boat(s), run the sales, do Discovery and Refresh dives, service the gear and compressor, run the gas blender, run social media, work with online bookings....

That's something I mentioned in a comment above. To make useful comments, we have to define who we're talking about when we say "DM." It's clear from the comments in this thread that the duties a DM performs can vary widely.

It isn't very useful to try to make generalizations when we have "DM"s who guide customers and otherwise help out at popular dive-tourism destinations every day and get paid a living wage under local standards and weekend warrior "DM"s in non-touristy parts of the world who tag along on their local dive shop's boat so they can dive for free. These are two different things. One is a job, the other is a hobby.

 

[Bob DBF]

Teachers' salaries aren't what they were in the '60s/'70s. I made a very decent living starting 1977. Certainly not comparable to the average DM salary per hour.

Inflation screws everyone that works for a wage.

To make useful comments, we have to define who we're talking about when we say "DM." It's clear from the comments in this thread that the duties a DM performs can vary widely.

DM, Dive Guide, newly minted instructor the dive proffessional that is always sold to new divers. They love the job and would do it for little or nothing, as they did in training. Any other duties are not those a DM is certified to do with their C-card.

The other marketable skills they might have, as mentioned in the above posts, are the only reasons they are hired and command better wages. It's what the market will bear, DM's are certified by the hundreds, if not thousands, every year, a good mechanic, licensed skipper, or whatever is harder to find.


Bob

 

[covediver]

Wow, this thread brings back memories of when I worked as a DM for a dive shop 35 years ago in Santa Barbara. Sounds like not much has changed.

For about three year, things were perfect. We were not paid, we worked for the chance to dive. If you did it right, you could get in two or three dives per boat (boats did not move as much in those days between dives as they seem to do today). The gate and deck was never left unattended. I was 'compensated' with free air fills, free food, paid insurance (50/yr which I only needed working on shop dives, did not DM freelance). I got a couple of dollar tip once and almost died of appreciation, no one tipped on California dive boats back then except for the galley service. I was given the equivalent of an instructor's discount (which I really didn't need since my gear was essentially new), but appreciated the recognition it afforded. I was content with the arrangement.

Then things began to change. More boats started hiring boat dive masters who thought shop dive masters were little better than gear sherpas who cluttered the deck when we left port (and the reason to this day that I will not set foot on the Spectre). I lost the instructors discount when the part-time instructors complained that it was a perk that should be reserved only for instructors. The owner agreed with the instructors (many of whom I help out with pools and beach dives) with the rationale "if I give it to you, I have to give it to all the DMs (whom he was cranking out in classes).. It quit being fun, so I moved on. As a volunteer recreation assistant with the university, I help with their classes, beach dives, and boats and did not need to pay insurance since I was covered by the university. I liked it. I began to volunteer mapping shipwrecks with National Park Service. I got into scientific diving at the University. All of this was made possible from the skills developed as a DM/Assistant Instructor.

 

[TMHeimer]

Agree with the recent posts. One reason a DM who just guides dives or assists with courses should get a decent wage is that they could face a situation where saving a life arises.

 

[Marie13]

That's something I mentioned in a comment above. To make useful comments, we have to define who we're talking about when we say "DM." It's clear from the comments in this thread that the duties a DM performs can vary widely.

It isn't very useful to try to make generalizations when we have "DM"s who guide customers and otherwise help out at popular dive-tourism destinations every day and get paid a living wage under local standards and weekend warrior "DM"s in non-touristy parts of the world who tag along on their local dive shop's boat so they can dive for free. These are two different things. One is a job, the other is a hobby.

My local Lake Michigan DMs get paid, couldn’t tell you what, though. And diving for free? Sometimes they don’t get in the water as they’re too busy helping folks.

 

[Marie13]

Same here, but do your DMs get pay?

Yes. Couldn’t tell you what, though.