I prop up the bar most evenings at Waltham. The clubhouse is great, best in the world, but the way the club is run gets worse and worse. In charge is the wife of the owner, and she has no interest in aviation. She has employed a man as her manager who seems afraid to talk to people on a social basis, and between them they are dragging the club down to a trough of mire. Most of the people who work there are trying to leave (at least the ones who chat to us mortals - the management don't afford us that respect).A ground crew lad is off after a year, saying he can't afford to live on the money and put up with the lack of motivation from management, as well as the insults from the owner. He reckons that for a 180 hour month he takes home about £900. Everyone who works as ground crew, operations or in the membership areas is actively looking for jobs away from Waltham. In a customer service operation, everyone who works there is demotivated and insulted by the woman running the place. They will be recruiting for staff soon and obviously a job is better than no job, but the whole set up is bad. One of the wheezes they pull is that when the weather is bad, they send staff home without paying them. Sure it's against the law, but what kind of ethics does a company have when they are paying staff less than £6 an hour anyway.
So don't be surprised by a poor Waltham welcome. Although you want to get in, most of them want to get out.