Learning From the Academy Puke

My first instructor rating came from a one-week “Instructional/Sales Clinic” our certifying agency held four times a year. One of my co-workers, however, had attended the agency’s ten-week “Instructor College.” It was kind of like being an ROTC grad and having to serve with an Academy Puke.

I was constantly being told that the “College” grads “really knew how to teach” (and sell), and that I should pay attention and listen to everything this guy said. Being young and eager to please, I did.

I remember, in particular, sitting in on my co-worker’s “dive table” presentation to beginning students. The presentation took almost 30 minutes. It started by the instructor writing a ten-compartment Haldanean algorithm on the chalkboard. He then proceeded to work several different examples of how this equation could be used to determine tissue saturation levels for various dive profiles.

By the end of the presentation, the students were thoroughly confused. So was I — and we hadn’t even gotten into using actual dive tables yet.

“So, in summary,” the instructor said, “You can see why dive tables are impractical for recreational divers…” (A statement which, in today’s context, I tend to agree with — but not for the reasons this instructor was giving in 1975.)

“Here is the more practical solution,” he said next, “A dive computer.” Okay, had it been 2005, an era in which we have a vast number of reliable dive computers — and in which divers have demonstrated far greater propensity for using dive computers than they ever did dive tables — I would not have argued the point. But this was 1975.

The “computer” the instructor held up for everyone to see was not anything remotely like modern dive computers. In fact, it wasn’t even a computer at all. What it was was the old SOS Decompression Meter — more commonly remembered as the “Bend-O-Matic.”

I won’t say that the Bend-O-Matic was unsafe…but you sure as Hell would never suggest that a diver trust his health and safety to one today. What was good about the Bend-O-Matic was that it sold for a lot of money — and had a healthy profit margin to boot.

Obviously, the presentation I was asked to sit in on had nothing to do with teaching dive tables and everything to do with selling gear. Mind you, I have no problem with selling gear — selling lots of it, in fact. I just believe in being honest.

As hard as it may be to believe, the practices outlined in this article were not uncommon in the 1970s. Since that time, however, they have largely disappeared. Why?

In part, it’s because consumers have become smarter. They demand honest information, fact-based comparisons — and they don’t respond well to suggestions that “you don’t want to buy that competing product…it’s not safe.”

Even the most hard-hearted pragmatist will tell you that, ultimately, there’s no percentage in lying. Sooner or later you get caught. In the long run, it’s just easier to tell the truth.

And here’s the good part: When people find they can rely on you for honest answers, they buy more.

Now, about that money-making, work-at-home scheme I mentioned earlier…

::: TOP ::: SUBSCRIBE ::: CONTACT US ::: ABOUT US :::