Recently I've found it really irritating going to supermarkets/large chain stores and finding that the store assistants don't seem to be doing their jobs the way they used to. I often pop out on my lunchbreak to run errands and, whilst I accept that sometimes there might be queues due to customer demand etc, I don't expect to have to wait 5 minutes to be served while two colleagues have a chat! The worst seems to be my local Asda, where every member of staff seems to find it annoying having to deal with customers.
I don't want to put people down, and I know many store assistants do work incredibly hard. I'm also well aware that some customers are extremely rude, and so I don't feel like I should say anything when I am being inconvenienced.
Is it because staff feel disengaged and underappreciated by their employer? I have a lot of sympathy for their feelings if that's the case. BUT can they not also recognise that customers are just trying to get their shopping done, and its actually really rude and disrespectful not to serve them properly?