A review from a current employee on Pret’s office management from 23. Jan. 2019. Some people continue to work in Pret and it seems like they’re crying out via Employment Review sites. And as many current and former Pret staff know my website, they know I will add any of those kinds of reviews as Pret is checking my website. Yes, they are, I’m not gonna tell the reader how I know. But thank you Pret for stopping by again! I hope you find some useful things, not to better cover up what you do and sweep under the carpet again, but to truly change how staff are treated behind the facade. It may even save a life! Thank you.
Quote:
“Great brand, poor management”
“Poor management resulting in poor decisions. Office culture is working really really long hours. No work life balance whatsoever and constant office politics.
Spend more time speaking to the teams and find out what’s going on.”
So, this current employee loves the brand, even has a positive outlook for Pret, and remains an employee, but does not improve of the CEO Clive Schlee. I have to mention here that Pret’s HQ has always been an open space office, even the CEO sits at a desk not hidden away in a closed office. And he speaks to people. This looks good and transparent. So, there is exposure, and the office and people are visible, but even in an open space office you can still play your games and have your pretenses.
And like I mentioned in the Manchester Quote in yesterday’s blog entry that the CEO himself explained in an interview posted on YouTube, that he “really knows his people”. And again, that’s why he has no excuse how the atmosphere in Pret is, be it the harsh, stressful and bullying work environment in shops, or the politics and favouritism in HQ, as well as the offices in other countries. One angry reviewer exploded in late October 2018 about the discrimination of staff in the USA: “Go back to the UK, Pret– I have never worked in such a toxic, unprofessional corporate environment. Employees relocating from UK were given preferential treatment, better salaries for equal experience…”
And also, true reviews will keep coming in until Pret really becomes what they claim to be as supposedly such a caring and great company. I recently wrote about suspected fake reviews (Oh, oh I sound like Mr. Twitter Champ now!). But I analyzed some reviews that look fake in “Pret A Manger Reviews“.
I worked at Pret A Manger 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.
Unless otherwise stated or linked to, this website and all writings within this site are the property of poetrasblok.com, LateNightGirl.org, LateNightGirl.page.tl and are protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws. Reproduction and distribution of my writings without written permission is prohibited.
This new review from 22. Jan. 2019 gets my attention because of the discrimination I have experienced after having become bereaved, and through the bullying from superiors via HR mentally very unwell. I was shouted at, suppressed, even as a responsible leader for shifts and teams excluded from meetings (even a Christmas dinner in 2017 after I just returned from Germany when my father woke from his coma). I was laughed at, one manager said to me after I was “dumped” into his shop due to the open bullying by another line manager, I was told by my new boss that he “doesn’t want the area to feel sorry” for him anymore … etc. etc. etc.
I cover this in “Discrimination: Physical vs. Mental“. Because I was in the middle of a grievance appeal’s hearing where the grievance that was raised by an HR advisor on behalf of me, was entirely rejected, even though witness statements of the previous line manager shouting at me, and me breaking down, and him sending me out to the shop floor in a broken down state. I was like in a mental war-zone, stumbling through a mine field being “shot” at from all angles while trying to find out what happened to my brother. Regular readers know the story that is spread throughout this website and will turn into a chronological book.
But this new review from a Manchester Pret shop needs to be highlighted and posted.
Quote (I leave any mistakes in to keep it in their own words, bold added by me):
“bad management. rota’s only done 1 week at a time
need to hire different managers, ones that respect staff. the ones there now, shout at staff, don’t understands there cicumstances or disabilities”
I wish I could tell that person that Pret’s management is like this across the board and that the top leadership, CEO, HR etc. know exactly what’s going on, but they are in a bubble up in HQ and flying out to Dubai, Las Vegas, Austria for their parties, and using former homeless people for PR.
Many employees, especially on the shop floor and kitchens assume that the top leadership are not aware of how managers are, they don’t understand yet that the fish stinks from its head. I used to give Pret the benefit of the doubt too much, while deep down knowing and understanding the principles of leadership and how it trickles down from the top, that leaders LEAD by example, including bad example!
That is why the CEO Clive Schlee does his smiley front, compensates the harsh work environment by using former homeless people, visits shops regularly etc. He has no excuse whatsoever to claim that he doesn’t know what’s going on. He always puts his foot in his mouth and clearly showing that he knows his people, quote from an interview on YouTube, from 0:38 onward:
“… overall it conveys a message that the Pret A Manger boss REALLY knows his people, and knows who they are, and not just what they do.”
Yes, he does! And HR know their people, too, that’s why they continued to place me under poor and suppressive management EVEN during the stressful grievance hearings and traumatic bereavement, in the hopes I’d resign. But even 4 settlements didn’t do it, so they eventually fired me. And I survived to publicly write about this toxic company.
I worked at Pret A Manger 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.
Unless otherwise stated or linked to, this website and all writings within this site are the property of poetrasblok.com, LateNightGirl.org, LateNightGirl.page.tl and are protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws. Reproduction and distribution of my writings without written permission is prohibited.
I want to shorten some reviews here from the “Pret Poets Society” post to only link to Assistant Managers, General Managers and HQ Staff reviews.
The poor management style that so many Team Members complain about in Pret is enabled from the very top senior leadership and HR, who know exactly how their leaders are. If there is no clear leadership strategy in place, a zero tolerance on bullying and when a large part of Managers are poorly trained, discriminating and especially profit driven, than it becomes very clear that the fish stinks from its head. No company’s top boss can close their eyes and play innocent.
CEO Clive Schlee prides himself on how well he knows his people in this video, and that is why he has no excuse on how the Team Members, as well as Managers are treated!He is not able to say that he doesn’t know as he also visits shops regularly and makes himself approachable to TMs, who often complain directly to him or via his Twitter, risking getting fired for publicly outing their distress. But he does not change the terrible culture as the money keeps pouring in and he pockets £30 Million from the JAB take-over.
Because Pret’s CEO presents himself as this approachable top boss which impresses many, especially young shop based staff, it is like Clive Schlee plays the “good cop” while Managers are the “bad cop”. But both have one goal, make as much money as possible that they can squeeze out of their workers.
When I was going through the darkest, most hellish time in grief and on top being bullied by superiors, I was continuously being placed under bullying managers who supposedly cared. When the shouting didn’t work, they turned their bullying more subtle, by withholding information that I needed as a leader, not inviting me to leaders’ meetings and even Christmas dinner, holding me low with menial tasks, giving me the minimum hours even though I asked for more hours etc. In my traumatic state it took me many months to realize that this was on purpose.Clive Schlee and HR know their managers and placed me accordingly in hopes I would resign, as I was offered four settlements if I resign.There was no care nor interest to have me under empathetic or skilled leadership.
This leadership style is then continued, trickling down through the ranks. So, TMs try to rise up the ladder to escape the horrendous pressure and stress, because they see how managers and even Team Leaders sit in the office. And the incentive of managers getting huge bonuses paid while stressing their staff.
I have seen it countless times how good TMs who were very passionate, kind and hard working changed and got corrupted, once they started moving into management levels and attached themselves to this crowd of “leaders”.
I never wanted to be a manager even though I applied for Assistant Manager roles, but only to escape the bullying culture in shops. I was often asked through the years by many TMs why I wasn’t a manager, as I worked professionally, with skill and knowledge, and many customers often approached me with a query thinking that I was the manager until I pointed them to the plain clothes GM or AM. But I answered the question of why I was not a manager, very simple because I could not do what managers are pressured to do, cut hours and squeeze everything out of teams to maximize profit. And my TMs agreed and understood, as I was always helping my teams, encouraging them, supporting them, even when I was hectic myself at times.
I am glad to not be under such toxic “leadership” anymore!
The worst management often are Managers who come from the outside, from other places like Costa or Nero. They then start straight away as Assistant Managers for a few weeks before being “graduated” as GMs. They work a few weeks or months in the kitchen and do various jobs, but this does not help as they have not been at the very bottom level as a Team Member. But even Managers who started as TMs often turn very sour as I worked with two GMs who were some of the most difficult Managers I had.
The different job roles and how to progress on the ladder I cover in detail in the Pret Poets Society post. But as a short cut briefly:
The hierarchic order to rise up
Starting as TM
then HFC, Barista or TMT (or any other new job role Pret comes up with)
then as FL or KL
then as AMF or AMK
and finally on shop level as the GM.
Beyond this and outside of the shop it goes into area management levels / Operations Manager (OPs).
There are two types of Assistant Managers, as the shop in itself is like a business, and so is the kitchen. In larger busy shops there is the Assistant Manager for the shop floor (AMF), and the Assistant Manager for the kitchen (AMK). Smaller, less busy shops don’t have an AMF and sometimes not even an AMK to save on payroll costs. But this burdens down the Team Leaders as GMs often don’t care, are incapable to even do the ordering. When I returned from holiday many times, the shop stock room was a complete mess, over-ordered or missing stock because the GM filled in for my role and couldn’t do the ordering properly. Initially this was very shocking but also seems the norm. But when I as the Team Leader made a mistake on the ordering, there was immediate trouble from the Manager. No mercy while they themselves couldn’t even do the ordering.
Regarding the Operations Managers (OPs) for the areas, I am not concerned with them whose job it is to pressure the shop GMs, to pressure the FLs/KLs, to pressure the Teams. The typical pyramid of hierarchy trickling down with this “leadership” of fear management to reach higher “productivity” and profit. OPs like to sit in the pub during lunch time, visit some shops here and there to intimidate the hard working teams. They fly out to Dubai or if in the USA to Las Vegas, and throw their parties and receive their immense bonuses. So, I am not concerned with OPs managers who mostly don’t give a toss.
The following Reviews are just those who outed themselves as Assistant Manager, GM, HQ staff and who give an insight into upper and senior management from OPs to HQ.
The Reviews / Complaints
Leaving all mistakes in the reviews to keep it in their own words
and starting with the most recent reviews.
In each job role I highlight a few reviews that really hit the nail on the head.
AMF / AMK
20. Dec. 2017 London “Avoid working there – Too much pressure working there , company expects you to do all your job within the time you are schedule but it is impossible , you will end up working hours for free, no work life balance at all , they have he mistery shipper but it is all a fake thing you can not control , the standards are so high the only thing it will drive is you stress everyday . Don’t work there . Cons: Extra hours not paid”
26. May 2017 NYC “Pure Misery – The kitchen staff is treated like slaves. They are expected to do the impossible. The upper management is a bunch of heartless, evil British monsters that take credit for all the positives and assign blame for all the negatives. Quit your jobs and go back to England and stay there.”
11. Dec. 2013 NYC “Promotions bases on politics, inconsistency In polices , long hours”
09. Oct 2012 London“Too much pressure and managers with poor interpersonal skills. Respect your team, be patient and keep cool under pressure. Be fair to your team members.”
Highlighted Review:
19. Nov. 2014 London “Worst company to work for – Pret was the best company 10 years ago, they were more about the people and it was beat place to work. now the company is just about the profit also it is run like mafia organisation where it is about who you know, the team member are over worked and managers are always working with fear, the way the company is going it will not last long.
Get back to basic, care about the team and always listen to the little people, also be open and get rid of some top management who are so corrupt.”
GM
07. Juny 2018 A former Senior Manager’s response to my review:
03. Feb. 2018 “High demands not in line with pay, lack of support, inconsistent training, stressful/poor work life balance”
Highlighted Review:
11. Mar. 2017 “Pret A Manger Reality – Long hours, inexperience Operation Managers.
Companhy values have been lost along do way, bonus scheme not very fair.
Pay raises no fair either, You don’t get reward for results and work ethic, just if you have a close relationship with your Operation Manager, you are the new hot of the month.
Listen to your people more closely, massive turnover on Pret Managers at the moment and everyone just ignoring the reality, huge unhappiness amoung the managers.
Create and fair and competive process for development.
Opportunity Network for Pret employees, just another flawless (meant flawed) tool at pret, most of the vacancies have people already for them, they want to create an illusion you can develop yourself.
Focus on team members it’s essential, but managers dictated the success on your shops, and drive passion to the team.
HR doesn’t protect the managers.
PIP, pret Partners only people, whom have friends already in, not related if you can contribute to the company, just based on relationships.”
