Zwischenbilanz (Pret A Manger)

So, here I am, after a year of writing, blogging, tweeting, surviving, recuperating and yet knowing I still disintegrate with “age” until the final crescendo that awaits us all, I do a stock-take on my life, my writings, my exposing Pret, my investigating deaths and lives of loved ones…

I want to thank those who cared, those who retweeted my bold writings, those in the background reading in silence, those who don’t know what to do with all this.

Many are investigating in the background, some are writing books and will take the credit for their “knowledge” on Pret, as we live in a copy & paste, 140 character society. We don’t know how to spell Encyclopedia, let alone know what it is or want to put in the work to learn, investigate, expose and risk a reputation that caters to fast-food, fast-thought. They will be fast forgotten.

I have recently created an index on my site and called it “The Most Comprehensive Website on Pret A Manger Anywhere on the Web“.

Because it is.

No other writings, book, website (apart from Pret’s website = facade itself) exists that gives insight into Pret like my expret.org site, after what I suffered. (Interview with my story at the bottom of this page).

I have presented Pret on a silver platter and learned a lot about people, this society and the attitudes that many on Twitter lament as #FirstWorldProblems.

People’s lives are ruined because their Vegan cookie has been withdrawn by Pret with the reason that Pret’s food team are “improving the recipe”. Other people aren’t so naive and the rumor floats around that the cookie wasn’t even vegan in the first place. My experience in Pret and their “imrpoving recipes” was that when items like the brownie disappeared for a while we where instructed to say to customers that the recipe is being improved. And when the cookie returned and I stocked up the displays, I suddenly was able to fill the counter with 4 in a row compared to 3 in a row before. That “improvement” means to shrink in size, okay, it certainly improved the bank account size of Pret.

Link

Other people’s lives in this First World are literally ruined after having lost their daughter and mother to hidden (unlabelled) allergens in Pret products.

My story should be known by now, if not, again, start with the interview at the bottom of this page.

My website is getting hacked regularly where “someone” from a certain hemisphere is trying to find ANYTHING on my site to get it shut down or via different ways get me penalized. Can the hacker at least come from the First World as well and get paid proper wages, or does the intruder have to be low paid as well as the regular frontline shop staff!? Please, do better whoever employs the geeks via different “middle-men”. WordPress finds excuses of course. Sometimes I sit at my computer at a quiet time of the day and only one visitor from a certain country is visiting my site, no other country is present, apart from myself, but WordPress doesn’t count my visit from my IP address. And I can watch LIVE as it happens where they mess with my site and pictures disappear, like Tweets that expose CEO Clive Schlee’s negligence etc. Sometimes I watch it as it happens and am in the live chat with the WordPress staff, pointing out what is happening as we speak…

The tricks and traps that Pret has dealt me with (I explain in my interview also on the Shadow Banning on Twitter…), just because they didn’t want to have a strong policy in place that protects bereaved employees, let alone people with disabilities. Then they tried everything to get rid of me. I still debate in my mind if my story is stuff for a thriller or a comedy. Probably both.

No matter how hard I worked and how successful I made shop after shop after shop, with my written track record on my work, if you become bereaved, disabled in any way, you are simply an inconvenience for a multi-million, by now multi-billion pound company.

Anyone who calls a company “ethical” because they give some left-over food to charity, or buy a house (after learning of Social Bite’s project) to have former short-term and young homeless people live in and work for Pret… and other “charity” Pret boasts about, anyone who calls this company ethical while CEO Clive Schlee, who also partly owns itsu and other businesses, gets £30 million in bonus while frontline staff barely reach £10 an hour… they need to do their own stock take on what ethical really means.

Mahatma Gandhi is attributed to have said the famous, and unfortunately true words: “There’s enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.”

The moment you turn from a robot into a human is the moment you die.

And the one thing I can say is, that there is nothing more liberating than becoming human.

THAT gives me the power and freedom to write…

धन्यवाद्

I worked at Pret A Manger for almost 10 years and survived systemic workplace bullying during bereavement that involved HR, the top leadership, HQ and even the now “retired” former CEO Clive Schlee. I declined 4 settlement offers if I am silent about my ordeal. But I rather starve and speak out to help others. For an overview of important blog entries of my experience with Pret, please visit “My Ordeal with Pret A Manger”. The little arrow to the right next to each heading will lead directly to the post.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote an article in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.

Interview:

Unless otherwise stated or linked to, this website and all writings within this site are the property of expret.org, poetrasblok.com, LateNightGirl.org and are protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws. Reproduction and distribution of my writings without written permission is prohibited.

Share this:

Like this:

Leave a Reply Cancel reply