Do other non divers find divers a little arrogant and up their own bottoms?
They bang on about how deep they go, how they once nearly got the bends, how they have always seen bigger and better fish than anyone else.
I find dive instructors even more bothersome. Particularly those who live in third world countries and take away employment options from locals. These sort of people spend their lives avoiding responsibilities at home and add nothing to their host country.
The bigger, better rant is probably true for alot of travelers, not just divers. And there is also a good probability that they may also speak the truth if they have been diving alot.
Instructors do not steal the jobs from locals for these reasons:
Becomming an instructor is expencive.
Working in the tourist industry means that you need to know atleast english, and preferably another language as well.
Local instructors, that speak english good enough to teach diving will get a job at a diveshop much more easily than foreign instructors (atleast those that only speak english). Instructors need to pay tax like everyone else as long as they are working legal. And they draw tourists, adding to the economy.
Foreign divers can be a benefit to locals as they can help them improve their English language skills.
I have noticed a certain amount of machismo from some divers and divemasters, but I suspect that trait is also there in other areas of their lives. It's mostly younger guys that are like this.
I do recall one incident when i was in Thailand where a couple of divemasters, seeing I had a bit of film left on my borrowed camera, pulled out their dive knives and pretended that they were in an underwater fight. I just thought, "Boys will be boys" and shrugged it off. The pictures are rather amusing, though.
Well, jasper007, it is certainly true that some divers and dive instructors are arrogant. But then so are some engineers, some skateboarders, some backpackers, some skiers, some airline travelers, etc.
I personally found that your original post paints with a rather broad brush, so I went to your profile to see what your other postings are like. You seem to be a very opinionated individual who 'sometimes' makes blanket statements quite blithely. Perhaps a portion of the people you encounter here and in face to face circumstances would label you arrogant based on your articulation of these sorts of broad generalities, wouldn't you think?
I'm not sure whether you are suggesting a serious discussion or if you're simply bored and trolling. But regardless, Eskil does a very nice job of parrying your post, including identifying it as a 'rant'. Thanks, E!
"Particularly those who live in third world countries and take away employment options from locals."
With the same qualifications a local will always have a big advantage over foreigners. If a foreigner comes to an area to work, he must have something extra, otherwise: no chance. So don't agree with you there.
"They bang on about how deep they go, how they once nearly got the bends, how they have always seen bigger and better fish than anyone else."
I don't think that is much different from a lot of other people who are enthousiastic about their sport/hobby.
I can agree with you though that quite a few instructors tend to have a certain attitude. If you look around at the departure points of the boats and on the boats, here no different from other places I have been to and worked, you see a lot of instructors standing around with an attitude, sunglasses on, barely glancing at their guests.
Get to know them and it is s different story, but on first impression I can understand people accusing them of having a certain attitude.
""Boys will be boys" "
Yes, I guess that is all there is too it (and nothing wrong with that as well IMO),
Looks like the kind of thread posted specifically to get divers and especially diving instructors up on their soap box! It’s more than welcome since it seems to me that this forum is going deadly boring and some discussions need to be kick-started!
Personally I don’t think than non divers will find divers more arrogant than other categories. Try to put a person that doesn’t share a passion together with 5 that share the same passion and the result will be exactly the same. Add to that that diving is still (wrongly) perceived as a “dangerous/difficult/exceptional” activity in many parts of the world (despite there is somewhere in between 35 and 55 millions regular divers worldwide – depending of who does the stats – and an amazing low incident rate compared to other sports) and that the average person like to “show off” using whatever means available. Consider also that diving IS realistically a highly enjoyable activity, since you simply discover a new world, and you’ll have your answer.
I agree partially with your statement about the diving instructors, but that only applies to newly qualified and too young ones. Trust me on the fact that if you have worked as a DI for a few years, you’ll be very grateful to have intelligent non divers around you so you can avoid speaking… diving, but have a normal conversation about any “normal” issue. At the end it’s a job like every other job (even a hard one if done properly), and at the end of the working day everything you want is to go to your home/bungalow/hut/flat and have your own time (like any other job). I admit that in between diving instructors you’ll find a certain amount of “show offers” as well (I’m young, cool, trendy, like to show off, party going, want to impress others ect. Ect.), but once again trust me, they will soon be heading towards their home country with the tail in the middle of their leg!
Regarding your statement that DI avoid responsibilities, take jobs from the locals and don’t contribute to the local economy, it cannot be more misplaced!
It might looks like a cool job from the outside, but when you do between 2 and 5 dives a day for 7 days a week 365 days a year it’s a heavy job. Most DIs are quite intelligent and skilled people (at least the ones I’ve known) that could earn much more money in their home country and that do it out of passion. The money you earn as a DI will never even get close to the amount you’ll earn using your personal skills in your home country! Since you are also responsible for the well being and the safety of all the costumers and at the same time you have to give them a really nice time, it’s quite demanding job at long term (much more than an office job in Europe or in the states…).
Foreign DIs don’t take jobs from locals for two simple reasons. Either there is simply no locals able to do the job (for example in Thailand for cultural reason), or the locals are not able to afford the cost of becoming a DI (economical reasons), or if there are able to bypass the economical reason there might still be language barriers. In most of the developing countries I’ve been working, the local DIs where only able to speak English, and since a lot of nationalities still today don’t speak English or speak poor English, so hiring a multilingual DI is a necessity for a successful diving centre. Consider that if a local has the same skills as e foreigner a diving centre will be able to pay the local around 25% of what they pay the foreigner, so who do you think they would employ?
Another thing you have to consider is the tourists’ perception of local DI vs. “foreign” DI. If you have two diving centres on the same beach, one with a foreign DI and with a local one, where do you think the tourist (included the all the politically correct “let’s meet the locals at their own premises” backpackers) will go? Obviously a completely wrong perception of things, since local DI/DM are usually excellent (hey, they are probably maintaining their family; they cannot afford to mess it up…).
Last thing; in many countries the diving industry is the backbone of the tourism industry, so the indirect benefit that the local economy gets from the “imported” DIs is huge.
