courtesy for your packer

[PackerBarry 0]

I decided to post this after some comments in an unrelated post.. skydivers who use packers might think about a few courtesies when leaving their rig.. try to uncollapse your slider, stow your brakes, cock your pilot chute, run the lines and perhaps even replace broken rubber bands... I know what you're thinking, why should I do this? I'm paying them to pack it for me... one, packers have a hard job and every little bit helps two, it will help get you back in the air and three, it will put more money in your underpaid packer's pocket..

how many times have you missed a load because a packer didn't get you packed up in time? ask yourself, if I'd done all of the prep work, could I have made it? all of the prep work mentioned earlier can sometimes add 3 or 4 minutes to a pack job, not to mention walkthroughs... over a day, we're talking about 20-30 pack jobs that your packer didn't get to do. we're talking about 20-30 people who didn't get into the air when they wanted to. Packers do their jobs conscientiously and will continue to do so no matter the condition of the rig that is dumped in front of them, but ask yourself, are the the kind of person who brushes their teeth before going to the dentist or not? be kind to your local packer and try to realize that for a paltry sum, you're placing your life in someone elses hands-- it might pay to make them happy to see you coming instead of rolling their eyes and thinking , oh no, not messy marvin again... just my thoughts

[Jimbo 0]

From the consumers point of view, no. After I've stowed the brakes, uncollapsed the slider, cocked the pilot chute, run the lines, and replaced broken rubber bands I might as well just pack the fucking thing. Tell you what, I'll do all that and only pay you $2.50 per pack job, sound fair?

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it will put more money in your underpaid packer's pocket..

Dude, it's a job, not a charity.

-
Jim

"Like" - The modern day comma
Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

[Cornholio 0]

I always pack for myself, but I have to agree with Jimbo on this one. I can see stowing the brakes and maybe uncollapsing the slider, but everything else sounds like the responsiblities of a packer.

However, if I did do all those things, I'd gladly pay a packer 2.50 to pack for me.

Edit to add:

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are the the kind of person who brushes their teeth before going to the dentist or not?

Yes, I am. However I don't put the bib on myself or prep their instruments or give myself novacaine. Do you ?

Butthead: Whoa! Burritos for breakfast!
Beavis: Yeah! Yeah! Cool!
bellyflier on the dz.com hybrid record jump

[SkydiveMonkey 0]

Might as well put it in the dbag as well. If packers offered a small discount for people who did all this, they might get more people doing this, therefore quicker packs, therefore more money

____________________
Say no to subliminal messages

[hookitt 1]

I'll gladly set my brakes and uncollapse the slider. Cocking the pilot chute before you pick it up to pro-pack is stupid. That's your job. So is replacing rubber bands, 4 line check and the works.

Sorry PackerBarry, but I was a packer for many seasons so I know the drill quite well.

Even if you pack for me, I put my life in my hands not yours. It's a parachute. They tend to work. Sometimes they Malfunction, If they do, I know the drill for that as well.

If people are being slobs with their stuff, that's your job to tell them about it. You wouldn't let a student do that to you more than 1 or 2 times would you?

So I'll set my brakes and slider, but if I don't have time to, and it's happened, I'll apoligize and probably tip you at the end of the day anyway.

You chose to be a packer. I know how much a packers can make. It's a tough job but it's is yours.

Train your customers to not be slobs, but the rest is up to you.

Have a good night

My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

[Kolla 0]

I normally pack for myself, but I do occasionally get a packer - and then I do just that I consider it one of those "pay it forward things" - a random act of kindness - a pre-paid tip... whatever.

It's a job of course like any other - but I normally use the same packer and do appreciate her excellent work, so I try to make it easy for her take good care of me.

Blue ones,
kolla

Blue Skies Magazine

[marks 0]

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I decided to post this after some comments in an unrelated post.. skydivers who use packers might think about a few courtesies when leaving their rig.. try to uncollapse your slider, stow your brakes, cock your pilot chute, run the lines and perhaps even replace broken rubber bands...

no thanks... i will find another packer...

[SkydiveNFlorida 0]

I don't use a packer, but I think aside from stowing the breaks, and preferrably not bringing in a twisted up mess in a pile, this is too much to do. I would set the brakes and lay it out. The packer should take care of the rest if i'm paying them. fwiw I did tip at the end of the day if I used the same packer all day (which I tried to do when I wasn't packing).

Angela.

[LoudDan 0]

I jump a boat (Sabre2 190), I always stow the brakes, uncollapse the slider and cock the pilot chute. Generally, (if I use a packer) packers that would normally charge me $6 only charge me five.

Coming soon to a bowl of Wheaties near you!!

