Day 196 - 06 Dec 95 - Page 13
1 you felt get expressed? Take us through it slowly. How
2 did it start?
3 A. The main problem I actually had is when we had a change
4 of Supervisor there became a personal conflict as well
5 where, before I had backing from a Supervisor of the things
6 we were doing and knowledge of what was going on, when
7 I had a new Supervisor he wanted practices stopped but he
8 still expected the same results, and there was a personal
9 clash between us as well.
10
11 Q. Who was that new Supervisor?
12 A. That would be Neil Skehel.
13
14 Q. Who was the previous Supervisor?
15 A. Mark Davies.
16
17 Q. You said he still expected the same results. What do you
18 mean by that?
19 A. Previous targets had always been high and the pressure
20 had always been on to achieve them, but within the confines
21 of the branch there always seemed to be two sets of rules:
22 One which would be the written rule which would actually be
23 in the manual that you did when you went on courses and
24 that type of thing. Then there would be another set we
25 used within the branch which I quote in there called
26 "tricks of the trade" which were things to help you to
27 achieve your goals and your targets, cutting on the labour,
28 food costs, those types of things. With the change of
29 Supervisor he wanted everything done by the book, but he
30 did not want the affect on the profit changed at all. So
31 the cost cutting things that we had been doing mentioned in
32 the statements were all expected to stop, but you were
33 still expected to hit the same figures and achieve the same
34 targets that were previously set.
35
36 Q. What were your complaints that you made and how did they
37 come out?
38 A. I was dissatisfied in the way I was being treated.
39 I felt that I was being victimized on a personal level for
40 one thing, being told to adhere by the book officially but
41 expected to still carry on in the same way. I actually
42 wanted to get a reaction from the company to do some sort
43 of stock because at the time, although I had actually got
44 another job and I had somewhere to go, at that particular
45 time I did not really want to leave the Company. I felt
46 I wanted to stay there and I wanted them to turn round and
47 come up with some sort of solution, possibly moving one or
48 both of us or reviewing the targets that were set, but that
49 was not the case.
50
51 Q. I am trying to find out the actual nuts and bolts of these
52 complaints. Who did you complain to and when?
53 A. I actually complained, when I first resigned it was to
54 Neil Skehel. Subsequently there would have been a meeting
55 with him and the Senior Supervisor which was John Atherton
56 and his immediate Supervisor whose name I cannot remember
57 at this particular time, which took place on the site of
58 the new drive-through that was being built at that time at
59 Colchester.
60
