I'm sorry guys but I really have to jump to the defence of our colleagues here.
a little care and forethought should be applied by not eating your food during the flight in sight of the, potentially hungry, fare paying passengers. Perhaps slide the curtain across if fitted or wait until the turn round?
Wobble, one can assume in this situation that as the crew are delayed, and as they also work for a loco, they could have been without the chance to eat for some time - pax will be on the aircraft on the sector in question for no time at all - if they are disappointed they couldn't eat the soggy £5 sandwich (no offence to Flybe I think it is a side effect of being wrapped and chilled - all airline food is pretty naff) may I suggest they could have purchased a cheaper nicer meal on the ground - the crew don't often have this luxury, nor, on the Dash 8 in this operation, are they likely to have had the luxury of eating on turn around.
Subtlety is a great idea but on such a small aircraft not exactly a possibility.
I appreciate that the pressures and irritations may be great but surely professionalism, no matter what the underlying issues are, should be the watchword.
And then there is the real world where people have problems in their lives, and decibels caused by closing an overhead locker, and the "distress" that causes to a passenger, really pale to insignificance if we thought about it. If people took a more sympathetic view in general in this world perhaps we would all get on a lot better.
I'm sorry MB but if you are able to wear a smile no matter what has happened then you are better man than me..... we all have limits, we should aim to be, as you say, as "professional" as possible, at all times, but equally as passengers we should appreciate cabin crew are people not machines.