And it wasn't just one bar, it was all over the airport.
Last week went to B&Q. They had 1 of about 15 tills open, 2 people 'helping' at the self service tills and 2 people nattering by the tills.
I asked a lady to help as the scanner would not work and she said I had to do it.

These companies don't deserve our custom. Sadly B&Q are the only ones for miles and they do have good product, but why don't they understand customer service?

Why is it so difficult to get right the only point where employee meets customer?

They are driving us towards comparing only on price and that is a dangerous strategy.

A provocative post, BW.

The pro-gun Americans believe that a good guy with a gun will save and protect the innocent from the bad guy with a gun, but it seldom (if ever) seems to happen that way. The guns just get more powerful on each side.

Part of the problem is that the goody in film and TV shows always shoots and hits, while the bad guy always misses. And the 'kills' are always clean, and can be seen as a rough form of justice.

I cannot see it ever changing. If the murder of JFK and of umpteen schoolchildren since has not brought it about, whatever will? And there can never be any defence against a real nutter, whether guns are banned or not.

Mondays are miserable, are they not?

Personally, I like self service tills as longs as I only have a few items as it's usually faster. Have to say that B&Q's are the least good of any I've come across though. I thought they were supposed to be good at customer service though but it's been a while since I've been to one.
We are even worse served than you I think for such. We do have a Jewsons but their prices are ridiculous (most recent attempt there had me leaving and getting the items delivered free the next day by Screwfix for just over half the price).
As for supermarkets it's almost totally delivered now as Sainsbury's is almost half an hour away and though our local independent has the benefit of occasionally bumping into Tom Baker is rather expensive.

As for guns....well leaving aside the terrible recent shootings, I understand that the person most likely to be shot by a legally held gun is another family member not a villain...

Temp - you've missed the real problem these days - video games. If you play Grand Theft Auto (and its ilk) from the age of 6 (and plenty of kids do) then you are brainwashed to believe in the fun of shoot-em-up, and not to understand the difference between real life and some mad autistic developer's pet project.

And just wait until virtual reality really takes hold. It won't be long now...

I shall write more about self-service shops soon...

But people/children have always played violent games of one sort or another and there have always been bad people willing to hurt others.
For me it is a simple case of what opportunity or access you give bad people to the means to do bad things.
If bad people could only ever access rocks then their ability to do damage is limited. If you give bad people access to weapons capable of firing hundreds of bullets a minute then again the damage they can do is relative.
The standard NRA argument that it is not guns that kill people, it is people, is of course right, but they just need access to a semi to do it 'well'.

Add in the fact that a driver can legally go around with a concealed weapon and the recipe is nicely set for trigger happy disaster followed by 'semi' wielding revenge seeking madmen.

It will never end because too many (but not all) Americans like the idea of being able to shoot up the world should they choose, but don't understand why the result is usually a load of dead children.

...look forward to it Witchy.

Funnily enough, our local Co-op has recently removed its self-service tills.