(NOTE: HR doesn’t protect anyone unless it suits Pret’s business.)
15. Nov. 2016 NYC “Toxic, low class, unprofessional culture – Racist, non-inclusive environment that upper management and hr are fully aware of but ignore.” (NOTE: worth reading this review in full!)
Highlighted Review:
25. May 2016 USA “Very racist upper management. They make you work 60 hours per week and they don’t pay you for it (just basic salary). They don’t appreciate your work no matter how good you are. Tendency to promote british managers than american ones.
Advise to Management: Open your mind towards american managers. stop racism that is happening to workers. Get involved with the employees and don’t let the operational managers act as they own the people.”
Highlighted Review:
31. Oct. 2015 NYC “Horrible training, too many lies. Training sucks, people are treated like crap. Upper management do not care about you, will never recommend this company. Bottom line as a British company they treat employees as machines, they don’t care about how they feel, expect too much for too little. Horrible environment. Treat people with respect and appreciate their hard work. Stop using your British mentality when it comes to deal with people. You’re people are horrible at this.”
20. Apr. 2015 Chicago, IL “Manager- horrible upper management, unrealistic goals, promotions based on politics. Favoritism with management – Hiring is based on looks – All push with no support – No integrity – A lot of show and dance for support center and president/ceo Your employees will respect you if you offer genuine support. It is all about what your shop looks like when the CEO is in town. Stop favoriting managers, no one respects you for it.”
01. Feb. 2014 “Great company in risk of ruin! Please get the bullies out and revive Pret to its former glory. Used to be the most amazing company to work for, a job to be proud of. Now your people work in fear…..its time to listen!”
19. Dec. 2017 London Former IT Analyst: “Manipulative and exploitative approach to employees as owners and senior management concerned about profit margin only. People are taken into account only if it makes a good PR. Genuinely fake and dishonest company.”
28. Feb. 2017 NYC Former Purchasing Director: “One of the oddest work experiences. Worked their during a transition period – so company going in one direction and then the opposite.”
I worked at Pret A Manger 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.
Unless otherwise stated or linked to, this website and all writings within this site are the property of poetrasblok.com, LateNightGirl.org and are protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws. Reproduction and distribution of my writings without written permission are prohibited.
I posted this Quote of the Day which I have been doing on and off since around May 2018, but today’s “quote” I posted a few hours before I learned today’s news of a second death from a Pret A Manger product. Even though I am not surprised at Pret’s negligence and slow reaction until this became public, I am utterly shaken at these news. Devastated and shocked!
“They expect you to follow six key points of production and have passion in making items. When you follow this they then moan that you are to slow and need to hurry up as everyone in a Pret kitchen says choppy choppy which is the worst thing because it only makes you less motivated.”
My comment: Yes, this is very true, and the reason for this is that leaders in the shop, but especially in the kitchen under harsh management are pushing people to their limits to then be promoted themselves. A typical “kissing upwards, and kicking downwards” bullying behaviour in large companies. In Pret this is rampant as can be seen in the Staff Complaints via the link on the bottom, but Pret is next to nothing when it comes to PR and the public is lulled in to believe Pret is kind to their staff. Well …
Unless otherwise stated or linked to, this website and all writings within this site are the property of poetrasblok.com, LateNightGirl.org and are protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws. Reproduction and distribution of my writings without written permission are prohibited.
“GET REALISTIC and stop punishing your hard working teams.
Calm down and take a step back – proper communication is key, over-reacting doesn’t help anyone nor does assigning blame before even fixing a problem.
The manager is so rude. They treat their employees as slaves. It would be good if they educate their staff to treat workers (fair, well, good, better?), they are aggressive and badly educated.
… not worth if you have a manager who shouts at you every five minutes.
Managers are very bossy and unprofessional, a bit of exploiting. Be honest and kind.
Attitude of the manager towards the employees. No understanding to empathy.” …
Yep, no understanding to empathy. I survived being bullied during bereavement which was already immensely traumatic how I lost my brother. I was then manipulated, gaslighted, exploited and taken advantage of in my work and aim to better work conditions. To top it, I was then fired while my dad just came out of his coma in intensive care, still hooked on the breathing machine and tubes. I was dismissed two onths after Clive Schlee, CEO labeled me his “late night girl” (late night emails to Pret, friends, counselors out of trauma often drunk) further stepping on my dignity.
I wrote it somewhere else already that Pret with their shiny facade and well oiled PR(et) machine can meet me in the middle of their sugar coated look. Pret can do the PR and I do the ET. They do Public Relations and I Establish Truth with the quotes of the Review websites, YouTube etc. and my own traumatic experience.
Unless otherwise stated or linked to, this website and all writings within this site are the property of poetrasblok.com, LateNightGirl.org and are protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws. Reproduction and distribution of my writings without written permission are prohibited.
This is another mouthful of a review which I have also experienced in my 10 years countless times:
“I’ve worked with Pret on and off for about a year, in 4 different stores all in different environments. … I enjoyed the buzz within stores, the sounds, smells and great atmosphere for customers. … I found that the management, especially team leaders, were highly criticaland didn’t understand the concept of re-training if you made a mistake; instead of explaining what went wrong and how to do something a different/better way, they would stop you and completely go over everything, but would be so condescending doing it that you wouldn’t take on board what they had said, and would often punish you, whether it was to take away your bonus or make you spend more time doing mediocre “training” on an iPad. …
The culture within the company speaks of growth and personal development, but all they seem to do is try to create robots that operate at 100mph and have no personality. … I’ve seen a TMT (trainer) shouted at because he hadn’t turned the kitchen radio on (it was broken), I’ve been shouted at because I wasn’t fast enough on coffee, all because after 5 years of being a barista in other chains, and independents, I refuse to re heat milk as it is disgusting and burns it. Apparently a few seconds to empty a jug or periodically rinse it is illegal and I deserve to be shouted at. The team leader that time then threw a tantrum and started cleaning every jug saying that if i was that bothered I shouldn’t be a barista, I should work as a potwash. …
The amount of times I was expected to stay on after my Rota’d hours UNPAID mounts up to almost a full week of work. If you refused to they would take your bonus and sometimes issue disciplinaries. Yet, if the shift is delayed because someone had a late break or we are short staffed or something didnt get done at the right time, it’s the team leaders fault! They often spend hours doing the banking, I’ve worked as a team leader at other companies and banking 6 tills takes 45 mins to an hour, not 3 hours!”
That’s true. The banking goes quick, especially when you are experienced. I always made it a point to be out with my team working together WITH them, not sit in the office letting them sweat alone out there.
Quote of the Day:
“I’d sacrifice a paid break and a free lunch for a decent environment to work in where I’m not shouted at daily, and made to feel sub human.”
Concise list of chosen “Quotes of the Day” taken from the Staff Complaints to highlight the common thread of the problem in all of Pret in different countries and cities.
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
“Forced happiness…management tends to have a patronising approach to employee, and a customer service way that request people to show a “fake” happiness.”
I got in trouble when I didn’t smile at times after the Mystery Shopper mentioned my lack of smile. What the “Misery” Shopper didn’t know (and probably didn’t care about anyway) was that I just buried my brother and my managers had no mercy on me.
But even before that, I had a cold once and coughed while serving customers, and the Misery Shopper wrote this report after which my then line manager had me in the office, giving me a good telling off.
Side note, Pret staff are not paid sick leave unless they have a sick note from 1 week sickness onward, the first 2 days are not paid *cough*:
Magnifying the small print (or press ctrl & + until you can read the comment, to decrease size again ctrl & – ).
The Misery Shopper commented: “Team member should smile at customers and may not work when ill, as team member was coughing whilst serving me and was therefore not feeling cheerful enough to smile that day.”
Amazing observation. I also wasn’t cheerful enough to smile when my brother died AND Pret A Manger bullied me during bereavement. What now dear Misery Shopper?!
One GM would hold a meeting in the kitchen and tell us team to leave our problems at home and that our smile is part of our uniform (while he never smiled during customer service).
PLUS
” This job can annihilate every piece of humanity inside of you. … you are required to have the widest fake smile on earth, highly pitched voice and again be as fast as possible, its all a race. … You will loose everything that makes you human.”
PLUS
“One of the things that I absolutely hated about working at pret, was the fact that management wanted you to act like you were were having fun and smile at all times.”
PLUS
“extremely rude co workers, unprofessional management, not properly trained however expected to know what you’re doing and smile while doing it.”
PLUS
“Minimum salary for everyday smiling … We have to be smiling a being polite to a bunch of unpolite people.”
AND
“Manipulative and exploitative approach to employees as owners and senior management concerned about profit margin only. People are taken into account only if it makes a good PR. Genuinely fake and dishonest company.” Former IT Analyst reviewing Head Office, Dec. 2017
ETC. ETC. …
FAKE happiness; FORCED happiness; FAKE smile; Pret-ense; EMOTIONAL labour; SMILE while sick; SMILE while bereaved; NO MERCY, smile for the millions that Pret’s CEO is pocketing and the thousands upon thousands of £$€ the top leadership reap in bonuses.
@Pret, it’s your turn to smile and keep your PR(et) machine working!
Selected “Quotes of the Day” taken from the complied list of Staff Complaints to highlight the common thread of the problem in all of Pret in different countries and cities.
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
Can’t help but appreciating this reviewer having some much needed humour!
“Why you was in the fridge for more than 45 seconds?
If you work in Pret you have to know how to deal with a lot of pressure, they will repeat 10-15 times per hour(I’m not exaggerating) to be faster at all team members, the supervisors ask motivation for everything, either if you are just fixing your pants.”
NOTE: True, this reviewer is not exaggerating, micromanagement, control, pressure non-stop.
Quote of the Day:
“You should probably consider buying industrial machines to make sandwiches instead of focusing on exploitation East-European employees.”
Concise list of chosen “Quotes of the Day” taken from the Staff Complaints to highlight the common thread of the problem in all of Pret in different countries and cities.
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
Pret staff in the UK and elsewhere should do the same as Pret staff in the USA have done, go to court to reclaim missing pay: Pret A Manger settles overtime wage claimsof 4000 employees!
Several Quotes of this Day:
“Keep track of your own wages – left with more than £100 owed to me which I had to claim back!”
NOTE: Only too frequent that staff have to chase their wages. I had to chase countless times, even after I left I was missing money.
“Payroll Department and managment weren’t great at keeping on top of my hours – had to create own spreasheet to keep track. They made it so complicated to claim back money I was owed and I was made to feel like I was in the wrong and spoken to rudely.”
NOTE: That’s what I did as well, constantly writing down extra hours, keeping check if it was paid… very tiring. And it’s a very clever tactic for them to put the blame back on you and then making it so complicated for you to doubt yourself and give up pursuing the pay, trying to make you feel like you are the one making the mistake. I had that several times as well. But when I went through trauma and grief their behaviour was very damaging and hurtful. What they forgot is, that people become strong again, regaining their mental health and then openly speak about it.
“Had to deal with rude and incompetent payroll who were getting their own facts and figures wrong and never apologised for missing 16 hours off my pay. You can never plan your life because your rota comes out in 2 week increments at best and less than 1 week at worst. There is no structure or consistency for part-timers”
NOTE: Lucky you that the rota came out in 2 weeks or 1 week, most of the time the rota isn’t on display the DAY BEFORE your new working week! And apologising won’t happen, if they would apologise it would open a can or worms for them as blaming downwards is a typical behaviour. The tactic is to make you feel like the bad one to back off and be silent. In my case it backfired and did the opposite.
“Payroll Department – hire people who can actually work with numbers and have good customer service skills. It was a nightmare dealing with the department and having to explain myself over and over again.”
NOTE: This is not just the payroll department’s issue when they have to fix the mess the managers make, it is the reoccurring issue of placing incompetent people at management levels, not training them and then pressuring the managers only for targets and profits, forcing them to cut corners everywhere they can. I’ve seen and experienced it countless times and it is visible in all the staff reviews/complaints gathered here.
Managers have to sign a gazillion rules, one which came in only in around 2010/11 after complaints that there are hours missing from the wages non-stop. A new rule had to be signed where managers have to make sure that they would pay the workers according to the hours they worked. This rule was only implemented for Pret to cover themselves. But the missing pay kept going on, and as seen in last weeks review, keeps going on. How can this be a coincidence?
