I think the issue with ground handlers is real, and not just limited to the North. We parked VAC, followed a Cessna in, where it was met with grounds crew who stood on the taxiway clearly visible and with clear, crisp, AIM like ground signals, standing aside the aircraft to the left of the pilot. We were to park in the next row, and there was someone standing way off to the side, not clearly visible, didn't really signal us, and we went on by.

We were turned back to where they wanted us a ways down, and this time the groundsman was out a little further, but after directing us down the row, stood directly in front of the nose cone, too close to the bird puree-er on the front for my comfort, and gave very subtle indications on how he wanted me to taxi, with his arms barely rising above his waist. At times I couldn't see him at all, and he was unhappy when I turned the plane to see him, got yelled at, shrugged and pretended to be the dufus I am. But every time he disappeared from view, I just stopped until I could see him again. He did get the idea, and I learned to read his body language, and we made it in just fine, but I do think that the grounds crew should be better educated on how to marshal aircraft in.

An idea I had was to give everyone short versions of the orange fibreglass poles my wife uses to flag the driveway edge for snowplowing. They're very cheap, at least compared with official wands, and would reinforce the idea that they really need to be a bit more compulsive about marshaling signals. It's not a unique problem to OSH, because I've seen very sloppy marshaling at FBOs, large and small around the country.

The AIM has a nice set of figures that pretty much explain all that needs to be done (4.23.25). Hand out those pictures to everyone, spend a minute with them each practicing, and hopefully it would help standardize things. The pictures even tell the marshal where to stand w.r.t the cockpit. Problem solved. Then I wouldn't have to guess whether the signals I was given were "Pull Chocks" or "Slow Down" when what was really meant was "turn a bit left" and "turn a bit right" and "come on forward." I don't like guessing, I guess in close quarters. This was on Tuesday noon. Maybe everyone was a bit tired by then. But a good time was had by all, and we did get safely parked for the rest of the week.