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bad mouthing, or even steering people away from gear your shop sells is never a good idea.
It is not uncommon for employment contracts to contain a clause about not "disparaging" the employer similar to PADI's standards of conduct: "12. Not disparage the PADI organization, PADI Members or any other dive industry professionals."
I am a part-time scuba instructor at a local shop. I only do it for fun and because I enjoy it; I have a full-time “real job”. I have no experience on the retail and sales side of things.
I had purchased a BC from a well-known manufacturer. ...
Instead, they dug through my Facebook profile until they found out I instruct for a shop that sells their products. They called the dive store sales manager and threatened to cancel their dealer agreement if the shop did not stop me from making any further comments online. The sales manager asked me to stop posting because it is a violation of the dealer agreement to have an employee saying negative things about a product.
What do you guys think?
I had purchased a BC from a well-known manufacturer. I quickly found that one specific claim they made about it on their website was not true. I pointed this out in a Facebook post.