So, on one hand managers are blamed when things go wrong since they have to sign countless rules. And on the other hand they are so swamped with micromanaging tasked and pressured for profits, making it harder by not being trained and worse even, incompetent, that they can not do the job right. Countless staff complaints and my experience tell of this nightmare management style.
On Christmas Eve 2015, which was a Thursday where the wages are being send to HQ for the following week’s pay, one line manager had the audacity to not pay me the full day of 8 hours for that Christmas Eve day. He lied and said that he missed this special deadline due to Christmas deadlines being different, and yet my colleague, a team leader double checked with me my hours and was about to pay me, when the line manager walked in. The manager must have stopped my colleague to send my hours through and just “missed” to pay me for this Thursday.
That wasn’t enough of disrespect and “borrowing” from my earned wages, he even went a step further to ask me to remind him the following Monday (Christmas bank holiday where the shop would be closed!) to pay me the 8 hours. As I was already in conversation with an HR advisor about another issue, I just passed this on and they dealt with this. Because I was in the middle of a stressful grievance appeals against a former line manager who bullied me with the help of HR, and I was still coming to terms about my brother’s death whose first anniversary just happened weeks before, I had no strength to raise a grievance.
In hindsight I understand how rampant it is for wages to not be paid in Pret, for it to even be “spread out” over time so they can meet the targets. My first manager (this was 2008!) “forgot” to pay me 2 full days = 14 hours. When I approached him about it he embarrassingly apologized, but then had the audacity to ask me if he can repay the 14 hours 2 hour per week!! I was gobsmacked that he tried to just reach his business target by spreading MY money over weeks for which I already worked for!! Also for wages to be kept unpaid, especially if you keep missing hours you have to chase. If a problem persists, one wonders WHY this problem persists, especially when it comes to money.
If there is Wage Theft in Pret and elsewhere, UK Law should have a look at Wage Theft like other countries do. Australia has in parts already criminalized wage theft. Employers can either repay the missing wages or face jail.
Concise list of chosen “Quotes of the Day” taken from the Staff Complaints to highlight the common thread of the problem in all of Pret in different countries and cities.
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
Concise list of chosen “Quotes of the Day” taken from the Staff Complaints to highlight the common thread of the problem in all of Pret in different countries and cities.
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
Concise list of chosen “Quotes of the Day” taken from the Staff Complaints to highlight the common thread of the problem in all of Pret in different countries and cities.
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
Collected “Quotes” from the comprehensive list of Pret Staff Complaints which are EXACT quotes linked from various Employment Review websites and YouTube as well as my own story regarding Pret A Manger on my Blog here. I left any mistake in the reviews to keep it in their own words.
When customers who are so impressed with Pret because they only see the outside, the facade through the PR(et) machine, when they ask Pret about these complaints, they are too easily sweet-talked into believing that this is just an unfortunate exception. But the truth will always come to the surface, no matter how long it takes.
.
Click on ANY of the below reviews and read the same from different years, even days ago and different countries, in a nutshell: bullying, discriminating management, over worked, missing pay etc.
There are also a lot of complaints regarding being overworked for extra time but not being paid for it. I can verify this as I had to chase my missing hours for years! Pret Staff in the UK and elsewhere should do what over 4000 Pret staff did in the U.S. have done regarding missing pay.
This review from a former London TM from 13. Aug. 2018 makes this very clear. I called this “Quote of the Day” entry the “Wage Watchers” Program in Pret.
#04 Threat A Manger “Very bad management. They treat you like a slave. You have zero value for them. … They threa[t] us and show the door if we don’t work very fast.”
#05 Pret A Fear “Please get the bullies out. … Now your people work in fear.”
#06 Pret A Mistake “Horrible place they shout at you all the time for any little mistake.”
#08 Pret A Blackmail “Your subjected to emotional blackmail and serious labor issues”
#09 Corrupt A Manager “Worst company to work for … the team member are over worked and managers are always working with fear.”
#10 Kiss A Bum “Managers treat you poorly, they are racist and discriminating. If you want to get promotion you have to sleep with someone and kiss manager’s bum.”
#11 Pret A Squeeze “Management is trying to squeeze you like a lemon …. no weekends off, not even 2 days off together.”
#12 PR(et) A Manipulative “Manipulative and exploitative approach to employees … Genuinely fake and dishonest company.”(Former IT Analyst’s review on Pret’s Head Office)
#19 Pret A Machine “Horrible training, too many lies … people are treated like crap. Upper management do not care about you … they treat employees as machines … Horrible environment.”
#20 Bad A Manager “Bad management and not taking care about people … do not give power to irresponsible people”
#21 Pret A Slave Stressful and dominating … Leaders treat you like slaves.
#22 Pret A HaRsh “HR problems, employee is treated really badly…”
#23 Pret A Smile “you are required to have the widest fake smile on earth”
#24 Rude A Manager “Management and some members of staff were extremely rude and patronising”
#25 Pret A Bad “A shame that such a big company is becoming so bad day by day.”
#26 Pret A Push “Little training was just pushed at the deep end as soon as I started the job”
continued below…
#27 Pret A Manager-Ex: “I am an ex GM. I walked out last year as I couldn’t take the way we had to treat TMs to achieve ever increasing demands for profit and efficiencies.”
#28 Pret A Hell: “if you treat people like they’re useless and worthless, they won’t work so well anymore … TREAT PEOPLE PROPERLY!!!! get down from that high horse you’re on”
#29 Pret A M*ffin “…team member are over worked and managers are always working with fear … now the company is just about the profit also it is run like mafia organisation where it is about who you know … get rid of some top management who are so corrupt”
#30 Pret A Robot “People are treated inhuman way in terms of sickness and work load. Employees are being treated more like robots than human beings”
#31 Pret A Joke “You have a limited time to do your job everyday but this time limit is a joke. they give me the next rota just the day before the week starts.”
#32 Pret A Nothing “didn’t learn nothing as i have things to give to that shop as i came with lots of experience and skills.”
#33 Red A Manager “their [managers] personality only is good for business, but not for the people that work under.”
#37 Pret A Scream “One of the things that I absolutely hated about working at pret, was the fact that management wanted you to act like you were having fun and smile at all times.”
#38 Pret A Manager “the staff are great the guys who do the real work. The management suck” (review by a manager)
#39 Pret A No Respetar “Los managers son penosos“, “un horror!!” “desastrosa” and “todo… no tiempo libre, no respeto..”
#40 Odd A Manger “company going in one direction and then the opposite” (review from a former Purchasing Director, NYC)
#41 Pret A Scam “This job is a scam you work hours and hours and it never matches your check”
continued below…
#42 Pret A Shady “really shady company. They worked us off the clock and would be quick to transfer even there best workers over favoritism”
#43 Pret A Blame “overworking envornment , discriminating HR , unprofessional managers”
#44 Pret A Bos(s)ton“No person deserves to be traumatized or stressed to death by work. Current laws do not address interpersonal cruelty at work.”
#45 Pret A Powerkid “whichever is your mental state, you have to be happy and smile…you can also suddenly be under the powerkid that is mainly rude,… setting up your rota to damage your personal life just for fun, or shouting at you in front of the others…”
#46 Pret Abusive Staff “Discriminatory management Unprofessional atmosphere Abusive staff”
#48 Pret A Mouthful “The positions are hardly worth it for the pay you get. Better off being a team member if you don’t see Pret as a long term career prospect.”
#49 Pret A Cutting Staff “Poor management and under-trained … Pret A Manger has cut down on staff so theres more a lot more of things to do and not enough staff to do everything, so employees are being worked harder. Management do not have sympathy or care for employees”
#50 Pret A Not Worth “Not Worth The Stress … Either stop cutting hours or stop giving teams a ridiculous amount of tasks to complete.”
#51 Pret A Brainwash “There are a lot of favouritism, which leads to promoting incompetent people to more senior roles.”
#52 Pret A Mental Abuse “Hostile work environment … mental and verbal abusephysical violence in the workplace”
#53 Pret A Horrible “Extremely stressful managers dont know anything and drama every day. People need to know how to take responsibility there. I wouldn’t work there.”
#54 Wage Watchers Progam at Pret “Keep track of your own wages – left with more than £100 owed to me which I had to claim back! … I was made to feel like I was in the wrong and spoken to rudely.”
#55 Pret A Exploitation “You should probably consider buying industrial machines to make sandwiches instead of focusing on exploitation East-European employees.”
continued below…
#56 Pret A Mask “Team member should smile at customers and may not work when ill, as team member was coughing whilst serving me and was therefore not feeling cheerful enough to smile that day”
Dear Misery Shopper, Team Members are not paid the first 2-3 days when off sick. If you’d pay staff sick leave, they will stay home and cough!
“request people to show a ‘fake’ happiness” … “you are required to have the widest fake smile on earth”
#57 Pret A Shout “…all they seem to do is try to create robots that operate at 100mph and have no personality … I’d sacrifice a paid break and a free lunch for a decent environment to work in where I’m not shouted at daily, and made to feel sub human.”
#58 Pret A Condescending “Insure management respects the workers and don’t be condescending on them, please don’t act over controlling in respect to ensuring we work like robots”
#60 Pret A Modern-day Slavery “When you follow [the points and rules] they then moan that you are to slow and need to hurry”
#61 Pret A Slave’s Company “If someone can’t finish job on time has to stay longer, for free. Common practise is to give someone job to do, just a couple of minutes before end of shift and after telling that “you couldn’t finish on time, because you are to slow.”
#62 Pret A Noxious “Go back to the UK, Pret I have never worked in such a toxic, unprofessional corporate environment. Employees relocating from UK were given preferential treatment, better salaries for equal experience”
#63 Penalize A Funeral ““management is disrespectful, they fire people when they are having rough times in life even if they talk to manager about it , i was penalized for calling out for a funeral”
From only few of these complaints and my own experience, which has almost cost me my life, working in a toxic, unfulfilling, non-rewarding and right out dangerous work environment that gives no room for people being vulnerable in bereavement or mental health issues, behind the scenes it is a very different story to what Pret presents at the front. The annual questionnaire Pret does to ask staff of their experience is flawed as some managers manipulate those, I know of one manager who has been dismissed for manipulating (doing the questionnaire online on behalf of those who did not want to participate), another has been caught by staff, but none has raised the issue.
I have raised a grievance as my shop had a 100% participation in the questionnaire, even though I did not participate in it. The hearing was not investigated properly, and only vague assumptions have been made by HR, but no thorough investigation took place, which would have been easy to be made as I was one of 4 Team Leaders, the external company who held the questionnaire could have been contacted with the shop number that was assigned to my shop to see how many Team Leaders participated and could have scrutinized the wording, as I am very particular in my wording.
So, these anonymous complaints that I gathered will repeat itself on the same lines as linked here. The shiny facade will sooner later crumble, and hopefully things will be truly changed and not just PR and slogans presented. But I doubt it, as money is just corrupting people too much.
I am proud to say that the unions in the UK and the U.S. (with further being informed) are now aware of and having an eye on Pret A Manger that has gotten away with so much mistreatment of their hard working people for so many years. The time will come that even Pret will lose its facade, just as companies like McDonald already did so many years ago. My work is done!
I almost lost my life and am struggling to find my way back to living a normal, anxiety-free life again.
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
“The company is trying to brainwash you, they expect you to give up your life and be ready for Pret 24/7 … There are a lot of favouritism, which leads to promoting incompetent people to more senior roles. … The management expects you to do the workload of 2 or 3 people, including doing their job sometimes. … It’s not the NASA, just a sandwich shop, where human beings work, not robots.”
Yes, it is just a sandwich shop, but people need to understand that there is a humongous amount of money in bonuses that GMS and OPs and the upper management makes, THAT’S WHY the pressure and forcing staff to work for 3 people. If there is unnecessary pressure and bullying it is a indicator that it is ALWAYS about money and power.
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
From AntiBullyingPro: Young People Who Are Being Bullied No Longer Defined As ‘Weak’
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
“Poor management and under-trained … Pret A Manger has cut down on staff so theres more a lot more of things to do and not enough staff to do everything, so employees are being worked harder. Management do not have sympathy or care for employees. Managers only focus on their goals and tasks.”
