What to do when an instructor is out of line?

[Hammerhead]

My main point in this thread is that since not a single one of us was there as a witness, it's probably not fair to call the instructor the kind of names he's being blasted for calling the student.

Calling him names? The instructor in question doesn't seem unduly upset at the thought of calling someone else a "f***ing idiot", does he?

@ Hotpuppy, you have achieved a level of maturity I never expect to equal. Keep up diving, I hope to dive with you one day - you sound like a great guy.

 

[halocline]

Calling him names? The instructor in question doesn't seem unduly upset at the thought of calling someone else a "f***ing idiot", does he?

So I guess you were there, witnessed the whole thing, and now know what the instructor is thinking, right?

Or do you just believe everything you read on the internet?

 

[orm]

I apologise if someone else has already covered this, I admittedly haven't read all the posts.

But, personally, if I were in your shoes, I'd give the courses a break for the time being, just get in the water and enjoy your diving. You've 25 certs and heading for a DM and having incidents like this.

Without sounding tough, you'll need to really get your stuff together for the DM, and while this was a mess up for the instructor and he shouldn't have reacted the way he did, you really need to grow thicker skin if you're gonna be DM'ing. The stress you will be put under for the DMT will put this incident where it belongs, in the trivial tray.

Sorry to be harsh, but it really does sound like you need to get a bit more experience before ripping into anymore courses.

 

[Hotpuppy]

Final Update: The LDS finally refunded the various amounts that were in discussion. From a monetary position I believe they did the right thing.

I have not ever heard the instructors side of the situation, and based on the conversation today it appears unlikely that I ever will. This reconfirms my decision to fire the shop and find a different one that isn't focused on cramming in training.

I appreciate all of the feedback from the many responders on here. I felt like you deserved to hear about the final resolution of this incident.

For others who may read this, it's important to stay rational and reasonable when working out disputes. This took 2 weeks to resolve and the amount refunded was just under $2200. By keeping a polite relationship with the appropriate party at the LDS I was able to unwind the transactions in progress in a reasonable manner. I don't think that honestly, anyone wins in this sort of situation. It could have been much worse, and so at least they were reasonable about it. While many people wanted to know the name of the instructor and the dive shop.... I think that would have complicated matters and created a feeling of ill will in what was already a difficult situation. I did contact PADI and ensured that a QA review was initiated. I have the belief that PADI QA will help remediate the behavior and handling of the situation. It's important that every diver in a training situation review the dive plan (or lack thereof) to ensure that it is safe and covers all the necessary bases. A good instructor should not become overly defensive or critical if a student brings up a perceived safety concern. No instructor should be critical of any student for scrubbing a dive. As many have said, any diver can thumb any dive for any reason at any time with no recrimination.

As for me, I feel I have a good base of training. I'm going to take my Advanced Open Water card and start planning some local dives along with a dive trip or two. Yes, I have my Rescue Cert, but I think it's in bad taste to present that for a dive. My AOW cert demonstrates what a DM or Shop needs to know about my certification level for a dive. They will figure it out if they need to. After all, I'm going diving to have fun and see neat stuff, not to brag about my certifications.

 

[TSandM]

Hotpuppy, I'm sure it was both your willingness to be patient and reasonable AND your clear intention to be persistent that brought you a good outcome.

Have fun diving, and let me know if you're ever out our way!

 

[Teamcasa]

Final Update: The LDS finally refunded the various amounts that were in discussion.

For others who may read this, it's important to stay rational and reasonable when working out disputes. This took 2 weeks to resolve and the amount refunded was just under $2200. By keeping a polite relationship with the appropriate party at the LDS I was able to unwind the transactions in progress in a reasonable manner.

Calm and clear thinking. Good job.

 

[Divalicious]

Oh dear lord. I've read this whole thread, and there's been some drama-whoring, prompting me to post.

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

name removed at OP's request

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With about 30 pages of professed butt-hurt and a good deal of grand-standing over having an f-bomb dropped after a dive, might as well name its name.

Personally, I'm not their biggest fan, which stems from the fact that I paid a "drive out" cost of about $1200.00 to get my husband and myself certified as OW. I got stuck with a $150.00 FedEx bill on some gear for the OW cert. When I came back for AOW cert for myself, I was then handed a list of about $1200.00 of stuff that I "had" to buy as a requirement for the AOW class, and when handed the list, the fool behind the counter, literally, walked out of the shop without explanation. Yea...that was weird. Supposedly, he's just an anomolous weird dude. But it was enough for me to buy my gear elsewhere, complete the AOW cert I'd paid for, and find another shop.

I'm high maintenance like that.

Anyway, with that said, sounds like he actually did hotpuppy right: they inquired of the situation, gave him a refund. They didn't hang the instructor in effigy, but I doubt that was called for. In this regard:

The instructor at issue was my OW instructor and my AOW instructor. He's awesome. Period. He's incredibly qualified, knowledgable, and patient, and he ALWAYS puts safety first. Conservatively so.

