This was an individual for whom my partner and I had almost
no tolerance, sadly we were stuck with the task of evaluating
and training the kid and we had yet to be impressed. The
general attitude of our work was this: you show up on time,
you work your ass off, you do everything as safely as possible,
and you watch each other’s backs, all were attributes that
Acker had failed to display in the two weeks we had known
him.
Once Edderman had vented on Acker we quickly wrapped
up our meeting and went to work getting our gear ready.
Birdman and I were the first divers up and we set about our
daily helmet maintenance before going over our operations
plan. Today we were going to be inspecting an old oil rig that
had begun tilting and required observation before deciding
whether it was to be repaired or scrapped and replaced. We
worked through our plan, Acker poking his nose in and giving
a variety of useless and incorrect advice on how to do our jobs.
Finally we were ready to go, so we donned our wetsuits,
harnesses, emergency oxygen bottles, weight belts, and stood
at standby with our helmets. Today I was first dive with
Birdman my rescue diver for the first six hours then we would
swap. Edderman came storming out of his office (not that we