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
This is a review from February 2018 of a multi-tasking TM who covers for Barista, Hot Chef, probably also kitchen as many of those “multi-taskers” are thrown into all kinds of jobs to cover after managers cut staff all over the place to maximize profit. So, this person knows what they’re talking about.
Several Quotes of the Day:
“Considering it’s a coffee shop, you are not allowed to drink in view of the customers. At lunchtimes you are not allowed to leave the till between 12-2pm so end up with a dry mouth and feeling fatigued. You can sneak a drink sometimes behind a wall, but if you’re caught by the manager you get a telling off.”
Additional NOTE: I always let my team drink water behind the counter if they weren’t allowed to leave the counter area. Behind the coffee counter with air conditioning often not working properly the air is dry and overheated. Excruciating and inhumane to work like this dehydrated.
“Living in London you will hardly have enough to live off of. Even with bonus, the wage is not realistic considering the cost of living in the city and the amount of work you have to do at Pret.”
“The mystery shoppers are very picky and you can lose your bonus for simply being too engrossed in the task you’re dealing with. E.g. restocking a fridge and not stopping and turning to say hi, how are they etc.”
Additional NOTE: Again, inhumane.
“Also when you’re short staffed you may not be able to constantly check the shop floor, and you will get marked down for uncleanliness and again lose your bonus. Very unrealistic expectations”
“You will never get time to 100% finish a task because customers come first. A good policy, but not so good when you’re restocking drinks and a leader will make you go to the till because they can’t be bothered to serve themselves. Amongst other scenarios.”
Additional NOTE: Poor management for which Pret is known for.
“Clash with management. Sometimes your manager will tell you to do something, and then the assistant manager will tell you to do something else or question why you’re doing what you’re doing. It’s annoying and stressful at times when you feel like you’ve done something wrong but it’s what you’ve been told to do!! Have to split yourself into a million pieces.”
Additional NOTE: Again, poor management for which Pret is known for.
“Being a Barista can be highly stressful at busy times and some customers are not forgiving/highly impatient which adds to the stress factor. Flustered team members add to the chaos.”
“Quick turnaround of staff. Some shops are constantly losing and gaining new staff so it can be stressful trying to deal with peoples mistakes. We’ve all been there, but it just makes the day a lot harder when you have 3 or 4 new staff on the tills shouting the wrong drinks etc.“
Additional NOTE: Again, poor management, solely profit driven, no care for staff and customers.
“Managers tend to cut hours…”
“Weekly rota that usually gets given to you a day before the new working week starts, so you generally can’t plan things because you don’t know what shift you’re on.”
Additional NOTE: Rotas that should be ready on display two weeks in advance. I worked with over a dozen managers, and only 2 GMs managed to have the rota ready according to standard two weeks in advance and communicated well if they needed to change the schedule a little. Most managers are at a loss of how to do the rota and do the rota on time.
“You tend to get stuck on certain shifts for weeks on end so make sure you voice your opinion if you don’t want to close for the 6th week in a row.”
Additional NOTE:In the first months of my bereavement my then GM put me on 5 months late shift which isolated me from vital support from friends as I got home around 10pm. I voiced my complain but to no avail. This is when my ordeal of the bullying during grief started!
“The positions are hardly worth it for the pay you get. Better off being a team member if you don’t see Pret as a long term career prospect.”
“Raise the wages. For the money pret spends on waste or joy of pret budget, some could be put towards a £1 pay rise for staff (not including bonus).”
Additional NOTE: That’s not going to happen unless a lot of people leave Pret.
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
This may have become my favourite review now, the strong words with the passionate heart behind it. Beautiful.
And Pret does not realize, or stubbornly doesn’t want to know how many amazing people they keep losing!
This review from a former Barista’s frustrated point of view, is the most caring, concerning and loving review I have read so far. What’s so frustrating with this is, that Pret neither understands nor cares what calibre of people they keep losing.
But knowing Pret and its CEO, they are taking notes from my blog, mainly from the USA.
But this former barista is an example of what Pret is notorious for in regards to their staff, losing their best but keeping…
While the “idea” is in place, reality is out of sync.
I love this review so much! It reminds me of so many people I’ve worked with, whose English is broken, but whose hearts are in place!! I love the way this reviewer in their best English is trying to describe the difference between a mature and good manager (adult) to the immature and bullying manager (powerkid), and the heart behind this reviewer.
These hard working people of integrity I worked with shoulder to shoulder, or behind the very small counter area, we worked often “bum to bum”. These people inspired me so many times to get up at 3:30am in the morning, during the darkest time of my life, carrying my grief to work and back home, and suffering under the burden of incapable (powerkid) managers in the midst of a nightmare. My teams, people in the spirit of this former barista, kept me going.
I was fortunate enough to have been a team leader, protecting my teams from unnecessary harsh management as best as I could.
This review is from a person with a freaking big heart that Pret does not know how to contain.
@CliveSchlee, I will never cease to be gobsmacked of you having lost your way in protecting your teams from this greed and your search for acceptance in the multibillion dollar marketplace. Your slogans and PR just won’t do it forever. But I know you are taking notes and adapt. But my blog here or there will also be forever on the web, so that Pret will always remember where this came from.
This review is the most heartfelt review I have come across!
Pret, this one is on YOUR house.
Quotes of any day:
Please read every word of this exerp and the full review below in the link:
“The job can be in some shops busy over any expectations, so be ready to roll up your sleeves and work really hard in some times of the day … They tryfor good meansto keep all together happy, so you got parties, team drinks and stuff.
It is a customer service with a fun-based culture, so whichever is your mental state, you have to be happy and smile… You can find the good manager that is adult … but you can also suddendly be under the powerkid that is mainly rude, ignorant and frustrated, unable to control the situation, setting up your rota to damage your personal life just for fun, or shouting at you in front of the others, bringing you quickly at the point that you’re forced to leave the companyor ask a transfer to another shop … I really like the idea of Pret, butthere are still some problems that can ruin entirely your experience…
Powerkid rude lower management, overpressure on work”
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
“No person deserves to be traumatized or stressed to death by work
Current laws do not address interpersonal cruelty at work.”
2nd Quote:
“… only major downfall is the management…. There is no respect from boss to employees…the first motto when getting this job is (employees come first…that is far from the case. Management only cares about money an will disrespect you and make you slave work until the days over, or you quit….they feel that they can do or say anything they want to there employees because they NEED the job and use that against them … mean bosses, no respect for employees… treated as a slave worker”
Quote: “the first motto when getting this job is (employees come first…)”
I have never heard this, apart from the CEO calling Pret “family” because of the Brexit fear of losing a lot of employees, I have never heard of employees coming first, not in the interview nor in shops. But I reckon that this former employee was just subject to Pret’s PR as usual. Just slogans and words but reality is brutally different.
I like this review, very passionate and keen to give a detailed review, proving how much they really cared for the job:
I am sure Pret is looking into these shops via my listing these areas that have the biggest problems in management! Management issues are actually a problem in the whole company as this comes from the top. But some are priorities, with Boston being one of them. I hope @Pret you are really taking a good look at your leadership style as this is not only hurting people, but when staff are in mental distress, bereaved, unwell in any way it can actually take their lives!
I hope Pret you are listening! And dear Pret, in case you are having a laugh again thinking I am doing all this work for you to get better ratings or improve your public image, I am not doing this for you, I am doing this for my former colleagues, whoever and where-ever they are, as your company, your HR department, and your leadership style has me almost killed. And I know of other people who had the same problems.
So, before you laugh again or hide behind your PR, I am doing this for employees in the hopes you will heed and take action, with integrity and truly doing the right thing, not on paper and not exploiting your workers.
Take all of my “Quotes of the Day” as my Note of Concern to you and your corrupt HR department. Take these as my Disciplinary issued to you. And take these as my Dismissal of your fake, dishonest and corrupt ways.
I will never be silent again.
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
my experience working for this company was not great at all. everyday i felt overworked … the manager and the workers were extremely unprofessional … the company treat part time workers very mean because your not apart of there union so the can abrupty fire you and they treat you like you have no rights.”
“They give me just under 30 hours so that I will not be able to receive benefits despite me asking multiple times to pick up other shifts. Managers are rude. the GM of my store forgot to change my schedule my first week of working there when I gave them a 3 days notice that I couldn’t come in one day. Manager forgot to take it off my schedule so I got reprimanded for calling out months later, stating that I need to give them a weeks notice, yet at that point I hadn’t even been working there a week and I did give them prior notice. GM has also laughed at me for trying to do my job and the store manager yells at me if I try to help out the hot chef by putting out croissants.”
NOTE:
Rota issues are a big problem in Pret added by GMs not taking responsibility, but blaming and sometimes even laughing at TMs. Not only is the rota not on display 2 weeks in advance as it’s supposed to be, but very often you don’t even know how you are working the very next day, not to mention the coming week starting on the next day. And even when you give 2 or 4 weeks of notice, GMs are very disorganized or complacent, not having a calendar system in place and end up forgetting to give you the shift you asked for weeks in advance to which they agreed to. An absolute organizational mess. Rotas are also often changed without notice, so that you turn up at 5am to then be told that you are supposed to start at 11am or that you are having a day off! I always made a copy of my rota and dated it because GMs then lied and said they never changed the rota after having destroyed the initial schedule.
Regarding blame and reprimanding TMs for GMs faults: Weeks after having buried my brother I was blamed for my missing holiday pay. I noticed my pay for 2 different weeks being unusually low, even though I worked and took paid holiday leave to fly back and forth between Germany (funeral, family care etc.) and back to work exhausting all my savings. The GM smirked at me when I said that I went into rent arrears because of the missing holiday pay. The GM then said with smirk on her face, “Since when can you not pay your rent?” Already in shock I said, “Do you remember me flying back and forth (between Germany and London) these past few weeks? I bought 9 flights taking a friend for support to bring my mum the news of my brother’s death, arranging the funeral, investigating what happened to my brother, taking care of my family, having my mum over for a few days straight after the funeral because I had no choice but to work while still needing to take care of her just having lost her son… paying flights, costs, bills etc. using all my savings and whatever pay came in….”
When I explained why only 2 weeks of messed up and missing pays put me into rent arrears, the GM then suddenly got a serious look on her face, as if to realize ‘ooops’. But, not only did she NOT offer me an emergency pay to cover my rent until next pay-day, an emergency pay which would have been super easy and quick within 1 hour to be arranged, as this has been done on another occasion a year later, but there was NO apology whatsoever! And apart from the 5 months late-shift she put me on from then on, this was the beginning of a very traumatic nightmare in Pret that I almost didn’t survive.
So, this Manhattan, NY review could almost be word for word taken from my experience in London.
I learned you had to kiss butt to move up and how a team Member in Penn station became a GM in just two years. I couldn’t be apart of that. … Derogatory management in my experience. … No guarantee of hours ,was told to stay home numerous times … Underpaid, too much task, no job stability…”
“Working at Pret For me was sometimes good .. mostly bad … The Management SUCKS !! Employees are very unprofessional in the work place … not PROFESSIONAL .. FAVORTISM ..”
(My comment: They won’t because they want managers to be task masters while the top leadership runs a good PR for a good facade. Pret is growing too fast and has no time nor interest in proper management. JAB based in tax haven Luxembourg has bought Pret for over a Billion £$€ and want their investment back. It will get even worse now)
“Fast Paced work environment with poor management. … A typical day at work in most Pret A Manger locations is Fast paced,Stressful and Unpredictable. At any moment during your shift you can be sent home or sent to work at another location.”
“manic work enviroment … Some management is biased and will refuse anyone to advance if they do not like them. But at least you get free lunch and sometimes the coworkers are nice.”
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
“Fun at times but really shady company. They worked us off the clock and would be quick to transfer even there best workers over favoritism. No stability at all…”
Yep, I was never even considered for promotion as I refused to be in the “IN” group playing their games. I saw this also with many other hard working people who never reached beyond team member level, no matter how hard or well they worked. It truly is based on favouritism or when shops are desperate for leaders, they thrust in anyone available.
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
“This job is a scam you work hours and hours and it never matches your check. Mangers don’t even know how to do there job and if your not a key role nothing benefits you.”
