Day 203 - 12 Jan 96 - Page 56
1 particular week, he had engaged the restaurant in extra
2 activities which had cost the store more money and,
3 consequently, the labour target would be exceeded, or
4 simply, you know, many -- any number of reasons, but that
5 was generally what the problem would be.
6
7 Q. Extra activities like what? Are we talking about extra
8 cleaning, extra marketing?
9 A. Like, maybe, I think in Colchester the best sort of
10 example would be -- it took, you know, maybe they asked a
11 few crew to stop on a bit later because it takes longer
12 than expected to clean up the shift, or I mean this sort of
13 thing used to happen a lot in Colchester, the filtering
14 machine would break, the filtering would not get done.
15 They would get behind. Crew would have to stay on at the
16 end of the shift or would be asked to stay on at the end of
17 the shift to catch up again. You know, closes were getting
18 out later than they should do if the people were
19 productive. You know, mostly, to be honest with you, it is
20 in relation to just basic day-to-day things in the
21 restaurant not going the way they should do.
22
23 Q. Not being finished as fast as you expected them to be
24 finished?
25 A. No, I do not think that is the point. I think the
26 point is that if a task is conducted inefficiently, such as
27 if a piece of equipment is not maintained, and you have to
28 clean it because it becomes messy quickly because there is
29 a fault on the equipment, then that creates additional
30 costs. The solution is to fix the machine in the first
31 place but, you know, if you see what I mean? So it might
32 be the filtering machine that gets blocked, oil spills all
33 over the floor. So, you know, there is -- an age is spent
34 cleaning it up and it has a negative impact on the cost of
35 running the shift and that can apply to many, many
36 different areas.
37
38 Q. Right, but if the machine is not fixed for some reason or
39 it is fixed and it breaks down again, you would not suggest
40 that he should just all that stuff dirty or just leave the
41 oil all over the floor?
42 A. Absolutely not. I would suggest, as I always suggest
43 to restaurant managers, that we look and try to identify
44 the cause of the problem and not just address the
45 symptoms. I would say that Mr. Coton managed by totally
46 and only addressing symptoms and not identifying causes of
47 problems.
48
49 MR. MORRIS: When you are looking for examples of bad management
50 as a Senior Supervisor -- as a Supervisor sorry, you were a
51 Supervisor, just say if any of these would be an example,
52 because you touched on these, later closes than expected?
53 A. First of all, I do not necessarily look for bad
54 practice as a Manager. I would like for good things. I
55 would go in with an open mind.
56
57 Q. If you found out when you go in with an open mind ------
58
59 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Why not just put: Would the following things
60 be bad practices?
