Four tips on how to get served more quickly at the pub: new research

Abstract

As you are reading this, in bars all over the world customers are ordering drinks and bartenders are serving them. Some are getting their drinks without too much fuss, while others are getting disgruntled at being made to wait – and it is even worse when the bartender serves someone who has not been waiting as long as you have. But this common interaction has seldom been explored in any depth. We used the technique of conversation analysis, developed by Harvey Sacks and inspired by Harold Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology, which enabled us to look in detail at what seem to be fairly mundane everyday interactions.