[jdthomas 0]

Packer barry I have to take the majority in this, and No I will not do those things.
I have been a packer and I did all of those things for my cutomers, thats why they paid me and they gave me tip's at the end of the day when I took extra care of the gear and pack jobs.
I supplied my own rubber bands and that was part of the business!
As far as putting the life in your hands! It's a main Barry! my life is in the riggers hands and I am my own rigger now so i know my base is covered.
Know when to accept work and who to accept it from, if messy mike is dropping his gear off with you then you can explain to him the mess or ask him to go to packer pete.
Sorry bro, you need to stow the brakes,pilot chute and slider.. I did and my current packer does this for me.

www.greenboxphotography.com

[nightjumps 1]

I set my brakes and uncollapse the slider. After that, the rest is what you earn.

[Kris 0]

I'll unstow the slider and cock the PC but that's it, otherwise, why am I using a packer?

And I know packers who clear almost $1K a weekend, when my packer makes more than I do, I don't consider them underpaid.

But I do appreciate the damn hard work you do.

Sky, Muff Bro, Rodriguez Bro, and
Bastion of Purity and Innocence!™

[mjosparky 4]

Sorry Barry, if you can't handle the work, move on. When packers first came on the scene, they did it all. Now that it is popular to use a packer many want to find shortcuts to get in more pack jobs. As a rigger how would you like it if I asked you to straiten out, hang and inspect the canopy before I packed it. I'll take string cheese with that "wine".
Sparky
And charging $6 for a larger canopy amounts to the same thing. Hell, most big canopies only have 7 cells.

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

[FrogNog 1]

The reason I would unstow the slider is so just in case the packer forgets, I don't open at terminal with a collapsed slider.

But really, I just pack for myself (so far) because I believe packing builds character.

-=-=-=-=-
Pull.

[diablopilot 2]

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And charging $6 for a larger canopy amounts to the same thing. Hell, most big canopies only have 7 cells.

You haven't paid for a pack job at Perris lately have you?

They charge $6 for the small stuff now.

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You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[firstime 0]

not too sure who to reply to but as a newbie (55)
I have always been told to sto the brakes, but never
have been told to uncollapse the slider, replace rubberbands etc... I do stretch the pilot myself only
because of "one" less chance of human error, someone told me that once and it made sense. "thanks Batman Larry". I am in a different
league than the seasoned skydiver therefore I dont have a problem paying a packer or giving him or her
extra $. My first pack that i jumped nearly seperated
my speed bag from my body so that $5 seems so well spent. But as time goes on I am sure that I will
have different views on this subject, for now I will stick with people with the golden hands & the lead seal. On that note I have to drop my rig off for a repack before the florida trip. Oh well, hope I shed
a different color light on this post.***will you wake in the morning??

[orbitjunkie 0]

I kinda see both sides on this, I do about 50 pack jobs and pay packers the other..generally when @ the home DZ I let our packers handle it. when abroad I usually di it myself. @ my home DZ I always tip an extra buck, they (Dave and Dee) are well worth it, after all your gonna jump this thing; However, they need to earn it to. stowing the brakes is cool and maybe unstowing the slider. so let us be curtious but not do it all.

[mjosparky 4]

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And charging $6 for a larger canopy amounts to the same thing. Hell, most big canopies only have 7 cells.

You haven't paid for a pack job at Perris lately have you?

They charge $6 for the small stuff now.

Hi JP,
And as a retired senior citizen on a fixed income, I probably won't anytime soon.
Sparky

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

[psuCory 0]

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, you're placing your life in someone elses hands--

So... ummm... are we supposed to buy you a case of beer every time it works too?

-- yet another reason I can add to my list of why I don't use a packer...

[Nightingale 0]

I stow my breaks and uncollapse my slider. If I have a step through, I tell my packer that there is a step through, but since I'm a newbie, a lot of times my attempts at "fixing" it just make it worse, so if I'm paying a packer, I don't even try to fix a step through.

I pay my packer $7.00 a pack job, plus usually a little something extra at the end of the day.

[indyz 1]

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If I have a step through, I tell my packer that there is a step through, but since I'm a newbie, a lot of times my attempts at "fixing" it just make it worse, so if I'm paying a packer, I don't even try to fix a step through.

Students typically don't know better and really have no choice but to drop it on the packer. As an "experienced" skydiver, if I were to give a packer my rig with a step through, I would expect to be charged extra. Fixing a step through can be a time consuming task and falls outside of what I consider to be the scope of a normal pack job.

If you are having lots of step throughs, you should probably talk to somebody about what you can do to try and keep it from happening.

I set my brakes and run my slider back up the lines while I'm still in the landing area. My $5 should cover cocking the PC, replacing rubberband, line check, etc.

