The Importance of Documents

May 22, 2008

In the last year or so, I have been signing legal documents on my own. I've always known they were important, but until today I never realized just how important they actually were. I went over the legalities of the dive industry with Patrick today. I really learned a good lesson. Whenever I sign something, I briefly check it over. After today, I will start paying better attention. It seems like you have to sign for everything these days. If your not careful though you could really find yourself in a mess. Pat and I talked about medical, service work, and liability aspects of legal documentation. I learned you have to be careful of how you word things in your documents and a couple of things took me by surprise. For new divers, a medical section is requierd to be filled out, but if you see medical information listed on a waiver for a diving excursion off of a dive boat, run for the hills.... Oftenly, the dive company will wait for you to sign the waivers until you are already on the boat. If you mark off any health difficulties they can deny your dive! Wouldn't that drive you crazy? Excited to go for a dive and then they tell you you cant go. And any service work done on any equipment, dive companies need to have the work double checked. This way if something goes wrong, the customer will have a harder time proving the malfunction of a piece of equipment was due to a tech error. This was something that didnt seemed not fair; depending on where you live, the state requires you to keep paperwork for up to 3 years, but the federal government requires you to save documents for up to 7 years. What a difference? You can really get messed up in court if you do not keep your documents depending upon where the court takes you. Documents also require great attention when you are traveling. Trips scheduled through dive shops share a good portion in this industry. Whoever plans the trip has to be very careful that the legal documents cover all liabilities. A lot goes into planning these trips, but what a wonderful way to have a great diving experience. The shop takes care of everything and does the best they can to ensure you have a wonderful experience. The next time I sign something I will be sure to check it over fully. Overall, I think I learned the most out of this mentor session. F. Y. I. We are planning a lot of amazing events for upcomming mentor dates. A sit in on a class night, helping run an event (i'm hoping to run a beach cleanup in Burnum Harbor around september), spending a few days in the florida store to help run the boat, and teaching kids about project aware. This is all very exciting. It is going to be an awesome summer. Stay tuned!

<3 always and forever

Mermaidsdream