Upfront, I am sending this blog post to several people in different countries, people who work in and with charities and people who run small businesses, employing a handful of people or who are higher up employees on executive levels but are doing amazing work with their employees.
Some of you I’m sending this to might get upset, angry, disappointed, all of the above. But please know I don’t mean harm or offence and I will not mention any business or charity here, neither those who do amazing work or those I wish would take to heart regarding volunteer work.
Also upfront, I have severe PTSD issues lately, this is NO excuse whatsoever and nothing anyone can do anything about. I just want people to know it is NOT you, it’s me. I want people to feel released, there is nothing you can do, and it is all ok. I just still don’t now how to deal with triggers and have given up seeking help from mental health services and want to cut myself loose / away from everyone and everything.
Since I was in my late teens, early twenties I volunteered in different charities and churches. I did everything from sound system in church to feeding homeless people in charities to visiting elderly people in nursing home with an artist to paint pictures with them.
At one point in London years ago I was also part-time employed and looked after volunteers.
But for years in ALL these charities I always struggled to understand why we volunteers, when we were absent due to sickness or other reasons, no-one seemed to bother where we are, HOW we are.
In churches this is extremely bad as they brainwash you to “trust in God” while they themselves squeeze the lifeblood out of you.
In recent years it has dawned on me how much volunteer work, which basically is FREE LABOUR, has increased in our Western world. When I grew up, I was never aware of any charity or people doing free work / volunteer. It was an exception when someone needed a service from a charity or volunteered in charity.
I only saw this being common place in the USA. And of course it made sense, the social net system in the USA isn’t as strong as in Germany or the UK. Now under the orange felon it’s even more catastrophic.
But when I returned to Europe in 2006 after close to 6 years in the USA, I was shocked to learn that Germany had a new system where people who can’t find work, get a job where they’re paid €1 (ONE!) per hour and then the state substitutes more money to pay the rent etc.
I remember not having been very fond of then German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who even at the time was already married four times and is currently married to his 5th wife. No judgement here, but if you can’t work through a marriage more than twice, how can you run a country with everyone’s interests and wellbeing in mind?
Under Schröder a lot of social and welfare cutbacks came into place and he was very pro-business. After his political career when Angela Merkel became the first female Chancellor of Germany, Schröder went to Russia and worked on the boards of oil companies. He is also a close friend of Putin. Need I say more about Schröder’s agenda.
But I found a different Germany after I returned to Europe and was shocked at this €400 a month or €1 per hour jobs.
When I grew up, even cleaning jobs were paid decently that you could have a dignified life, paying your bills and afford a vacation. But since the global economy crept in and even countries like Germany started to open food banks in the 1990s, the saying on the radio and TV that the “rich are getting richer, and the poor poorer” couldn’t be ignored anymore.
But me having been a God-believing Christian all these years in Germany, the UK and USA, I just put my head down and did the good work of a good Christian, even suffering with lack of food because a good Christian must suffer and still work for free.
Fast forward to the 2020s.
After my brother’s traumatic death, the bullying in Pret, further losses in my family etc. I have become unable to work, unable to even volunteer due to the triggers regarding the workplace bullying etc.
But I kept trying. But every-time a trigger came, or someone acted toxic, I quit the volunteer “opportunity”. I became increasingly irritated even with these wordings of volunteer “opportunity”, as they are created to sugar-coat to people that free labour is supposed to be an opportunity. Or another clever move that WITHOUT volunteering, you won’t find a paid job as you don’t collect for your resume.
I now call bullsh!t on this.
Of course volunteer work can massively help getting experience, getting to know people and opportunities, absolutely. But this should not be the norm or pseudo-requirement for paid work.
The free work industry, and it is an industry with the sheer amount of non-profits popping up everywhere at times sitting on millions if they’re big enough, is a massive thorn in my side.
Is has become normalised that 1. more charities are needed and 2. much more free labour and low-wage work compared to a living wage and a dignified work life.
All these charities have a few at the top on executive levels and in paid work, like admin. I was told by someone on social media and a little research will show the numbers, that the CEO of the mental health charity CALM (which is short for Campaign Against Living Miserably) gets £154,000 annually, and charities also give bonuses like businesses do. I haven’t researched how much the Samaritans CEO gets which is even a bigger charity than CALM.
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And it is astounding that a charity CEO gets roughly the same, or even MORE than UK Prime Minister. So, while the CALM CEO gets a juicy wage and probably bonus, his workforce live “miserably” as in not getting paid.
In 2024 UK PM got about £173,000 and as far as I know there is no bonus. But I have to check what their travel allowance is. And fair enough, after their PM career they get £115,000 annually. That’s why people were so angry with Liz Truss’ two-and-a-half minutes in office, crashing the economy and nevertheless cashes in for the rest of her life.
A fundraiser in a charity working 3 days a week gets around £32,000+ annually. A Community Operations Manager gets around £40,000 annually etc. etc. etc. All working 3 days a week. If some work more, it’s their choice, but by contract it’s 3 days a week.
£40K a year is a fourth of what UK PM gets running a country and having the finger on the atomic bomb button, making decision of life and death.
How can a CEO of a charity get roughly the same, if not more than UK Prime Minister, and this by running a non-profit “charity” that has mainly unpaid workers volunteering for no pay?
How can this be? Charities that are excempt from paying taxes and get funds from the government and private donations. How?
