Day 203 - 12 Jan 96 - Page 19
1 yes, there is no Fs on the record for Colchester High
2 Street that I can see at the moment.
3
4 MR. MORRIS: Or C minus.
5
6 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That assessment, if accurate, is quite
7 inconsistent with your assessment almost as soon as you got
8 in there, the May and November assessments of Mr. Davis.
9 Just let me make a note. Yes?
10
11 MR. MORRIS: In fact, this may be worth noting, on page 54, the
12 review in May 1990, in the third paragraph: "You have
13 developed into a very good Store Manager". Can I just ask
14 you a question? Do managers have their bad periods when
15 they are running stores where they do not perform quite as
16 well as other times?
17 A. Yes.
18
19 Q. They do. In paragraph 4 of your statement ---
20 A. Yes.
21
22 Q. -- you say in the last sentence on that page: "I had,
23 therefore, gained the impression that Ray Coton was not a
24 good Manager even before I became his Supervisor". So
25 would it be true to say as soon as you became Supervisor,
26 Senior Supervisor, you came with preconceived ideas about
27 Ray Coton and the situation in the store?
28 A. Not really, no, because, as I said, I formed this
29 opinion, but I think that the most important thing for me
30 to do as a new Supervisor in the Colchester High Street was
31 to evaluate it now that I was actually the Supervisor. So,
32 I evaluate it and see what was actually going on and how
33 I felt about it and what I thought needed to be done about
34 the situation.
35
36 In fact, if anything, at the outset of being a Supervisor
37 of Colchester restaurant, I was aware that I had formed an
38 opinion of the operation of the store and of the way that
39 I think -- no, it is only in retrospect that I formed an
40 opinion of the way Mark supervised the restaurant -- but, I
41 was more than aware that there was potential for conflict
42 when I took over the restaurant, and went out of my way to
43 diffuse any opportunities for conflict, bent over backwards
44 to treat Ray with respect.
45
46 Q. What was wrong with the way Mark Davis supervised the
47 store?
48 A. I do not really know. I have not been -----
49
50 Q. You have formed an opinion since?
51 A. One of the things that I have said in my statement is
52 that as I was going to open a fifth restaurant, I felt that
53 Ray was to some extent inconsistent and needed a lot of
54 help from Mark. When I was a restaurant Manager, initially
55 Mark gave me a tremendous amount of help, but there came a
56 point in time where he did not need to help me very much at
57 all, and I worked as a Store Manager on my own, sort of,
58 without support and got eight As in my full field, without
59 any support from Mark Davis whatsoever.
60
