Day 175 - 18 Oct 95 - Page 28
1 at that time of night.
2
3 Q. The training you say in the paragraph which expands the
4 bottom of the first page and top of the second page: "There
5 was a training film which showed a slovenly, dirty store,
6 where staff rushed round because their look out has spotted
7 an Area Manager in the area", and you said this is probably
8 nearer the truth of how stores operate. Can you just say
9 what you mean by that?
10 A. What I mean is I am not suggesting that McDonald's
11 stores are in a total mess and that they are only cleared
12 up when an Area Manager is in the area, but the point being
13 made by that film is that the store should always be
14 operating at a certain standard whether an Area Manager is
15 in the area or not, but the fact is that the store is run,
16 in my experience, staffing levels were inadequate and we
17 could not actually maintain all the standards and work the
18 rule book, but if an Area Manager was in the area, then by
19 a strange coincidence there would be more staff on that
20 shift.
21
22 You would walk on to a shift and you would see that, you
23 would wonder why there was so many people on that day, and
24 then a mysterious tip off would be announced by one of the
25 shift managers that an Area Manager, they had just found
26 out from Head Office, they had been tipped off, that an
27 Area Manager or some dignitary was going to come to the
28 store, and then we all had to rush around cleaning it up,
29 making it spick and span so that when they came there, they
30 found this high standard that McDonald's always claimed to
31 maintain.
32
33 But the fact was the store was not normally operated at
34 that level; it was only when someone came to visit it that
35 we went through this routine. We maintained the rules
36 depending on how many staff were there.
37
38 The standards of hygiene and all the rest of it depended on
39 how busy we were. If we got busy, then things like
40 cleanliness started to get put to the side, because what
41 was more important was to serve the customers. So jobs
42 would be put behind, floors would not get mopped, people
43 would not get their breaks till later, until that rush had
44 gone.
45
46 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Pause there. Yes.
47
48 MR. MORRIS: I was not going to ask any questions about holding
49 timing.
50
51 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I wanted to make sure I understood just what
52 was meant by that. It is not so much that I do not
53 understand holding time, but what your note of what
54 Mr. Whittle had said.
55
56 MS. STEEL: It is also in the first statement. I do not know
57 whether that is of any help or not.
58
59 MR. MORRIS: I was halfway down the page of the second page of
60 the statement.
