To expect shop workers to not be on the phone while serving me?

95% of the time the young lad who serves at our local post office is chatting on his mobile whilst dealing with customers. I've always assumed it's work related and he's multi tasking, but honestly, I couldn't care less if it is personal. It doesn't affect my life in any way. He's there to scan my parcels, not make forced small talk which neither of us want to have.

I definitely wouldn't make passive aggressive comments about if, it just makes you sound like a bit of a knob.

I find the experience at Aldi really throws me, they have earpieces so you can't actually tell at first that the cashier is not talking to you, only when they ignore your response and carry on having a laugh with a fellow employee.
I used to always teach the kids that it's rude to be on the phone whilst you are being served but now they're old enough to carry their own phones this is all they see!

I think people are just getting ruder. Including a lot of the staff in my shop. I don't know why and we do pull them up on it.

I work in retail and it's fucking rude for both customers and staff to be on their phones. I have often said "I was just waiting until you finished your call".
Also bad is the performative calls that you can hear all over the shop. Nobody cares how busy you are Bob and how expensive all this stuff you are ordering is and you can't possibly have this same conversation every day.
We use hand held devices to check stock and sometimes we have to use it in-between customers and the number of people who get arsey and say "when you've finished with your phone" even when I show them it's not a phone they get all huffy and don't believe me. It's not my fault we are expected to do more than one job at a time. People are twats.

Also I got a bollocking for looking at my phone while walking the lady I used to housekeep for round her massive garden as she had cameras which caught me doing such a heinous act, seems there's a huge variation in standards for people

This seems the accepted norm in most premier or other local convenience stores ,but it is bloody rude

I actually think (and I've done many a poorly-paid job, including retail) that you do the job you're paid to do, to the best of your ability.

So, no. Staff and customers alike, put your phone away.

It's rude but I also can't bring myself to get worked up about it. I would never want to go back to that type of job, and for the pay they do it for honestly. So I don't really begrudge them making it slightly less awful.

But when you needed help at the Ipad store and he refused, that was too far.

Fucking shocking.

That wasn't for you applescruff,it was for the customer in a cafe that was ignored, very few post offices left.

Total bad manners.

I complained about our local Lidl, everytime you were in certain staff would be sending messages / texts while serving you. Nothings changed, so I don’t shop their any more,

id never be on the phone in a shop and don’t expect staff to be either. I also hate when the shop assistants talk amongst themselves when serving you. I worked in customer facing jobs since I was young and would never dream of doing either.

I once had a couple came into my classroom for the Parents' Evening meeting, as they sat down his phone rang, he stood up and walked over to the window to answer it and have a conversation. I talked about their child with his wife and when he eventually returned there was no apology and he expected me to repeat what I'd told his wife and I refused. At the end of the evening I noticed his having an angry conversation with the Head so I walked over, 'I'm telling the Head how rude you were when I had to take an urgent work call!' Says I, 'Oh I do hope you don't miss the tee off at 7.30 tomorrow!'
The Head was trying hard not to laugh.

So rude and vice versa when customers are on the phone

Customer acknowledgement is key,no one likes to be ignored.dont blame you for walking.

We tried to buy a drink today in a M&S cafe. There was a lady having a conversation with the girl behind the counter, which went on for a while. We assumed they were chatting whilst the drink was being prepared, but it transpired that she hadn’t even started to do the drink, they were just chatting, oblivious to the queue. Why is their time more important than ours? They showed no sign of acknowledging that people were waiting to be served. We didn’t wait.

If it is one of those shops that also repairs phones, I would suspect that whilst replacing a screen and then tested it he has accidentally superglued the phone to his ear.

Be bloody chaos if you were😁

Happened to us today but at a beach place where we were hiring loungers so already pretty informal. We may have picked the remotest possible spot for him to drag the loungers to when he finally finished chatting to his mate and acknowledged us.

I do think it makes a difference whether it's a business or personal call though. I would never, ever take a personal call in front of a client but sometimes have to take or finish an urgent business call.

No way we’re allowed our phones when we’re working on the tills.

I worked retail and dealt with phone enquiries and face to face.its easy dealt with,you just say to customer 'once your clear of phone enquirie you'll be right with them.done dusted everybodys happy.

No shop staff or customers should be on their phones while serving/being served. It's a financial transaction and requires a bit of concentration.
Customers should refuse to be served by someone on the phone, as they should accept that staff can refuse to serve them if they're on theirs.

Very rude.

And surely quite difficult somewhere like a post office, where you do actually need to talk to the customer (as opposed to a supermarket where I still think it's rude but there's less actual need to have a conversation).