Day 124 - 10 May 95 - Page 11


     
     1        communication that takes place in a restaurant does not so
     2        much talk about what the Corporation does, but that place
     3        of business, how well they can serve their customers.  If
     4        they do a better job in serving their customers, the
     5        customers want to come back.  We are able to build the
     6        business.  They are able to then advance and progress
     7        because the business grows.
     8
     9        I think, as I indicated in previous testimony, the
    10        discipline, those skills that you learn, are highly
    11        translatable.  They are highly sought after by other
    12        businesses.  Over the years, I cannot tell you how many
    13        times I have run into people that have indicated to me how
    14        positive they feel about their experience at McDonald's;
    15        how some of those early experiences that they have had have
    16        served them well later on in life in their chosen
    17        professions.
    18
    19        It is not something -- what I am telling you is not
    20        something that is just hearsay.   I experience it in my own
    21        personal life.  I know, I have had first-hand knowledge, of
    22        people that have greatly benefited from some, you know,
    23        some of the things that I have mentioned.  I think that
    24        if -----
    25
    26   Q.   If they go into business or something like that?
    27        A.  This may sound a bit self-serving, but I would say that
    28        if more managers, or people of responsibility, would take
    29        the time with young people, to communicate to them about
    30        some of basic values that we, you know, would treat as
    31        necessary, basic things, for many young people, they are
    32        not basic things, I think the world would be a better
    33        place, the workplace would be a better place.
    34
    35   Q.   The basic values which you teach are obedience, yes?  To do
    36        as you are told?
    37        A.  You know, I think you are stretching it a bit.  I think
    38        discipline, learning to be -----
    39
    40   Q.   Discipline?
    41        A.  Being at work on time, completing a task well,
    42        communicating in a courteous manner to your fellow
    43        employees and to customers, taking responsibility for your
    44        actions.  Those are, I think, very important tenets of
    45        life.
    46
    47   Q.   At the outset, what you are taught is to be a cog in a
    48        machine, to be obedient, not to question the idiocy of the
    49        job which you are doing, and to, basically, be a slave for
    50        the Company; is that not what you are taught? 
    51        A.  Absolutely not, absolutely not.  I think that is a very 
    52        poor characterisation of what occurs in a restaurant. 
    53        I think the relationship that our management people have
    54        with its employees, by and large, is a very positive one.
    55        If anything, we encourage our young people, all of our
    56        employees, to give us input on how we can make our
    57        restaurant operate better.
    58
    59        Many of the advances, many of the improvements, that we
    60        have in our procedures in the way that we serve our public

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