Day 179 - 30 Oct 95 - Page 11


     
     1
     2   Q.   Did you attend any courses to train you to management
     3        positions?
     4        A.  I went on a Floor Managers' course at the Hamburger
     5        University.  It was a very strange experience.  Most of the
     6        time was taken up with videos and speeches congratulating
     7        the Company, rather than actually learning anything, and
     8        saying how wonderful it was to work at McDonald's.  It was
     9        a sort of brainwashing, in a way.
    10
    11   Q.   Did it help you in terms of working in the stores?
    12        A.  Not really.  It was very different from the ways that
    13        the stores actually worked.  It was basically just reading
    14        the Operations Manual and expecting everything to be done
    15        that way, which, in reality, it was not that way.
    16
    17   Q.   Why was it not that way?
    18        A.  Because to run the store the way the Operations Manual
    19        suggests, you would need far more staff on.  This would be
    20        the case if you had an important visitor; the store would
    21        be staffed at a level where everything could be carried out
    22        properly, but ---
    23
    24   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Pause there.
    25        A.  -- but at all other times -----
    26
    27   MR. MORRIS:  Sorry -- at all other times?
    28        A.  That would not be the case.
    29
    30   Q.   Did you ever attend any other -----
    31
    32   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I am sorry.  If you want me to remember this
    33        in several months' time when I come to write my judgment, I
    34        have to have a note of it.  So wait until you see I am
    35        coming to the end of my writing before you ask another
    36        question.  (Pause)  Yes.
    37
    38   MR. MORRIS:  Just one more question.  Did you ever do any other
    39        courses?
    40        A.  I went for a one day orientation to start the salaried
    41        management position.
    42
    43   Q.   Where was that?
    44        A.  In Sutton Coldfield; and that was basically introducing
    45        the Company to yourself and yourself to the Company; and
    46        that was a similar kind of thing, very self-congratulatory.
    47
    48   Q.   What was self-congratulatory?
    49        A.  The way it was presented, that McDonald's is
    50        wonderful.  Is difficult to explain.  It is like 
    51        brainwashing.  When you leave McDonald's, you feel it must 
    52        be like leaving the Army:  a big part of you is missing, 
    53        and it takes quite a while to re-adjust.
    54
    55   Q.   Going back to the Colchester store -- actually, there one
    56        thing I did not ask you, which is not in your statement.
    57        It has been said that the Colchester store was Store of the
    58        Year?
    59        A.  Yes.
    60

Prev Next Index