I've been a member of a fitness club for over a year now. It teaches various types of classes, some of which are quite unusual and specialist. It's a nice building and has good facilities.
However, it's just so cliquey! I feel as though I've given it a fair chance having been a member for a year but I feel like taking my business elsewhere at the moment as it's never got any better.
Examples of said cliquey behaviour include:
Teachers in lessons having clear favourites and focussing lessons around the needs/wants of favourites
Teachers not ever saying hello to me or greeting me when get there even though I always say hello to them
Some of the classes are quite specialised and require a certain amount of one to one attention per student from the teacher. In some of these lessons the teacher focusses on one or two favourite pupils and others like me, who's face has never fit, just gets ignored. I do ask for help but it's given grudgingly and huffily, and I'm never shown properly. The favourite pupils are always the more able ones who need the least amount of help yet they always have the instructors flocking around them.
Photos and praise about favourite pupils are always put on the studio's facebook page; the same pupils all the time.
The instructors all come across as quiet bitchy. They've loudly bitched about other pupils in classes, and I just know that as soon as anyone leaves the room, they're bitched about. The instructors (there are usually 2 or 3 in a lesson) often look at each other and roll eyes, or have private jokes in lessons and whisper to each other.
There are many, many new people who come and do a couple of lessons then leave and never come back.
As I said, I feel as though I've given it a fair shot after being there for a year. I don't need validation from them, or particularly want to be in the clique but I'd like a bit of tuition and to be treated fairly. I carried on paying my membership throughout lockdown in order to support the business, and I pay almost £100 per month for this. I like the unique classes they offer and I've made a couple of nice mates there but other than that I often get home from a class and feel like crying.
Would you take your business elsewhere?