Day 188 - 15 Nov 95 - Page 27
1 Q. Right. "In my view, the reason for this poor quality food
2 was that staff were so wary of the abuse they would receive
3 from the floor and shift managers if the production line
4 was ever halted, that they simply ignored bad or rotting
5 food. This wariness extended from the lowliest crew
6 members working on their first shifts up to and including
7 shift managers who were subjected to similar abuse from
8 store managers. The abuse of staff was constant."
9
10 When you say "constant", do you mean during high pressure
11 periods or all the time?
12 A. I think during high pressure periods it was at its most
13 intense, but during the calmer periods there was a kind of
14 a watching over of the staff to make sure they were kind of
15 aware that they were -- you know, they had to work hard for
16 their living, so if there was a lull and there were no
17 customers, rather than kind of, you know, just being able
18 to stand by the grill and have a couple of seconds chat,
19 somebody would make sure that they would go and sweep the
20 floor in the restaurant, whether the floor had just been
21 swept five minutes earlier or not. It was that kind of,
22 you know, just keep people moving and working. So there
23 was that kind of pressure going on all the time. But the
24 real abuse kind of happened during the peak hours of
25 demand.
26
27 Q. Right. In your notes on page 11, in the second to last
28 full paragraph -- this is during the close -- you have, in
29 the middle of that paragraph: "As people are queuing
30 outside waiting for the restaurant to open, Almaz starts
31 shouting more and more." Do you remember that? Were you
32 there at that time?
33 A. Yes. This is the record of when I was watching the
34 night close. I think what happened -- I mean, this kind of
35 stunning operation of the whole store when it closes, it is
36 stripped down and cleaned from top to bottom and put back
37 together again, and has to be put back together again in
38 time for the first breakfast to be served when it opens;
39 and, you know, I sat there looking at it, thinking, "How
40 are they ever going to get it ready"; and, quite clearly,
41 the manager must have that experience on a daily basis of
42 looking at it about 5.30 and thinking, "Oh, my God, are we
43 actually" -- so the response is just to keep yelling,
44 yelling and yelling, and keeping people -- I mean, people
45 have been working all through the night, so energy is
46 flagging, so it is a real, keep yelling at people and keep
47 their energy going and keep them to keep going. So the
48 shouting started in that kind of getting at people just to
49 keep going, keep going, keep going, because the store had
50 to be open at six and breakfast had to be ready.
51
52 Q. So what was the real problem, then, in terms of being able
53 to get ready in time during the night?
54 A. I mean, what I would think was happening -- I mean, on
55 that night, I think, a couple of the people who were
56 working through the night close had actually stayed on
57 after their day shift. So I think, from my memory, I think
58 probably because a couple of the people that were supposed
59 to do the night close had not turned up. They were --
60 Pervase, I think, was the one who worked all the way