[fudd 0]

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I know what you're thinking, why should I do this? I'm paying them to pack it for me... one, packers have a hard job and every little bit helps two, it will help get you back in the air and three, it will put more money in your underpaid packer's pocket..

Being a packer is a hard job. Saying that it's underpaid is maybe not that true.
What do you charge for a packjob? $5?
If you do 4 packjobs an hour you got $20/h.
What would you make behind the counter at McDonalds?
How many packers actually reports what they earn packing and pay income tax of it?

There are only 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

[skylord 1]

Gang,

Listen, I would like to make the job as easy as possible for a packer of student gear. I feel like I leave a god-awful tangled mess. Tigger at Elsinore was in the packing room one time after my AFF-5 jump. I dropped off my rig, and told him how much I appreciated his work. He looked at me, and laughed in Beavis and Butthead style, and said, "Dude, that OPENED?? Huh Huh......."

So boom, I land, collapse the chute, and offer animal sacrifices for my survival . I stretch the lines a bit, just enough for some tension, loop the lines in my left hand, move the slider up the lines, trying to keep it even on both sides. The last half loop I wrap around my hand, and I scoop the chute up, and drape it over my left shoulder. I make sure nothing is dragging.

I have no idea what "cocking" the PC is, but if I need to be doing it, just let me know. I reattach the toggles to the velcro, but I don't know if that is the same as "stowing" them. I just want to do this right, so any and all help is appreciated. It's all advice, and I'll be certain to ask out at Elsinore what they think since it is their rigs. Thanks!!

Bob

Bob Marks

"-when you leave the airplane its all wrong til it goes right, its a whole different mindset, this is why you have system redundancy." Mattaman

[ChasingBlueSky 0]

When I was a cash packer, I averaged about 50-60 a day with quite a few days in the 80s (do the math at $5/pack - pretty nice huh?). Yea you are sore for 3 days after a busy weekend, but so what, you choose to make money this way.

I've never asked a jumper to do anything with the rig other than place it down on the ground so I didn't have to untangle a mess, but I had to fix step-thrus all the time. Brakes, slider, PC, rubber bands were all on me to take care of them...as were the cost of the supplies. I never charged extra for them, and would never think of doing so. I wouldn't do anything with the closing loop or replace "super bands" or tube stows since the only supplies I purchased were regular bands.

Some of my regulars would stow brakes and do the slider because they knew I could get their pack done quicker. They could set their PC but they knew I would do it either way as part of my normal pack job.

Also, I never charged extra for larger or new canopies. $5/pack no matter what unless I had a deal with a team.

I never charged to give packing lessons either. Why? Having newbies packing correctly and safely was more important to me than $5. Also, since they understood the care I put into my pack jobs, I was securing a future customer for myself as well.

Student rigs always come back in a mess - and we just called them bundle of joys. Some of the JM's were worse than the students.

My best day was 87 sport rigs - since I knew it was going to be a busy day, and the team I was packing for was going to be doing back-to-backs...I made everyone I packed for that day stow their brakes and unstow slider.

Want to know why I was able to do that many? Because I never bitched about packing, I never overcharged, I never made BS promises (you chop, it's up to you to pay for the repack) about my pack job (but prided myself in 4800 packs before I packed my first mal - and that was for me and possibly because of busted lines), I never packed recklessly to get someone on a short call or so I could get one more pack in, never had beer until the last canopy was packed (and that went until 11pm a few nights when I stayed to pack all the student rigs that didn't get packed at the end of the day) I never demanded my customers to do anything but did ask if I could pack for them when they came back down. By doing this I had some very loyal customers that worked with me on those busy and hot days....and a good portion of them tipped me at the end of the day with cash, a jump ticket or a cold beer. I know of a couple packers that were on the mat that got upset at how loyal my customers were....but that is what quality will get you.....don't forget, they can always pack it themself, you are just a luxury.

Now - ask me why I think a packing concession for sport rigs (not tandem/student) is a bad idea for a DZ.

_________________________________________
you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me....
I WILL fly again.....

[ChasingBlueSky 0]

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And charging $6 for a larger canopy amounts to the same thing. Hell, most big canopies only have 7 cells.

You haven't paid for a pack job at Perris lately have you?

They charge $6 for the small stuff now.

Is everything more expensive out there? Anything over $5 is a rip-off and not worth your money. It's just a pack and shouldn't be almost 40% the cost of a jump ticket.

I see no reason for a $6 or $7 pack unless you are trying to lose more customers. What a brialliant move Well, at least I know it would be easy to steal biz at $5/pack out there.

_________________________________________
you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me....
I WILL fly again.....