Covid was a rough period of time. Social distancing hurt a lot of businesses, and with precautions to prevent getting sick, such as social distancing, it wasn’t exactly an easy time to make new friends.

In today’s story, a diver joins a dive group during Covid but eventually gets kicked out of the group by the group admin. Eventually, the admin asked for a favor, and it was time to turn the tables and put her in her place!

Let’s see how the story plays out…

Group admin removed me without warning, then reached out asking for a free trip

So this happened a few years ago during Covid (I don’t remember which year) when I worked as a deck hand and lifeguard on a snorkel excursion boat.

I’m a free diver and on occasion also spearfish albeit rarely. A little before Covid my friend who is a photographer added me to a dive group she is a part of.

I was excited as I didn’t have many diving buddies and didn’t like diving solo so I thought I might make some new dive buds.

OP didn’t really like mesh with the other divers.

My partner and I live with his parents and his mother is super high risk for complications so we were pretty strict about Covid precautions and social distancing.

I decided to join one of the dive days with about 7 other people in the dive group, I figured it would be easy to social distance.

It was my first time meeting these people aside from my original friend. Before we even got in the water I started to realize they might not be my kind of people.

I tried to meet people but most weren’t interested in chatting with me; they made a circle to talk and I ended up standing awkwardly on the outside uninvolved because they were almost shoulder to shoulder and I needed to social distance.

I tried to be involved in the topics but it felt like cool story bro kinda thing and I just kinda stopped trying.

Here’s some more info about the other divers…

Well after that dive I decided I’d likely wait till Covid passed more to dive with them unless it was less than 3 people since none of them took any precautions.

I’d still check in on the group a few times a week in case something small was planned and I felt like joining but most times it was larger groups or scheduling didn’t align.

Since I was reading the chats I learned a bit more about this group mainly, that many in the group are vegan (they didn’t like me asking if anyone would like to join a spearfishing session), 1/4-1/2 were anti-vaxx, that most were either photographers or “influencers”.

I did have a few good friends in the group but I had met them prior to the “group”.

OP offered the job to the group.

I worked on the boat 3 days a week but my captain wanted to hire another person to work the other 2-3 days a week so I offered up the job in the dive group since I knew most everyone could free dive the minimum 40ft required for the job.

Only one person was interested but scheduling didn’t work out.

The admin of the group, we will call Maisie, ended up removing me from the group without warning.

I didn’t find out till I tried to find the chat and it was gone so I asked her about it.

OP understood the reasoning.

She said she removed me because I wasn’t participating in dives right now (I had told the group I was only doing 2-3 man dives till vaccines were available and/or Covid was less of a concern) . This was because most of the dives had been larger groups or scheduling issues so yeah I hadn’t been participating much.

She said she needed to make room for people to join the group that wanted to and that would actually participate.

Ouch, but ok fair.

I thought the fact she didn’t tell me when she did it was weird but just moved on since I still had my prior friends.

Maisie sent a message to the boat company social media page.

Now, I never told them I ALSO run the social media page for the boat company I work for. And a few days after getting booted from the group I get a message to our company’s SM from Maisie.

Is she inquiring about the available position we need filled to help us get more business and survive Covid?

Nope.

She wants a free half day excursion to the neighboring island in return for ExPosUrE. Telling us how her followers will be booking our trip and she’ll bring a boost of profits by promoting us.

Here’s what OP wrote back…

Can’t say I was surprised, disappointed yes. I don’t remember exactly what I wrote back to her but this is the closest I can recollect.

Hello, thanks for reaching out to our company. Unfortunately due to Covid restrictions, our capacity has been cut in half to adhere to social distancing requirements. This has led to our demand rising since what we could previously accommodate in one excursion must now be split into two trips a day at max capacity restrictions.

You promise that exposure will increase our bookings, but without a contract showing hard numbers and an agreement to reimburse us if projections fall short of the agreed amount, we cannot warrant a free half day excursion for “exposure” over a paying guest.

We are also short staffed and only able to operate 3 days a week at this time, limiting our income even more under the already financial strain of Covid. Local businesses dealing with these setbacks is widely known about and we find it in bad taste to request free excursions or products from small businesses under this well known strain.

We can offer you a resident discount but that is all; we hope you decide to SUPPORT small businesses in this time however we understand Covid has put financial strain on all. We do have positions open to apply for if you have had trouble finding work and making ends meet in these hard times.

Things were looking up after Covid.

She never responded and I never talked to or saw her again.

About 6mo to a year later the Covid restrictions lightened a bit for travel and our location was DROWNING in tourists. Our already high demand skyrocketed and we were doing 3-4 trips a day nearly back to back because we were still short staffed.

I busted my butt and I made bank!

I was able to save up for a big purchase a few years faster than planned and all I could think about was how if she had taken up the job offer, instead of asking for free stuff, they’d have a great job on the water AND be making some great money.

It’s great that everything worked out for OP in the end.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story…

Here’s another strategy for working with influencers.

This reader loved OP’s response.

She probably never knew who responded to her.

Here’s the perspective of someone with an Airbnb…

This reader commented on OP’s wording…

That was definitely not the time to ask for a free trip!

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.