Day 124 - 10 May 95 - Page 11
1 communication that takes place in a restaurant does not so
2 much talk about what the Corporation does, but that place
3 of business, how well they can serve their customers. If
4 they do a better job in serving their customers, the
5 customers want to come back. We are able to build the
6 business. They are able to then advance and progress
7 because the business grows.
8
9 I think, as I indicated in previous testimony, the
10 discipline, those skills that you learn, are highly
11 translatable. They are highly sought after by other
12 businesses. Over the years, I cannot tell you how many
13 times I have run into people that have indicated to me how
14 positive they feel about their experience at McDonald's;
15 how some of those early experiences that they have had have
16 served them well later on in life in their chosen
17 professions.
18
19 It is not something -- what I am telling you is not
20 something that is just hearsay. I experience it in my own
21 personal life. I know, I have had first-hand knowledge, of
22 people that have greatly benefited from some, you know,
23 some of the things that I have mentioned. I think that
24 if -----
25
26 Q. If they go into business or something like that?
27 A. This may sound a bit self-serving, but I would say that
28 if more managers, or people of responsibility, would take
29 the time with young people, to communicate to them about
30 some of basic values that we, you know, would treat as
31 necessary, basic things, for many young people, they are
32 not basic things, I think the world would be a better
33 place, the workplace would be a better place.
34
35 Q. The basic values which you teach are obedience, yes? To do
36 as you are told?
37 A. You know, I think you are stretching it a bit. I think
38 discipline, learning to be -----
39
40 Q. Discipline?
41 A. Being at work on time, completing a task well,
42 communicating in a courteous manner to your fellow
43 employees and to customers, taking responsibility for your
44 actions. Those are, I think, very important tenets of
45 life.
46
47 Q. At the outset, what you are taught is to be a cog in a
48 machine, to be obedient, not to question the idiocy of the
49 job which you are doing, and to, basically, be a slave for
50 the Company; is that not what you are taught?
51 A. Absolutely not, absolutely not. I think that is a very
52 poor characterisation of what occurs in a restaurant.
53 I think the relationship that our management people have
54 with its employees, by and large, is a very positive one.
55 If anything, we encourage our young people, all of our
56 employees, to give us input on how we can make our
57 restaurant operate better.
58
59 Many of the advances, many of the improvements, that we
60 have in our procedures in the way that we serve our public
