Bar staff: if for some reason you think it’s more important to collect glasses than to serve a customer waiting at the bar, in a pub that’s not particularly busy, why not try acknowledging the customer by saying something like. “I’ll be with you in just a minute,” rather than totally ignoring them?
That way, your customer will feel like they are more important in life’s grand scheme than an empty crisp packet.
At Piccadilly Station this morning I waited as the two staff on the coffee stall chatted to each other with their backs to me, as they made the only other customer a bagel. Eventually, noticing me, she said to me "are you being served?". Well she bloody well knew I wasn't being served. Hard not to say something in these circs, but I didn't want her spitting in my drink.
Easy answer. Take your custom elsewhere, let bad business fail and good business prosper. Don't get worked up about pubs hitting the wall.
That is annoying – as is turning around and carrying on a conversation with your hand pointed in my general direction waiting for money…..grrrrr
As a pub manager, that winds me right up, totally with you on this one.