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
LNG: Thank you for your time and agreeing to do an imaginary but honest and transparent interview, this has been a long time in the making and I am grateful you finally agree to give us an unprecedented look into your business, especially staff treatment, and what makes you stand out on the high street.
PAM: Oh, no problem at all. Sorry it took so long to agree to an imaginary yet open and honest interview, but we’ve been really busy with our success as you know.
LNG: Yes, well done! May I call you Pret?
PAM: Sure, we love to be on first name basis here. We are family.
LNG: Thank you, you can call me what your CEO calls me.
PAM: Great! Okay Late Night Girl, what do you want to know about our company?
LNG: My first question….
PAM:(interrupts) Oh, would you like a coffee? On the house? The first hit is always free! 😉
LNG: No, thank you, I got my own! 🙂
LNG: So, my first question is, what is the secret ingredient to your success?
PAM: Well, if we stay on the first name we have a secret spelling system here, we love to work with acronyms to really emphasize that we mean business when it comes to motivating our staff. Pret is French for “ready”. So, Pret A Manger means “ready to eat”. Fast food, from already cooked and processed products that arrive daily and are then assembled in the kitchens on the premises. But it is not just food ready to eat, we want our staff to always be “ready to work” come rain come shine, in good days and in bad days, till FS do us part.
L: What’s FS?
P: That’s another meaning, “FS” is the Firing Squad, but officially they are called “HR”, meaning Human Resources, of course. Our HR department have a really great slogan to sell their mission as, “Doing the right thing naturally”, and people buy into this slogan without questioning it, as PC is too common. It sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? HR don’t do the dismissing themselves, no, they like others to execute this nitty-gritty muddy business. They…
L:(interrupts) What’s PC now?
P: Oh, common’?!
L: Ah, yeah, right. Sorry.
P: Tztz, you didn’t do your homework when preparing for this interview?! You don’t know our 6 P’s?!
L: No, no, yes, uhm, I know them all! (nods, while getting a first glimpse into the intimidation tactics) It’s just a lot to remember what you give your staff to memorize.
P: Yes, that is how brainwashing works, repeated bombardment of silly word games.
L: Sure.
P: So, where were we?
L: With HR not doing the dirty work.
P: Ah yeah, so they fire indirectly using their operational side of the business, managers who are tasked to hold hearings that are “fundamentally flawed” as one Tribunal Judge called it, they are unfair and only impartial if we need to cover ourselves.
L: Ah! So, it’s a lot to do with fear management?
P: You got it.
L: And how does the fear management work exactly? Talk me through a typical day in a Pret shop.
P: No problem. First of all, we don’t like to be known as a sandwich “factory”, even though we are hundreds of little sandwich factories. So, we put intensive incentives in place, pay a little bit more here, give a little more holidays there, put on elaborate parties, let the kitchens play loud and fast music to speed up their work pace and avoid them talking too much with each other wasting our precious time, no matter if they get a head ache or a tinnitus etc. etc.
In reality we have no choice but give a little here and there as the job is way too harsh, stressful and non-rewarding. So we apply psychology where we call our sandwich makers “chefs”, let them go through patronizing “graduation” so they assume they achieved something and won’t leave as easily.
L: Ah, clever!
P: Yes, it’s all psychology. We have slogans on our packaging saying “Lovingly made in this kitchen today”, we’re having a laugh with our staff because in this high-paced and stressful environment making something “lovingly” would only be to resign!
But our real main ingredient and the real spelling behind our acronym as already hinted early on is, Pret really is a four letter F-word spelled F E A R. It means Fire Early At Request or with the nickname of “Fret” to make it more appealing. Fear management is the main motivator for our lovely and hard working people, but we facade this in the perfect packaging of “Good Jobs for Good People”. We have a lot of good people, but after a while they get so burned out, feel devalued and dehumanized that they are not “good” anymore, and there are plenty of young people lining up for the job. We give out disciplinaries like napkins, we make sure that our staff always worry about their job security, and we don’t tolerate people being vulnerable (takes a sip from the organic coffee).
L: What do you mean by “vulnerable”?
P: Well, simply inconvenient occasions like bereavement or even mental illness of our staff. We feel that especially bereavement is “imposed” on us. That’s not nice.
L:(looking confused) So, it would be best to not be vulnerable, as staff wouldn’t be safe in their jobs?
P: That’s right.
L: So, if staff are bereaved, or suffer from a mental illness or disability that might affect their day-to-day work, and even if they work still really good while in bereavement, there is no policy in place to protect them from potentially being bullied by superiors?
P: Yes, something like that. We have a large HR department, larger than the IT or even food team. But it isn’t large enough yet, as one of our former employees has exhausted our HR department after being bullied during bereavement and being held low in shops. So we want to expand our HR staff to not let this happen again.
L: Wow! Must have been hard work. But at least you learned from this and won’t let the bullying happen again. That’s great.
P: No, we won’t let it happen again that anyone approaches HR with their concern about bereavement and bullying like this anymore, even though we advised that person (whom the CEO called his “late night girl”) to raise grievances, as we didn’t want to interfere with how the managers were mistreating her. As we don’t have an anti-bullying policy in place to protect the bereaved, we aim to divert to the grievance procedure as we don’t want to admit that we have a huge problem. A grievance procedure often deters the employee to raise the issue formally, as this is quite stressful to have to come up with all the evidence, not to mention becoming a target after speaking up.
For other issues like sexual orientation, pregnant women, physical disabilities, religious beliefs, equal opportunities etc. we have a strong and clear zero tolerance policy on discrimination, because there are laws in place and we would get into trouble if we’d let those groups be bullied. Sometimes we even use any of the above groups in discrimination to get rid of other inconvenient employees, the laws for the protection of the above groups really come in handy here, even if we have to tweak our reason for dismissal a little.
And our luck is that there are no laws to protect the bereaved, we can openly and even in writing express that this is “imposed” on us without any problems. We just don’t really want to bother with grief and mental issues, even while we know that we all will die, and 1 in 4 of us will at one point or another suffer from a mental health condition. Death and illness can happen to any person at any time for any reason. But we don’t want to think about it and want to just concentrate on the material world with all the money that can be made. If you work for us, your mind needs to be of steel and you better have “Metal” Health.
P: So, to finish the thought, we pride ourselves in our HR department. They are super busy with all the grievances raised and disciplinaries issued, and of course the firing squad, ready to fire anytime for any and no reason (checking the phone as a text message comes in).
L: Sounds quite efficient. I’m impressed.
P: Thank you. Yes, could we speed this up a little? I have to attend to some business.
L: Sure, just finally I’d like to throw some questions out that you cannot skip, but have to answer honestly.
P: Uuuh, I’m intrigued, fire away!
L: Who was the first one you ever kissed?
P: Oh, I’ll never forget my first kiss! It was McDonald’s. We even got married so I can get a green card to the U.S. But we are divorced now, as I gotten my green card and dual citizenship now and won’t need McD anymore. But we are still friends.
L: Any kids?
P: Naa, we were always married more to our jobs, and our different tastes in food finally split us up! Career is more important, and as soon as I had my foot in the door to the U.S. our divorce was imminent.
L: It was a “marriage of convenience” then?
P: You got it!
L: I see. Okay, while on the subject of super mergers, what super powers would you like to have?
P: To fire all the shop staff in one go and exchange them with perfect smiley robots that are so real looking to customers unlike the current prototypes, fooling them, and so increase our profits even more. That way we won’t have to deal with staff not being as productive when they go through personal issues like bereavement or illness. We also won’t have to deal with any human being thinking for themselves. But mostly that way we can truly “man” all the tills at all times and have enough staff, almost more than customers. We could even place a human looking robot with each and every customer, raising sales going through the roof. We would also scrap the Misery Shopper, as we won’t need them anymore since we have perfect robots. Can you imagine the amount this would slice off our labour costs and bring out the maximum? (sigh, what a dream!) But it also means that we would need to rethink the HR department, maybe turning them into mechanics fixing the robots when they break. (ponder ponder)
L: Sorry, what did you say, the what? The “Misery” Shopper?? What’s that?
P: Did I say that??
L: Uhm, that’s what I heard.
P: Sorry, I meant the Mystery Shopper *smile*
L: Maybe I just misheard as I had a miserable coffee this morning! The competition hey. Should have gone to Pret instead!
P: Yes, that’s it, it’s all your fault! You misheard, it was your mistake, not mine! It’s one of our important Pret attributes, always blame downwards, never take responsibility. As long as we can smile, we’re fine!
L: Okay back to my questions. What time period would you like to visit, past, present or future?
P: The future, always the future as the present is a blur and the past is done with and not worth keeping fond memories of. We move on quickly, whoever can’t keep up with the pace will be left behind.
L: No regrets then, huh?
P: Hello? We are Pret we don’t regret!
L: I see. Who would you like to collaborate with in business?
P: Anyone and No one. Anyone who could pour more money into us, so that we can squeeze even more out of our workers to repay the investors. We don’t like to share the spoils except only with our HQ people and high up leaders. But if we do have a moment of generosity with our shops, it is mainly to try and keep them before they leave or our aim to win new ones (whispers: Brexit’s advancing fast now).
L: What is your greatest accomplishment?
P: Okay, that’s another tough one, as we have so many. But I would say… (looking up at the ceiling, tapping with the fingers on the coffee cup) I’d say it really is our HR department with that ever impressive slogan of “Doing the right thing naturally”.
L: What do you value so much that you would put your money where your mouth is, so-to-speak?
P: Again, investing in our HR department, making them bigger, even though they are already bigger than any of the other departments. We’d like them to give more disciplinaries, neglecting the bereaved and mentally ill, and fire faster. Any support that is in place, most are just Pret-ense for our own fear of the Tribunal, as we like to live up to our name.
L: Which was what again?
P: F E A R.
L: Ah yeah, that’s right.
L: What was the moment when you felt you’ve made it?
P: When our staff bought into fear management and unnecessary pressure.
L: What was the scariest encounter you’ve ever had?
P: Tribunal Judges at first, but when we lose our case in court, we just pay the peanuts the Judges order us to pay in compensation and then go back to business as usual. Our most scariest encounter will always be the customers and public pressure, not to mention the Unions!
L: And the greatest?
P: All our hard working people in the shops, especially those with integrity and longevity during hard times. We really feel intimidated by them, as they show real passion which we only Pret-end to have for them. But don’t tell them, they need to think that they are not valued and their work is never good enough, so they work harder until they burn out and are exchanged with “fresh blood”. It’s like one of our main acronyms: FIFO, First In First Out or our internal acronym BPOFBI: Black Pudding Out Fresh Blood In. If they find out our tactics, it would also be the most embarrassing encounter, but that’s between us.
L: Of course! You do love your acronyms and slogans, don’t you?
L: Yes, Pret is next to nothing when it comes to PR.
P: That’s right, we are especially successful in this by employing former homeless people to confirm this when the pressure on us gets high to explain why we treat our staff so poorly. The CEO invites a group once a year to his private Austrian property, and that way we win them for our reputation to speak up for us should we reap criticism from the public regarding staff treatment. We also aim to not integrate them too much into regular Pret shops, but are working on having shops run entirely by former homeless people, as they won’t cope in the long-run in a regular mainstream Pret shop, with all the bullying and high stress environment. It wouldn’t look good on our PR.
L: Makes sense. To continue with the questions, which food item are you currently working on to be the best selling of all time, not only in Pret but in the world.
P: Well, now you want to know some secrets here, what food item our food team is working on. I can’t let you in on that one, even though I agreed to do an open and honest interview. But I will say this much: it has to do with the Hearts of our staff.
L: Interesting! Similar to dishes like Liver Mousse or Kidney Pâté, but only with Hearts? Like Hearts on a Platter? Are some Minds part of the new stew as well? Oooh, I can’t wait for the new product launch!!
P:(motions with a gesture of sealed lips)
L: What, if any, is your hidden talent?
P: Doing the wrong thing naturally.
L: On a personal level, which instrument would you like to play?
P: Hearts and Minds.
L: You can only choose one!
P: That’s not fair! I can’t choose! *biting on the coffee lid*
L: Well, strive for perfection here, a little extra mile will go a long way.
P: Okay Minds, as Hearts are often broken already and useless therefor. The Mind still needs tuning and somewhat breaking like a wild horse that is thinking on its feet too much. We are not in the horse whispering business, we break them!