While it is possible that Instructor somehow lost his mind and went off like a hair-trigger a$$hole at hotpuppy, or was just out of line, I call BS.

For one thing, Hotpuppy's been too blatantly calling for his head, shopping for sympathy on this thread, and hiding some prima donna drama llama-ing behind a "noble high road." For another, I do know Instructor and have made a decent number of dives with him as an Instructor.

My own AOW cert was one of those experiences in Lake Travis that ended up so bad, it was actually comedy gold:

Instructor and I did the AOW cert early last fall in preparation for going to dive the TX Clipper together. The lake was down about 40' and the weekend of our cert, it rained like the great Biblical Flood, turning Windy Point into a mud-filled, mucked up vat of no-vis goodness.

Instructor had 2 students: me, brand newbie, back from Hawaii, with like 15 dives or so, and a dude who had like 200 dives since he was an adrenaline junkie who had been diving using his brother's C-card to dive since he was 15. Dude was heading off that week, with his brother, to go great white shark diving in Australia and needed his own AOW card finally.

For an instructor, that's probably not the ideal match up of students. And to add to the mix, I'm also a Type I, insulin dependent, juvenile diabetic and have been for 25 years - since I was 9 years old. Climbing up and down the rocky cliffs of Lake Travis (and they were rocky with the lake being so far down) didn't exactly add to the peace and enjoyment of the experience and stuff like that does pose a risk for those of us having to worry about keeping our sugar levels up enough. I'm also a "type A" personality and don't like to go in the water with a$$clowns and don't have much reserve in saying so

So, we were under pressure to "get the cert done" and also dealing with some pretty stressful conditions.

Instructor isn't the type to put divers in the water without a decent plan. Nor is he the type to deconstruct in a SNAFU. In this case, for example, I got stuck on the deep dive in one of those idiotic pecan grove trees in Lake Travis. I think we were at like 55 feet when it happened. The lake was so far down, that the bottom was maybe 80 feet. I lost a fin when that tree viciously assaulted me blind. Good times.

Instructor, however, was diligently watching both of us- despite the no-vis, and signalled me if I wanted to thumb the dive. But with the miserable conditions... no, I wasn't repeating it, we were getting this bitch done. So, we went slowly down to 75 feet, on the line, did the combo lock skill, and came back up. He went down ahead of us, but he was a good and competent Instructor.

During another dive, the night dive, adrenaline dude somehow lost his mask, cleaning it, right before we went down. The "wreck dive" was probably the best, trying to do that in the dark, with adrenaline dude's size 15 fins on me, but we were only at about 12 feet, so... hey

I've rambled on, but the point is this: I have made about 20 dives with Instructor and he's qualified, competent, incredibly attune to his students and safety. He isn't prone to lose his cool or mercilessly descend upon someone with a torrent of four-letter words.

If angry words ensued after a dive and someone even dropped an f-bomb, get over it. Get a refund. But going to PADI on this or desiring some apology written in blood or sympathy from Scubaboard sounds like hotpuppy is being a bit of a prima donna drama llama.

 

[kaerius]

Making noise. Kind of irrelevant for contacting her, because most newer divers are oblivious, but your instructor should have heard you when you banged your tank with your dive knife.

You did do that, right? It's covered in some class or the other.[/B]

I was going to mention making noise as well, but banging your tank with your dive knife is folly, you're doing it behind your back where you can't see, and could very well end up poking a hole in your BCD/wing.

My number one tip for making noise underwater, if you don't have a mechanical way to do so(inflator hose whistle, tank banger, rattle, etc) is going beatbox. Just make drum sounds in your throat, works like a sharm. I learned this one from my videography instructor.

As for his readiness for DM course... I think he is. Mind you I could be wrong, I've never met him. Just make sure to dive a lot, whenever you don't have coursework, go diving. Personally I started mine on 21 dives and ended it on 93.

 

[KozMcCharlie]

Just thought I'd throw this out there because it's the one thing that stuck out in my mind the whole time...

I just a week ago finished my OW cert and the 5th and last dive was after we had finished all the required skills. We were all congratulated and out temp cards handed out. Then the instructor showed us a map of the quarry and told us to plan the final dive. The only instruction we were given is to keep it to 60'. When we finished the plan, we dove the plan. All went relatively well, though we had to stop for a little extra time for equalizing. When we got out and went back to debrief the dive the instructor told us that any further training we took with this shop would have us planning as much of the dives as was possible. It seems to me (note - of course I'm a NOOB and admittedly know very little) that one of the most important parts of the training for deep diving is planning the dive. Wouldn't the planning be VERY important in executing a deep dive? Shouldn't the plan have been laid out by the students and then critiqued by the instructor if it was missing parts or off in any way???

This was an increased risk dive (way more-so because of the very limited visibility) that had no plan... No discussion of signals, which seems like an absolute sin in those sort of conditions (evident by the lack of being able to advise of an equalization problem...) Why was there no checking back to make sure her buddy was descending alright??? (I would guess because there was no discussion about what should be done to make the dive go as well as possible)

I don't know... Maybe I'm too caught up in the whole plan away small issues so that they can't turn into this sort of mess...

