Day 151 - 10 Jul 95 - Page 66
1 breaks within shifts of a certain length, then I wait for
2 you to show it to me.
3
4 MR. MORRIS: Right. OK. I will move on from that. Just some
5 points from your initial evidence-in-chief. It refers to
6 something I said earlier on which is you say that you visit
7 two or three stores a week these days?
8 A. Right.
9
10 Q. How many stores have you got in your books altogether?
11 A. 169 as of today; 168 when I gave evidence.
12
13 Q. You said that, therefore, you would see if there was any
14 problems; you cannot possibly know what is going on in the
15 stores now, can you?
16 A. Working two or three days a week in the restaurants --
17 I visited three, I think, restaurants, three Company
18 restaurants and one operator restaurant on Saturday. So
19 I do not say that I visit every restaurant as often as
20 I should on a regular basis, but I certainly spend two to
21 three days going to different restaurants in different
22 areas and a fair proportion of time visiting operator
23 stores as well to do the best job I can, to get a handle
24 on, as you call it, sort of grass roots feeling in the
25 restaurants and a feel for the Operations side of it.
26
27 Q. Of course, when you visit do you let the Manager know you
28 are coming, yes?
29 A. I will talk to the person I am travelling around with,
30 either the Market Manager, the Operations Manager or the
31 supervisor. So the person I am meeting -- so I would not
32 talk to the restaurant manager and tell them.
33
34 Q. But the situation at Colchester of the filtering down to
35 the Manager and, presumably, crew as well would apply now
36 to you at the top of the tree, or near the top of the tree?
37 A. I would presume it does.
38
39 Q. Pardon?
40 A. I would presume it does.
41
42 Q. So every one of the times you visit basically the store is
43 cleaned up overnight and everyone puts on their best show
44 for you to show how well they are doing, yes?
45 A. I would not know if the store is tidied up overnight,
46 and I would say that, human nature being what it was,
47 everybody tries their best to put on the best possible
48 show. Human nature what it has been sometimes they are not
49 necessarily putting their best foot forward. But, as
50 I mentioned on Friday, I certainly, with my 12 years of
51 experience in Operations, will know if I see something that
52 has been put on show for my particular visit on that
53 particular day.
54
55 Q. Just moving on to another point. You said that if anybody
56 had made any comments about trade unions in the Company you
57 would have heard of them. Why would they come to your
58 notice, such discussions or comments?
59 A. They did not come to my notice.
60
