Day 072 - 12 Jan 95 - Page 63
1 Road restaurant felt any pressure to preserve your
2 profitability by reducing or cramping the service you
3 provide in and outside your restaurant?
4 A. No, sir.
5
6 Q. Have you felt any pressure even in a busy time to improve
7 or at any rate protect against deterioration the service in
8 the restaurant by removing people from the outside trash
9 walk?
10 A. No, quite the contrary.
11
12 Q. Can you look at this sheet, dining area observation check
13 list? I should have asked you one final question which
14 Mr. Morris -- bless his heart -- did not, I think, dare ask
15 you, have you ever served your in-store interests by taking
16 people off the trash walk?
17 A. No, sir.
18
19 Q. Can we look at this dining area observation check list?
20 Can we assume from the logo in the top right-hand column
21 that this emanates from head office in Finchley?
22 A. Yes.
23
24 Q. It does. The first block is entitled "service", the next
25 block "cleanliness" and the last block on this page
26 "general" apart from the marking at the bottom. We notice
27 if we look at the column headed "possible" that different
28 topics get different numbers allocated to them. Do you see
29 that?
30 A. Yes.
31
32 Q. Can you tell us what the meaning of that is?
33 A. The marks in the actual -----
34
35 Q. Yes. They are marks are they?
36 A. Yes, you would actually have to be very subjective, you
37 would assess -- a person giving this OCL would either have
38 to be a training squad, which is a crew member who has been
39 promoted after his training has to pass a test, or a lobby
40 host who is also trained at head office and using a test.
41 So that person is qualified to, or the manager as well, is
42 qualified to use one of these observation check lists so
43 they have been trained how to use them.
44
45 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think Mr. Rampton's point is you can clock
46 up quite a lot for trash walks but you do not get much for
47 gardening under No. 16, for instance.
48
49 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, and dead leaves, that is right. You do not
50 get much for spills mopped immediately with replacement
51 item provided, if necessary. You get two for that; whereas
52 for trash walks at 14 you get four. I wondered what the
53 reason was for the different amounts of marks awarded to
54 different topics, different things?
55 A. Well, my interpretation is that the company, the
56 training department, has waited. They have assessed the
57 relative importance of different areas.
58
59 Q. So, for example, the maintenance of free fire exits at
60 No. 18 gets the highest available mark which is five; is