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Oh dear lord. I've read this whole thread, and there's been some drama-whoring, prompting me to post.

With about 30 pages of professed butt-hurt and a good deal of grand-standing over having an f-bomb dropped after a dive, might as well name its name.

Personally, I'm not their biggest fan, which stems from the fact that I paid a "drive out" cost of about $1200.00 to get my husband and myself certified as OW. I got stuck with a $150.00 FedEx bill on some gear for the OW cert. When I came back for AOW cert for myself, I was then handed a list of about $1200.00 of stuff that I "had" to buy as a requirement for the AOW class, and when handed the list, the fool behind the counter, literally, walked out of the shop without explanation. Yea...that was weird. Supposedly, he's just an anomolous weird dude. But it was enough for me to buy my gear elsewhere, complete the AOW cert I'd paid for, and find another shop.

I'm high maintenance like that.

Anyway, with that said, sounds like he actually did hotpuppy right: they inquired of the situation, gave him a refund. They didn't hang the instructor in effigy, but I doubt that was called for. In this regard:

The instructor at issue was my OW instructor and my AOW instructor. He's awesome. Period. He's incredibly qualified, knowledgable, and patient, and he ALWAYS puts safety first. Conservatively so.

While it is possible that Instructor somehow lost his mind and went off like a hair-trigger a$$hole at hotpuppy, or was just out of line, I call BS.

For one thing, Hotpuppy's been too blatantly calling for his head, shopping for sympathy on this thread, and hiding some prima donna drama llama-ing behind a "noble high road." For another, I do know Instructor and have made a decent number of dives with him as an Instructor.

My own AOW cert was one of those experiences in Lake Travis that ended up so bad, it was actually comedy gold:

Instructor and I did the AOW cert early last fall in preparation for going to dive the TX Clipper together. The lake was down about 40' and the weekend of our cert, it rained like the great Biblical Flood, turning Windy Point into a mud-filled, mucked up vat of no-vis goodness.

Instructor had 2 students: me, brand newbie, back from Hawaii, with like 15 dives or so, and a dude who had like 200 dives since he was an adrenaline junkie who had been diving using his brother's C-card to dive since he was 15. Dude was heading off that week, with his brother, to go great white shark diving in Australia and needed his own AOW card finally.

For an instructor, that's probably not the ideal match up of students. And to add to the mix, I'm also a Type I, insulin dependent, juvenile diabetic and have been for 25 years - since I was 9 years old. Climbing up and down the rocky cliffs of Lake Travis (and they were rocky with the lake being so far down) didn't exactly add to the peace and enjoyment of the experience and stuff like that does pose a risk for those of us having to worry about keeping our sugar levels up enough. I'm also a "type A" personality and don't like to go in the water with a$$clowns and don't have much reserve in saying so

So, we were under pressure to "get the cert done" and also dealing with some pretty stressful conditions.

Instructor isn't the type to put divers in the water without a decent plan. Nor is he the type to deconstruct in a SNAFU. In this case, for example, I got stuck on the deep dive in one of those idiotic pecan grove trees in Lake Travis. I think we were at like 55 feet when it happened. The lake was so far down, that the bottom was maybe 80 feet. I lost a fin when that tree viciously assaulted me blind. Good times.

Instructor, however, was diligently watching both of us- despite the no-vis, and signalled me if I wanted to thumb the dive. But with the miserable conditions... no, I wasn't repeating it, we were getting this bitch done. So, we went slowly down to 75 feet, on the line, did the combo lock skill, and came back up. He went down ahead of us, but he was a good and competent Instructor.

During another dive, the night dive, adrenaline dude somehow lost his mask, cleaning it, right before we went down. The "wreck dive" was probably the best, trying to do that in the dark, with adrenaline dude's size 15 fins on me, but we were only at about 12 feet, so... hey

I've rambled on, but the point is this: I have made about 20 dives with Instructor and he's qualified, competent, incredibly attune to his students and safety. He isn't prone to lose his cool or mercilessly descend upon someone with a torrent of four-letter words.

If angry words ensued after a dive and someone even dropped an f-bomb, get over it. Get a refund. But going to PADI on this or desiring some apology written in blood or sympathy from Scubaboard sounds like hotpuppy is being a bit of a prima donna drama llama.

I am amazed that anyone would defend someone who puts students at such risk to "get it done". Of course most people think that an instructor who did not kill them is awesome. Also selecting a site with such horrible condtions if they were indeed so bad does not indicate very good judgment on the part of the instructor. It does demonstrate a degree of greed though. A student gets stuck in a tree at 55 feet on the deep dive, which by the way 75 feet and do a combo lock is not a deep dive in my book-may meet standards but is pretty cheap way to do it, loses a fin. Dive is over. Reset and do another time when conditions are better.

I also question your judgment given the admitted medical condition. Even though you gave the ok to continue had something happened I'd be willing to bet that your family would have sued the pants off everyone and the lawyer would have seriously tried to minimize your lack of good judgment which was clearly displayed.