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.

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