Day 204 - 15 Jan 96 - Page 42
1 store consistently clean?
2 A. That is not correct, no.
3
4 Q. How can you explain what is written here, then?
5 A. That is one specific incident where it required a clean
6 up for a specific event.
7
8 Q. It says it was enormous, the amount of work needed was
9 enormous, and the preceding page does say that the upkeep
10 of administration and training in the store depends on more
11 oncoming audit raps and full fields than an ongoing drive,
12 which definitely implies it was not just a one-off
13 incident?
14 A. It may have been the case on that one-off incident at
15 that time, but it certainly was not the ongoing situation,
16 as I remember it. This performance review, again, as I
17 repeated before, was done when I was a fairly new Manager
18 and may have been the case on one or possibly two
19 occasions, but it is certainly not -- as I remember it,
20 generally when I was a Manager in that restaurant -- it is
21 certainly not the case right across the Company, now or
22 then.
23
24 Q. In the following review of January 1986, on page 30, it
25 says: "Operations is about looking after the customer in
26 terms of quality, service and cleanliness. These basics
27 have serious failings in Colchester at times, with
28 inadequate lobby cover, no attention to quality and poor
29 standards of cleanliness. Time and attention has been
30 spent recently in trying to improve back and front
31 procedures, but I am still not satisfied. As I have
32 mentioned above, attention to the lobby is poor and I have
33 on a number of occasions found it in a bad state."
34
35 The reality is that it is a consistent problem, is it not,
36 keeping the place clean whilst at the same time trying to
37 keep the labour costs down?
38 A. No, that is not the reality at all.
39
40 Q. Mr. Harney had the same problem with his store, did he not,
41 in Clacton, with keeping it clean?
42 A. Did he?
43
44 Q. If you look at his performance review, which is carried out
45 by you?
46 A. Where is this?
47
48 MR. JUSTICE BELL: 34A, behind Mr. Harney's statement.
49
50 MS. STEEL: On the second page of that.
51 A. Yes.
52
53 Q. "Cleanliness. This is the store's weak point. Make sure
54 the matrix is not constricted at key points in the day,
55 particularly the open. Quality of closes is poor. The
56 outside of the store has historically been poor." It is a
57 consistent problem, is it not?
58 A. I think.
59
60 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am having difficulty with knowing what
