Discouraging Week

My boss has been here all week and things didn't go very well. My instructor, Ben, really wants to run this place and was hired about 3 weeks before me. He's a great guy and good with the customers but has no business experience at all. He has worked in a dive shop but that was only for a short while. He has not been to any other resorts anywhere so he has no method of comparing services.

Every time I ask Ben's opinion or advice he definately has one and if you don't use it, you are wrong. It's Ben's way or no way. No one including me can do anything nearly as well as he can. The crew was really happy with the way I was treating them and they all came to me and mentioned that. I'm not sure what Ben said or did but suddenly according to Ben, they don't like working with me.

Ben reported this to the boss and he confronted me with it after the crew left on Friday. I thought they left pretty happy but apparantly not. I know some of it has to do with not being able to work overtime. I'm pretty sure Ben blamed that on me and its a simple business decision.

It's all pretty frustrating and I was strongly thinking about leaving. I talked with Gerri and as usual she was able to calm me down some. Just before my boss left he talked to me and said he thought I'd be okay. He said I needed to slow down, not worry so much and learn to live on island time. He wants me to allow Ben to be more of an assistant and to manage the staff on a day to day basis since he dives with them more than me. I'll try it out and see how it goes. I personally think it's a confusing situation for the crew to have 2 supervisors but we'll give it a try. Personally I think there is a very good chance one of us will be laid off within a month but I hope not. I know we are going to get rid of our dive master soon and probably a boat captain after that unless business improves.

We've been getting excellent reviews from our guests and they like to little changes I've made so far. I have more idea's but Ben is fighting them so who knows what will happen.

Today is Saturday and the new guests for the week have arrived. This will be a very slow week as we only have 3 divers. We'll actually have more crew than divers so it will be a bit akward. I will probably sit out several times this week and split up some of the diving with Ben.