L: Starbucks or Caffee Nero?
P: Pret!
L: Prosciutto or Posh Cheddar?
P: Well, since we go towards more Vegan, it would be Hearts. Organic Hearts of course!
L: Of course!
L: Mystery Shopper visits or Senior Management visits.
P:(regaining posture after the Heart vs Mind decision) Senior Management visits of course, we love to see the nervousness and fear on the faces of our managers and teams when we walk into shops.
L: Makes sense, that F E A R thing again, I really get to know you now and how consistent you are, very reliable.
P:(lifting the head with pride) Thank you. Now I am almost blushing.
L: Comedy or Drama?
P: Since we have too much Drama already, I’d choose Comedy, although they both go very close together in our company.
L: Which micromanaging rule are you most proud of and why?
P: Letting our staff sign countless training rules without having the time to really train. We just like to cover our backs.
L: Which other countries would you like to conquer for Pret?
P: The whole world of course, even jungles where the monkeys live.
L: While on the subject of monkeys, if you were an animal, what would you be?
P: A Pret-Bull.
L: Why?
P: We like to look intimidating to our staff, but they don’t know that barking dogs don’t bite. We only bite together in groups and when we smell fear, which brings us back to fear management.
L: All well thought out then.
P: Yes. Are you sure you don’t want that coffee? It’s free!
L: No, thank you.
L: Final question, what was the best advise you’ve ever received?
P: Hire fast and fire even faster. Made today, gone today.
L: Thank you.
P: Well, that was fun!
L: Yeah, wasn’t that bad, was it? It must feel good to be honest.
P: Absolutely, never thought it would feel so relieving. I’ve learned a lot about myself today. Well, unfortunately, since it is lunch time I have to get back to the pub with my OPs managers for a few pints while our good and hard working people make it happen for us.
L: Of course, thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule. And thank you for this imaginary but honest and open interview.
P: Any time! And let me know whenever you want that free coffee 😉
L: Thank you. But no thank you. I am on my way to interview Sainsbury’s, one of the big ones to have signed up for the Disability Confident employer scheme, I want to avoid too many toilet breaks during this important interview.
P: Disability what?
L: Never mind, you wouldn’t be interested in that.
P: I guess you’re right. We need to keep that fear thing going.
L: That’s what I meant. Thanks again. See you again soon. *not*
P: Yes, oh while you are with them, could you ask them if they would be keen to have a Pret shop inside their supermarkets, like Costa does with Tesco with those rather unhygienic coffee vending machines automates? That way at least we could Pret-end again to be part of this Disability thing you talk about without really being part of it of course. 😉
L: I see what I can do… *not*
.
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
This is a review from a former Purchasing Director in Pret NYC.
“One of the oddest work experiences. Worked their during a transition period – so company going in one direction and then the opposite.”
Yes, I got frustrated countless times in shops when new rules or strategies were introduced and days later scrapped again or changed, as if whoever makes these decisions didn’t really think things through. It often seemed decisions were made out of compulsion where someone had a brilliant idea but didn’t think it through thoroughly.
Free lunch seems to be the only “Pro” most people mention.
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
“the staff are great the guys who do the real work. The management suck”
A Manager review, who says that management doesn’t give a “damn”!
I have had an internal interview once with a manager for an assistant manager’s position. As the GM talked me through his shop and the team, he mentioned that the kitchen in this particular shop is very tiny (as many kitchens are) and that he himself would never work in these conditions! This is a manager saying about the shop he is responsible for, pressuring his team to achieve productivity in a tiny kitchen he himself would never work in! This is Pret management for you!
I have had countless complaints of and conversations with my managers, who themselves don’t like the job or wouldn’t subject themselves to these work conditions, while pressuring their teams without giving them relieve. Managers who have mortgages to pay. I was always disheartened at this attitude from selfish managers.
But to be fair on the cleanliness issue, the cleanliness has approved after EHO / government health & safety visits. It used to be quiet bad, but has since improved a great deal, although with a lot of pressure and at the cost of TMs working extra time without pay! And I will not get into how long it took to deal with the “droppings”. It always takes the government to catch businesses not doing the right thing naturally! But I can verify that cleanliness has changed and improved. That much fairness is on the house!
But staff treatment and the appalling management approach remains a huge issue, as the foundation of success is to pressure staff, cutting hours and squeeze everything out of the teams to maximize profit. And no amount of PR will have current and former employees quiet and me stop to compile their outcry, because it hurts and damages people. I survived, and I will never be silent again.
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
“This job was one of the worst working experiences I’ve ever had. The management was horrendous… I felt like I was a slave, the manager would scream at me like I was a dog to make the items faster…
One of the things that I absolutely hated about working at pret, was the fact that management wanted you to act like you were were having fun and smile at all times. Obviously you want to treat the costumers great by smiling but they don’t know what happens in the back and how much stress you have to go through to get all the stuff done in TIME… There’s also no job security because you could get fired for the tiniest thing… you need to dedicate yourself to pret 110%. The manager was always putting me down making me feel like I wasn’t giving my best and threatened to fire me if i didn’t make X amount of item per hour… whoever is reading this and is considering to work or apply to this company, PLEASE don’t do it”
I have read you and so will others!I believe you. I have been there.
I can underline every word here. In bullet points:
The co-workers are great, and I can verify this, the teams most of the time are wonderful, hard working, follow really well the lead as a team leader if you respect them, help/support them and treat them well. It is just when people start moving into management levels, that they start to change and turn from being nice to being task masters out of pressure and immaturity handling power and leadership without adequate training in leadership principles and skills.
Fear management
Constant threat to job security
Unnecessary pressure, even if you don’t mind working hard, it is never good enough!
Emotional labour, forced to smile non-stop even while unrealistic (I was bereaved and treated with NO mercy!)
Horrendous management …
I could go into every sentence in this review, but I want to explain something about this forced happiness and smiling that this reviewer put so well into words:
Quote: “One of the things that I absolutely hated about working at pret, was the fact that management wanted you to act like you were were having fun and smile at all times.”
This expectation is so warped and twists your emotional well-being into this sick feeling and eventually makes you mentally ill. On the one hand there is a manager shouting at you, manipulating you, threatening you with your job security, day in day out – and then on the other hand – is expecting you to be HAPPY and SMILE!
If you have never experienced this sick abuse and perversion of emotions, and this IS abuse and perversion, you will never understand how this feels, and especially when you even go through bereavement on top of this!!! It is textbook emotional abuse!
After I was transferred to a shop of one particular line manager in the middle of my traumatic grief and grievance hearings after being bullied extensively, we had a poor Mystery Shopper result. The Misery Shopper as I call it, literally stated that upon entering the shop they felt “miserable”. No one was smiling, no friendliness etc. So, we lost bonus and had one of the poorest scores ever in the company.
The line manger gathered us team members in the kitchen and gave the biggest “anti-motivational” speech I have ever heard! He ranted on about how “a smile is part of your uniform!” We were supposed to leave our problems at home, and smiling is part of our job description. He repeated that a few times as it seemed he loved the sound of it…
I remember my paralyzed emotions and disbelieve that this nightmare never seems to stop. He then went on to say if we had anything to say about this, to speak up then and there, because later he won’t accept anyone to come to him about this. In hindsight I believe he said this because he knew the team was too intimidated to say something right then and there. But he didn’t realize that when you have lost a loved one, you have nothing to lose anymore as the depth of grief and pain can never be topped with bully-crap management like this.
Perplexed I said to him that I rather would want to say something in person later in the office, not in the group as I felt very strongly to tell him something for which he was notorious, but I didn’t want to be disrespectful to my boss in front of the team! He persisted and said, “speak up now or later there is no opportunity!” I asked surprised if he was sure, he just looked at me. So, I said to him calling him by his name: “But So-and-so, you never smile!”
He was visible taken aback a little and immediately “corrected” me, that it is not up to me to tell him this, but that it is up to his boss to tell him this. I apologized and thought to myself…. what I won’t write here!
But from then on I could see an improvement where he made an effort to smile and be a LEADER and an EXAMPLE in what he expects from his team! He also improved in encouraging the team after I mentioned in the office later that teams are never motivated by being told off all the time, but with some encouragement, miracles happen!
Needless to say, I never gotten promoted nor given the credit for building the team UP instead of tearing them DOWN!
I was getting tired of having to train managers who reaped the harvest!
So, it’s my turn now to rant and rave, and to have my “I-have-a-Scream-speech” moment!
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
“If you don’t want a lot of stress in your life, avoid this place. Unorganized management always pushes you to finish in time and a lot of time they forget to pay you out. … A lot of dumb and disrespectful employees. Very unfair company”
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
What makes Pret being Pret? Not doing the right thing “naturally” as their slogan says. What does Pret do next to nothing that makes them unmistakably Pret?
I was awaiting an open retaliation or “tangible” trouble for going public with my traumatic experience in Pret, but no, I have to be disappointed again! I should have learned by now!
Pret’s done it again, the PR thing. This blog entry is for them of course a welcome contribution to their PR. I am feeling generous today and will explain why below.
Usually on Pret’s and the CEO’s Twitter there is something about a new product or a scheme like new cutlery, bottles etc. pinned to their pages, but since recently Pret’s pinned tweets are about all the good deeds Pret loves to advertise to the public, how Pret gives jobs to people who were homeless etc. So far so good.
So, the Tweet goes: Look at what lovely things we’re doing! Braaaaggg:
Btw, as an “Ex-Pret” I suggest to run from Pret before the stars fall from the sky!
This sudden generosity, where it used to take 10 years of service in Pret to receive £1K now is “thrown” at all new and long-term staff, which to me looks like Pret is desperate to recruit and retain their staff, while making others redundant in HQ. Just shifting the money a bit in the midst of this Brexit angst.
So, what’s my problem with these? No problem at all, looks all very sweet and lovely, except to say that I cringe at this hypocrisy!
UPDATE July 2020: Clive Schlee’s Twitter account has been closed/deleted in the first week of July 2020.
And I can’t help but think also of age-discrimination. All the former homeless people in the photo seem in their 20s or no older than 30s, as well as the apprenticeship scheme with young people who are paid less per hour, means that the “investment” in them will pay out longer than taking over 40 or 50 year old former homeless people. Young people don’t know their workplace rights yet, they are easily to be brainwashed and molded into a system whereas an older person comes with a lot of life experience and a zero tolerance for bullshit.
One review from a former employee has put it in more “krass” words, that even I find a bit too strong, but the reviewer, a former Assistant Manager who has a little more insights into upper level management and tactics than I have, wrote, quote:
“now the company is just about the profit also it is run like mafia organisation where it is about who you know, the team member are over worked and managers are always working with fear … Get back to basic, care about the team and always listen to the little people, also be open and get rid of some top management who are so corrupt.”
I can certainly verify about the favouritism in Pret where you can work your butt off but are never promoted while an incapable and bullying team member sleeps their way through the ranks. But I just don’t have the courage to say the “M*fia” word and rather quote it, but the PR stunt is certainly a close relative to how Mafia organisations work. They “rampage” their way through a region and town, and in-between they give money to the little people and make substantial donations to charity.
Of course with the Mafia it is a mix of bribery, money laundering and “investing” in the little people, so when they need a boost in their reputation, the small folk will stand up and say what great deed this organisation has done for them! Super duper clever PR in a nutshell.
And a former IT Analyst of 8 years in Pret giving a review on HQ, quote:
“Manipulative and exploitative approach to employees as owners and senior management concerned about profit margin only. People are taken into account only if it makes good PR. Genuinely fake and dishonest company.”
To pin ones photo with ex-homeless staff on ones Twitter feed and try to buy current and new staff with £1000 incentives, while the atmosphere in shops show a different story, is what my problem is with this.
Now, I am really glad for these and other ex-homeless people to not only get a shot at work and a new life again, visiting the CEO’s Austrian PRoperty, and also for the apPRentices, who are all treated a little “softer” then the rest of the workforce, but if this is the only response to my public outcry, I am really disappointment. And if I was a former homeless person, I would be really ticked off in being used for a PR stunt like this.
You may say as some have that I am very passionate about my Pret-rants, or you may think that I am too angry. Yes, both true, and if you have followed my story with Pret you will know why, if you agree with my public outcry not, but you will know why.
