Day 203 - 12 Jan 96 - Page 23
1 I made every effort in those conversations to ensure that
2 he knew that I supported him as a Store Manager. I wanted
3 to help him as a Store Manager and that is what I saw my
4 role as and so, hopefully, that is what he would have
5 thought.
6
7 Q. You sometimes have shouting matches between the two of you
8 in the hearing of other workers at the store, Colchester
9 store?
10 A. I do not recall having ever shouted at Ray.
11
12 Q. No, just conversations between you degenerating into
13 acrimonious arguments?
14 A. No.
15
16 Q. You do not recall any of those?
17 A. I do and I am saying that they did not.
18
19 Q. If you move over to page 3 of your statement, the working
20 time for a Manager or, in particular, you spent quite a lot
21 of time at the store you said, yes, coming into Colchester
22 store?
23 A. Yes.
24
25 Q. Ray Coton, you said, worked five days a week. Was that
26 from about 6.30 in the morning until about 7.00 in the
27 evening, on average?
28 A. No, not every day. There may have been occasions when
29 he would have worked those sorts of hours, but I would say
30 it was more like 9.00/5.00, 10.00/6.00, 6.00/4.00. That
31 was the way his schedule went. We had several
32 conversations about his management scheduling, his
33 scheduling of himself verses the scheduling of the people
34 who worked for him. Ray was not prepared to put the same
35 effort into the job that he expected the people beneath him
36 to put into the job. Often and unless, sort of, prompted,
37 he wanted to work -- he did not want to work Sundays, he
38 did not work sufficient closes and, of course, because it
39 is a hands-on system, managers are encouraged to work the
40 shifts such as from the open on a Saturday where it is
41 critical that the set up is done very well, or closes so
42 that he can see what happens on the closes and evaluate
43 those closes from an operational point of view, but to look
44 at the waste that maybe occur on the closes.
45
46 It is important that managers work all number of shifts,
47 every sort of type of shift and Ray was not scheduling
48 himself to do that when I took over as Supervisor -----
49
50 Q. Managers do not properly now, do they?
51 A. No.
52
53 Q. What record is there of the actual times that a Manager
54 works?
55 A. You know, it is at their discretion. They write their
56 schedules.
57
58 Q. There is no permanent record, is there, of the actual times
59 a Manager worked?
60 A. There is a permanent record of the hours they schedule
