Day 150 - 07 Jul 95 - Page 43
1 sliding throughout the Company and particularly, obviously,
2 the stores that you now deal with as Regional Manager?
3 A. No problem.
4
5 Q. Would you expect to know if there was such a problem?
6 A. I visit restaurants two or three times a week now.
7 I would see if there were any problems.
8
9 Q. I have asked you about Colchester, but Leicester, just to
10 give some concretes examples, was it going on at Leicester,
11 running and sliding?
12 A. Not at all. Leicester was a very busy restaurant. It
13 was the busiest restaurant -- in fact, the week I was there
14 it broke the record week for, I think, sales in those
15 days. So, it was very busy restaurant. We could not have
16 done that by just running around inefficiently and
17 unco-ordinated. It took a lot of thought and process and,
18 having those, I think, 12 or 20 so people on the
19 restaurant, sorry, on the front counter area, if they are
20 all running around and sliding to their own volutions(?),
21 then they are going to be knocking into each other all the
22 time. It did not happen in the Leicester restaurant.
23
24 Q. Can I just ask you, when you were Area Supervisor at
25 Colchester, were there particular times of the day you
26 visited? What I am getting at here is, did you visit or
27 did you not visit during busy periods?
28 A. I visited at all different day periods, either from
29 7 o'clock in the morning before the store opened,
30 lunch-time, Saturdays, Sundays, through to finishing, you
31 know, starting at 4 o'clock in the evening and doing a
32 close with the rest of the staff there. So, I had a full
33 and broad appreciation of everything that was going on in
34 the restaurants.
35
36 Q. Is that is something that has continued over the years as
37 you have been a Manager?
38 A. For me personally?
39
40 Q. Yes, you personally.
41 A. Yes, it is. I would still work night shifts now to see
42 what is going on.
43
44 Q. While we are on the subject of safety, are there any
45 arrangements -- it maybe something you were personally
46 involved with, maybe not -- made for the supervision of new
47 crew members when they are going about their task when they
48 are not particularly experienced?
49 A. Yes. A good example would be the Clacton example where
50 we probably, in effect, have to double the number of people
51 on the payroll within three or so months. So (1) in order
52 to make sure that, I suppose, to look at the safety aspect
53 of it, hiring two or three people a week will make sure
54 that everyone can be looked after, and we would generally
55 pair them up with an experienced member of staff.
56
57 Q. Can I just stop you there. You say taking on two or thee
58 people; are you saying thereby that you would like it to be
59 restricted to about two or three people in order that they
60 can be supervised by an older, more experienced person, or