For any new reader, in a nutshell, I worked in Pret for almost 10 years. After 7 years of service I was bereaved as my brother died and the circumstances around his death and how I received the news were extremely shocking and traumatic. But regardless how his death was or how I received the news, bereavement is bereavement, and instead of being supported, I was bullied, targeted, excluded, shouted at by line manager after line manager, tricked and trapped by Pret’s corrupt HR department and patronized by the CEO who labeled me his “late night girl”. The support that I then received was a lot to cover up their tracks and a Pret-ense in many ways.
Because the managers in shops are not trained in how to deal with a bereaved staff member, the Head of HR met with me after I contacted the CEO for help when the bullying became unbearable. At the first meeting the Head of HR asked me how meeting with him was for me on a scale of 1 – 10. Confused at this weird question but in hindsight understanding that he had the need to get his ego scratched, falsely assuming I was “star struck” in having met with a big gun. Nope, I wasn’t impressed, especially after I approached HR for almost a year with suggestions for support, hitting a brick wall! I needed to meet with and the support from my line managers who were at a loss, frustrated and angry with me, belittling and offensive, and as one bullying line manager wrote in an email to his boss that my situation was “imposed” on him.
And another time the Head of HR met with me again while I was in the middle of a 3-months sick leave, but then not knowing it would turn into 3 months, a sick leave that was kick-started by my line manager shouting at us leaders again for no apparent reason and my anxiety level couldn’t handle this anymore. In this sick-leave I had my first massive panic attack in my sleep, waking up from or with a panic attack I didn’t know one can have in ones sleep. Dragging myself to A&E at 5am in the morning thinking I’m in the middle of a heart attack and the fear of death in me.
The Head of HR met with me again then and made the first of four settlement offers if I resign and be quiet about my ordeal as well as not go to court. Of course I refused as I don’t prostitute my values, nor am I willing to suffer in and “of” silence for the rest of my life. And then he had the audacity to want a “cuddle” when we finished the meeting where we met in a Cafe Nero. Not quite the professional end of meeting I would have respected as such. He put his arms around me and I remember ducking down confused, and later thinking to myself, that he should make up his mind if he wants me to leave or if he wants to cuddle! You can’t have both, sir! But then I heard a few things about him later, and again a lot made sense.
Before my brother died, I had a normal life, friends, projects, hobbies, normal problems, bills, just a plain life. Now, Pret was always hard, rude, bullying, but I was able to see through and resist the fear management style most of the time and not take the stress home too much. But when I was thrust into traumatic grief and still working really well, even making the effort to bring suggestions to Pret, I was then drenched in great fear and anxiety that bereavement and trauma brings with it as a default. But this extreme fear was intensified by the bullying culture in Pret. I was like a zombie stumbling around and still don’t know how I even survived this.
So, now where I am publishing openly about my and other people’s experience, having been scared so much by and of Pret, intimidated, confused, angered, now where I am openly confronting this bullying system of Pret, Pret does not have the “balls” so-to-speak to not only apologize, but to respond in a way that would give them a chance to “safe face” and even more, to truly make a difference for their workers as this system is hurting them, and with it Pret in the long-run.
And as it is with everything in life, the truth always comes out, prolonged fear leads to anger and people eventually start to speak out, like in this unprecedented example of sexual violence in Hollywood and the outcry that was kick-started by a little hashtag #metoo that has brought and is still bringing rapists, bullies and abusers to justice. The same it is with systemic workplace bullying, a system like this cannot hide forever behind a PRet smile.
So, posting sweet little photos with former homeless people, using their stories for great PR, and advertising on the rooftops what good deed they’re doing now with the £1000 sudden generosity to each employee, I will refrain from saying what word comes to mind!
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
“Huge stress. Never stops. Brute customers. Back pain from lifting heavy boxes to restock products. Shouting all around.
listen to your employees. Say something nice from time to time. Don’t insult them!”
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
“You are of course right, hiring happy people is only a part of the solution. If an employee is unhappy, and its affecting their work, ask them what’s up (gently).”
My response: I lost my brother and in my bereavement was NOT asked “gently” what’s up, and even though I have and had a proven track record how good I was at my job, I was bullied, targeted, tricked and trapped by line managers and their bosses with the “blessing” of Pret’s HR dept. during bereavement to get me out. I was ultimately fired while my father was in intensive care, just out of a coma.
My constantly approaching Pret and HR since May 2015 until fired in Dec 2017 with suggestions and ideas on how to support bereaved employees as well as improving work conditions fell on stony ground. I turned into ill behaviour and even then was tricked and trapped. In hindsight I understand now what happened to me. But at the time I was so naive thinking they just don’t get me or are too clumsy. Nopes, this was and is systemic to maximize profits and get rid of anyone who seems an inconvenience to them. Anyone who does not fall into (their) line, needs to be pushed out.
I have survived to tell my story as “gently” as possible, collecting and compiling all these reviews from other sites and am waiting which PR stunt, trick and trap or whatever Pret will come up with, to talk themselves out of this one! Silence works, too. Will see. I’m not going anywhere @ Pret, and I will never be silent again.
Quote of the Day “on the house”:
“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
“Please have the staff send feedback more often about working within the company. Especially about the managers that come externally, as most of the time, their personality only is good for business, but not for the people that work under.”
Good suggestion, but unfortunately this would be a waste of energy and time because this type of management is calculated and wanted in Pret BECAUSE of business. Take it from me, I wrote my fingers into a carpal tunnel and spoke my tongue into a swollen slab, with bringing suggestion after suggestion to just hit a brick wall of indifference and stubbornness. The slogans and messages that “Pret is a family” like the CEO said straight after Brexit happened, is just PR to try and keep a work”force” in place that is in reality not a family of course, but like the military where they have to function like machines. Whoever doesn’t survive or is too “weak” will be discarded.
The “family” talk had me fooled for years as well breaking my head trying to understand why Pret is not doing anything about the poor management in shops. Ha Ha, Pret IS behind this poor management. “Good for business” is the only goal in Pret, as I came to wake up more and more after thinking for too long that they are just clumsy or incapable.
Last year when I still worked in Pret I was on my lunch break during a shift in my shop one afternoon, when a Manager In Training (MIT) joined me for lunch who just came back from his training day in HQ. He was looking at his training manual at the part of the “The Four Insights Discovery Colour Energies” that Pret teaches and implements for their managers and which is briefly touched on in Team Leader training courses as well.
Remember, the red, yellow, green, blue in personality and management styles? The MIT casually looked at this page while eating and we started chatting when I asked him how the training is going and if it was good, anything interesting he learned etc. We just had some small talk. I always ask people how it’s going whatever they are doing at that point as I love learning about them.
When I saw the page with the colours, I asked him what he discovered his main colour is. He explained what his colour is and I was perplexed, because he said that his colour is red. I responded surprised and said that I thought his colour was more like a mix of green and yellow, because he was quite caring, fun to be around with, although he was somewhat hectic and clumsy as he was new to Pret coming from a different business. But when I responded surprised at his colour he then said something that had me not only in tears, but the scales from my eyes fell off and it all made sense.
Me responding that his colour may be more green or yellow, not at all red, he said, “No, no, they (the trainers in HQ) told us to kill the green because we are a business”, that red is better for business.
These were the literal, exact words he repeated from his training!
Kill the green because we are a business!
I almost had my food stuck in my throat when he said that. He knew my story of mistreatment during bereavement a little bit, and I just teared up right in front of him and said to him, that “this attitude they are teaching you to ‘kill’ the green literally almost killed me!”
He just starred at me in silence as if the penny dropped since knowing my story. He just went quiet as if having second thoughts on his “choice” of colour. I don’t know where he is now, if he made it to be a manager, I’m sure he did, but I hope these few minutes of a conversation had him rethink his approach and not doubt his colour or personality, nor let anyone tell him how to twist himself into a “colour” that he is not, a colour that hurts people including himself.
This is why this review I posted a few days ago makes so much sense and my years of experience in a raging red hot environment that gotten me ill and almost dead!
Well done to my fellow former team leader colleague for leaving early!
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
When you lose someone to death, especially if it is a significant or premature, untimely death, and a death with unclear causes not investigated thoroughly, you will never get closure. You will have to learn to live with this loss and go through a hell you never imagined existed. You cannot speak to the person who died and say one last time Good-bye – or – I love you – or – Sorry I didn’t answer your last email, check your mail please, I sent you my response now – or – What happened to you that you just died like that? – or – Could I have done something? Did I miss something? – or – Will I see you again? – or – I’ll be fine, just look after yourself ………..
There is no closure. The door of grief will remain open for the rest of your life, it will cease in intensity with time, but it will never close. The shock and trauma that hits you out of no-where like a wrecking ball, and the can of worms it opens where existential fears, unanswered questions, foundational doubts of life and purpose, and every nightmare scenario crawl out and haunt you. Or as a German saying describes it better that when unforeseen events or tragedy hits you, a “rat’s tail” of events and complications will be attached to it, that you cannot get rid of.
It’s not just grief you’re dealing with, it becomes much more complicated as the floor underneath you is ripped away, the friends you thought you have disappear, the beliefs you built your life upon become like sand running through your fingers, your mind turns into a mine field where every thought becomes an explosive danger of anger, fear, self-doubt, and the desire to explode out of this life and join the one(s) you lost.
You just have to live through it, as someone I can’t remember who, once said that, “If you’re going through hell, keep going” the light at the end of the tunnel will appear eventually, just keep going through it, keep walking, don’t stop, don’t give up…
But this kind of closure of loss of life and the dark grief it brings is not what I am talking about. The kind of closure I sought since my ordeal started, was to get closure for having additional “heat” being poured on me while I was already in hell! The heat of systemic workplace bullying and the aim to get rid of me early in my trauma, even though I worked extremely well and even during the scorching heat of grief. I gave my sweat, blood and tears to a company who returned my labour with scorn, distance, coldness, scheming, blaming, excuses, additional burdens that almost crushed me beyond repair.
I was just a number, a dirty paper cup that needed to get discarded when it started to “leak” its grief and pain, while still working flawlessly in many areas, helping to bring results to shop after shop after shop. I had no value, was of no use, an inconvenience, a burden, a nuisance, a piece of trash that needed to get thrown on a pile of other useless cups that served their purpose.
It became even further complicated as the tactics were very clever to avoid responsibility. In my fog of grief I even apologized for many things that I didn’t need to apologize for! But this served them well where they often turned the situation around making me feel like I was the problem, like I was the one who created the problem, while it was ridiculously the opposite! When you are in shock and trauma, you cannot see as clear and cannot see the hand in front of you, like if you were crawling with your car through the thickest fog in winter, expecting to hit a car in front of you or being hit from behind just trying desperately to get out of this mess.
The closure I would have wished for, but know it is wishful thinking, is the closure where Pret A Manger would have the backbone to apologize, not just for their “insensitivity” as the CEO put it, because he did apologize AFTER I apologized first for my traumatic rants that I started after repeatedly approaching HR for months, to make suggestions in how to support me and people like me who are bereaved. His apology that was sandwiched into patronizing sentences. A typical Pret sandwich of belittling and patronizing.
I would have wished for an apology for repeatedly being put under suppressive management to get me under control, so I become quiet again like I was before, obedient and following a toxic leadership style that silences people through fear management.
An apology for the refusal to be open to all the suggestions and resources available that I made the effort to seek out and bring forward, to no avail. Pret A Manger = Ready to Eat! It was all there, right in front of them, presented like on a Pret silver platter, suggestion after suggestion, link after link after resources after ideas… a waste of time and energy.
An apology for offending me, not only by offering settlement agreements if I resign and be silent about my ordeal, but having a laugh by offering peanuts while I lost all my savings after my brother died, and trying to take advantage of my financial strain. Offering peanuts as if I was a person who can be bribed with, what for Pret are pennies. No, thank you! I am not for sale nor do I prostitute my values to anyone, no matter what amount is offered.
An apology for the greatest perverted act in all of this, the sick audacity of having tasked a Development Manger who lost her brother similar to how I lost mine to sanction me. Not to put us into contact to support each other in our common grief, which would have been a massive help and step forward; but instead using her to give me a disciplinary for my electronic messaging and her allowing her dignity to be stepped upon like that!
And if this wasn’t enough, an apology for her then entering into secret electronic messaging, traumatizing me more as this “support” was fake and the hopes of someone understanding my bereavement was taken away again. How toxic, disrespectful and perverse can it get?! What else is Pret capable of?!
An apology for then dismissing me in my trauma and ill behaviour that was further fueled by the Development Manager’s secret conduct with the blessing of HR and her being excused and protected in her conduct.
An apology for the scheming and plannings of the HR department with certain key people involved since my informal approach of HR in May 2015.
An apology for stepping on my dignity, having become ill and the hopelessness and anxieties if I ever get my mental health back.
An apology for the CEO belittling me calling me his “late night girl” to the Director of HR, minimizing my ill emailing for which I got dismissed two months later!
An apology for dismissing me while my father was in intensive care just woken from a coma, thrusting me into a new hell I am going through.
An apology for the silence at my outcry in the hopes that the brilliant PR will make this go away.
I want an apology for having been robbed of the time to grieve my brother.
I want Pret A Manger to apologize for robbing me of time to come to terms.
I want the CEO to not skip out silently, but take responsibility!
There is no closure until dealt with in true integrity and a hard look at the core and foundation of Pret A Manger. If true values are not lived and visible, if slogans only serve as phrases to lull in the public and staff to present a shiny facade, the foundation will crumble eventually.
With loss to death there is no closure, but with events that happen while alive, there can be closure.
Until then, there will be no closure.
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
“didn’t learn nothing as i have things to give to that shop as i came with lots of experience and skills.
the management at the moment is below the requirement due to careless and not trying to find solutions and not giving to the right people .
i just want to pass on the work place culture as its ridiculous ender the new managers.”
Gottcha! I came with lots of knowledge and skills as well, but was swamp out with insecure managers. I had a life outside of Pret to get upset about it, until my brother died, then they crossed a line.
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“You have a limited time to do your job everyday but this time limit is a joke.
You have thousand of standards to respect, but it’s impossible to finish on time if you follow all of them. So everyday you need to decide if you are going to finish on time or if you want to follow all the standards. …
Sometimes I felt scared to go to the toilet and waste my time.
The managers were not organized, a lot of times, they give me the next rota just the day before the week starts.”
I want to add to that as this is calculated to pressure people to reach the maximum productivity. And the rota not being on display the day before the new week starts, even though the rota is supposed to be on display two weeks in advance, is another of the many incapabilities, lack of training and carelessness in Pret.
Regarding the calculated pressure, it is that if Pret for example is happy for people to reach let’s say 75% of productivity, they will tell the TMs that they HAVE TO reach 90% productivity, that way they will reach 70 – 80%.
If Pret wants TMs to reach let’s say 90%, they will tell TMs to go over the top to 110%, that way they will reach 80 – 90%.
It’s a simple psychological business trick.
But Pret expects 150% and teams get burned out, frustrated and alienated to make the top leadership millions. Disgusting.
I have always explained how Pret is treating staff, it is like Pret’s top leadership binds the feet of their workforce and then tells them to run! And while the staff stumbles around, struggling, suffering, the top leadership is having a laugh in elaborate parties, massive bonuses, and high-fiving each other in their indulgences.
To me after 10 years, the bullying and discrimination I was put through, not to mention the work conditions and “joke” expectations as stated above, it more and more seems like the top leadership of Pret A Manger enjoys torturing their employees, while doing the PR thing of calling them, their “woooonderfuuullll hard working people” bla bla bla.
@ Pret, CEO, senior leadership, you are really laughing to the bank, aren’t you?!
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
People are treated inhuman way in terms of sickness and work load. Employees are being treated more like robots than human beings so all the company values presented in academy are just crap. Whats more they promote you for more advanced roles without paying you for that. So you become a barista or a hot chef and they delay sending you for a training to save money.”
Yes, this happened to me, too, that my sickness wasn’t taken serious. One manager didn’t believe that I was sick. I was especially questioned during bereavement and trauma. I mentioned this to HR but they just wanted me to raise grievances. So I did, but to no avail. I don’t even want to go into that, I wrote about it elsewhere already, too upsetting.
The delay in pay happened to me also, even though I went through the training courses already. I still had to chase my pay-rise for the new role, as well as chase the pay of team members doing key roles, when they came to me as their team leader to complain after being too scared to speak to the manager.
I got myself into trouble again and again for speaking up for my teams, but it didn’t matter, I couldn’t stand them being ripped off time and time again, especially after seeing them working so blinking hard, and the managers trying to get away with it. Needless to say that I was never considered for promotion. But I didn’t give a f***udge-cake s***ugar-pie!
The amount of excuses and stories managers came up with is a book in itself. This was really damaging for the confidence and trust towards management and superiors in general, which at least I am struggling with now, as this conduct from managers is so rampant and common.
I don’t know if there is any realization of the emotional and mental damage caused by repeated dishonest conduct of leadership, especially when they are aggressive, or if that doesn’t work, then being manipulative. I used to give managers the benefit of the doubt for years, thinking they are just stressed, forgetful, or at worst incapable. But after years of this in shop after shop, this seemed more like a trend especially when managers became angry after being confronted with missing pay. But this they will deny with all the sweet-talk in place, as this is what makes Pret what it is, simply “PR”et!
What’s so clever but sad is, that all staff have to sign a gazillion of rules to be blamed at the end of the day, so Pret will never take responsibility for the behaviour of most of its managers. But if the majority of managers behave so poorly I always look further, for “the fish stinks from its head” as the saying goes. But in today’s society, the head just blames downwards and plays innocent. And thus it is hard for anyone, let alone a new generation of leaders to have truly respectable role-models. It’s a very bleak outlook where people don’t understand what leadership really means. Depressing thought to have to look hard for true leadership and hardly be able to find it. Very disheartening.
And yet some hopeful things are there, the many many conversations I had with my teams who were as disheartened about the terrible management approach, and them trying to figure out why this is so common. Those people hardly were promoted either, they simply cared too much for others to be behaving like this. My hat goes off to those of my ex-colleagues who didn’t accept this “norm” of poor leadership I don’t even want to call “leadership”. If they are still in Pret or not, they will find their rightful place in the workplace in time. But there are more true leaders at the “bottom” of the food chain who are suppressed, but cream always rises to the top. And what is another characteristic is, that cream stays at the top and will in time have true respect and feedback of its leadership character, as they will be able to stand when the storms rage.
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
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I received a disciplinary from a Development Manager (Lila Tighilt Warren) in Pret for my mentally ill emailing after the bullying and trauma, the tricks and traps of the HR department in the middle of going through traumatic bereavement already.
I don’t know how I survived.
They put her on my case because she supposedly also had a brother who died similarity to mine. But instead of having a recommendation for her to speak with me outside the disciplinary and let another manager do the disciplinary, they took advantage of her tragedy using her against me in my tragedy, knowing that she may have better access to me, as I was irrational and traumatized from the bullying of several line managers.
The disciplinary would have been valid even, but it became void because she entered into un-allowed / secret contact with me because of our brothers. But her secrecy and weird communications where she would ask me strange things at times put further stress, confusion and frustration on me. I lashed out at her in a drunken stupor at times because I was confused about her secrecy, not wanting me to tell others that we talked.
The sick and abusive thing in this apart from her using my story for her psychological studies as she was in University at the time to additionally become a Psychotherapist, she gave me a disciplinary for my electronic communication (emailing) but then entered into solely electronic communication with me, mainly text messages and some emailing!
This re-started, and even intensified my emailing again. I was then very mercilessly fired three days after Christmas 2017 and while my father was in hospital, just out of a coma.
I repeat myself here, because new readers will visit the blog and it would take ages to read through everything. Pret’s HR of course rejected my appeal of the dismissal, as even a Tribunal Judged called Pret’s HR hearings as well as appeal’s hearings fundamentally flawed. I still appealed even though I knew it wouldn’t help as I have been through the flawed hearings several times, but I appealed in order to be able to go to court. Without appealing the Judge will reject the case as I didn’t appeal, so it was just an appeal to go through the motions. And I based my appeal on the two main things: The Development Manager being in contact with me, confusing me; and the CEO of Pret just two months before I was dismissed calling me his “late night girl” (late night emails to Pret and others), making light of my ill conduct where I tried so hard to stop. He had a laugh, minimizing the seriousness of it.
So, just as a sore in Pret sight I named my website and blog “Late Night Girl” and speak openly about my trauma in Pret which has almost cost me my life.
I filed a Tribunal claim while going back and forth to visit my dad in hospital, then rehab and later dementia ward, but as I don’t have legal aid or a Union Representative, unlike this lady who was also fired from an NHS service for inappropriate emails but won her case, I knew, even if I would win, I wouldn’t be able to mentally see through to a complex and time consuming court case.
My dad died two-and-half months after I got fired and I became unable to work collapsing under one after another tragedy.
What is so scary and a very poor testament for Pret is, that this Development Manager (DM) also is a Hypnotherapist and an NLP Practitioner and studying to be a Psychotherapist. When looking closer into these, especially NLP, those give tools on how to manipulate people. And in hindsight it makes sense now all the weird questions she asked and she didn’t want to speak on the phone and canceled meeting up, as if she wanted everything in writing. She also wanted to get my input as she was writing an essay on anger for university, which I declined as I didn’t know her well. Later she declined showing me her essay when I was interested in what she wrote with the reason that she wanted to protect her volunteers whom she interviewed.
But first of all I don’t know any of the volunteers, and secondly an essay is not that long, a few pages, she could have quickly blacked out the names. And essays are always written with volunteers’ names being pseudonyms, not their real names. So, what most likely happened was that she wrote about my intense anger for her University essay, despite that I declined to partake in it. So, here I am writing openly about her and what Pret has done to me.
“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should’ve behaved better.” Anne Lamott
I know of three high up managers in Pret, including her, who are NLP Practitioners. I only know those three, but this seems to be a trend in Pret and there must be more.
But these three people, two of which are well educated behaving so dishonest, manipulative and unprofessional.
From the times the DM gave me the disciplinary and immediately entering into contact, to the time I was dismissed were 6 months. When I lashed out at the DM a times I apologized many times and was distressed myself why on earth I had a go at her at times. I know in hindsight that it was because of her confusing roles (Manager giving the sanction / Therapist / Friend due to our brothers).
But after about three months into our contact, she sent me the following screenshot in a text message one morning without any explanation. She must have been reading and studying for University and texted me what she was studying without any explanation whatsoever. She sent this screenshot with some sentences highlighted and with the words:
“I was reading this and it made me think of you.”
Further confused and plainly angry that she was implying I would “die sad and alone”, and then for her not to further explain why she sent this to me was another reason for further distress in the middle of trauma already. Even in the first assessment with a Psychologist weeks before I got fired, the Psychologist called the DM’s conduct abusive, in the least already because this was a trust relationship, even if we did not enter into a contract for official therapy sessions.
It was abuse of power (Manager giving disciplinary), abuse of trust (like a friend due to our brothers) and abuse of boundaries and for her own gain in therapy studies and for personal advancement (Therapist). She should know better than anyone about boundaries and professionalism. But even my last therapist when he heard the story said that she is not behaving as a therapist should. She crossed boundaries that turned out to be very damaging to me and Pret wanted me to sign a settlement where I also would not be able to go to court against her in the future.
This is Pret “doing the right thing naturally”.
I have filed a complaint with the Hypnotherapy governing body that is over her, but they are also just sweet talking not really wanting to investigate. I have left it at that and can only warn to be cautious regarding Hypnotherapy and NLP and certainly Pret A Manger.
I hope one day she will understand what damage she has done in allowing Pret to use her like this and for her to abuse my vulnerability in trauma. She is not fit to be any type of therapist.
I have no confidence in much of the therapists anymore and certainly in no way Hypnotherapy and NLP which I never trusted in the first place anyway. But her conduct just sealed my mistrust.
Pret has lost more than I have. I just lost a job and will find a new one, no matter what reference they will give me.
But Pret not only has lost a very skilled team leader who has integrity, passion and love for people, I survived and live to tell my story and will never be silent again.
I worked at Pret A Manger 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 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.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review.
Thank you for reading/listening.
Bullied during bereavement in Pret A Manger 
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