And of course we cannot compare a charity with a private business, but I still like to spill out that Pret A Manger CEO Pano Christou now gets about £500,000 annually plus £5 million in bonus if not more, while making cuts to staff left, right and center as well as draining tax payers, wage theft, coercing staff to work overtime without pay, “borrowing” money from staff (pay delays) etc. etc. etc.
This article is from 2022, the pay and bonus is more now:
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This article by Sarah Butler came after I sent her other issues with pay delays, strike plans by staff etc. which she all reported on and finally started to dig deeper. I write about Butler here and how it took YEARS for her to move from a Pret fan to digging into how Pret really are. The above article finally came about when she started to investigate instead of just swallowing every PR stunt by Pret, even though she is a journalists who specialises in “ethics”, yet it took her years and many emails from me. Of course she never credited back to me.
Thou shalt work for free and not even eat.
Here comes the real beef I have with charities. And again, there are people that will read this to whom I have already communicated this, partly in anger, partly in drunken mails, and I apologise again. But it remains an issue with me where I want to cut all ties with everyone and every organisation and go off grid and leave the world behind after having experienced and seen exploitation in companies, especially Pret, and worked for free for decades in various organisations in three countries.
One particular person who might read this needs to know how grateful I am for what they personally have done for me when I had a broken foot late last year into this year. This person brought me food, looked out for me, told others to look out for me etc. I will not be able to say thank you enough, partly also because no other charity has ever done anything like this even close when I or other volunteers were sick or unwell in any form like bereavement etc.
So, please know I am extremely grateful.
This charity is a food charity where people can get food including vegetables etc. very very affordable. It has helped me a great deal. And this charity is doing amazing work in the community.
Here comes the hairy but(t), the volunteers have to pay full price, the same amount that we customers pay. And it is disheartening to the point I sometimes tear up.
I raised this a few times, and one staff member responded saying something like, “well if they get free food shop, it wouldn’t be volunteering anymore”. And again, I call bullsh!t.
If a charity doesn’t want to give free shops to their unpaid labourers, they should be ashamed. It is not just unethical, but a disgrace!
I feel bad to even have to scream this from the roof tops and even make “enemies”. But I don’t care anymore.
And especially since this charity is not a foodbank giving free food out, but a food pantry getting all their food donated to them and then selling it very affordable, meaning they do make some profit. They pay nothing for the food and sell it. Yet, the unpaid volunteers also have to pay for their food shop, especially same price. It’s unacceptable.
Everywhere I volunteered, we always received the free products, or a fraction of it. For example when I lived in Florida I helped out in a small clothing donation house where people from the community could come by to get a certain amount of free clothing.
We volunteers were allowed to take one (or maybe more, I can’t remember) clothing item with us. The same with my mum, she volunteered for 15 years with the German Red Cross in her town. My mum helped out once a week, sometimes more depending on how busy it was or when other people were on holiday or sick. Their work also was going through clothes donations to sieve out dirty, ripped clothes and keep the good parts.
They even had donations of curtains, photo cameras, shoes, wall pictures, little lamps and some other items.
Each volunteer was allowed to take 3 items with them per shift. No matter what items there were. My mum had functioning cameras, some kitchen electrical items, clothes, shoes etc. etc. At times she brought some for me when she knew what I liked. I still have a pair of boots that were brand new when my mum brought them home.
Even if volunteers worked 3 days a week, they then got 9 items that week, basically 3 items per shift, even if some just helped out 2-3 hours as they always had MOUNTAINS of clothes. Years later as my mum got older, she in turn then donated a lot of the clothes back to her local charity bank.
And the Red Cross where she helped out did a full typical German breakfast for and with the volunteers. German breakfast is usually rolls with jam, cheese, salami, ham etc coffee, tea. Simple version of a much larger Saturday home breakfast. But the rapport and care in that organisation, even between paid staff and volunteers, was the best I’ve ever seen when I visited my mum and she took me along.
But it breaks my heart and sits extremely bad that volunteers at a food charity have to pay for their food shop.
I forgive businesses for being greedy, and I am NOT against capitalism, but I cannot look over charities hoarding money, paying executives a sh!tload in salary and bonus, and paying staff high wages working 3 days a week. All this while the main frontline work is done by unpaid volunteers, and then they don’t even get a free food shop per shift. I don’t care how normalised this has become, this isn’t normal, and it isn’t right. And I die on that hill.
And what is further upsetting about this is that volunteers have no labour rights like paid employees have. Of course people might argue, ‘well, you CHOOSE to be a volunteer, no-one is forcing you’. Sorry, cop-out. You’re making it too easy on yourself.
On that note also, how some charities manipulate potential volunteers by telling them that they have to commit to a minimum of three months when they start. My response, a volunteer does NOT have to commit to anything, they are not paid. But “charities” (charity which means “love”) rely on good-willed people who don’t understand how they are just used for free labour while having no rights and in some cases don’t even get a free food shop!
I remember times in Germany and even here in the UK that bosses sometimes gave you some extra money when they were happy with your work. But now, these days it is: work more for less and be grateful for this “opportunity”.
Shame on any “charity” working under this mantra.
I burn bridges now since all the traumas and the useless aim to try and get help. I truly give up and don’t apologize for it. Some people who didn’t know me from before everything went downhill, please know I never used to be this blunt and weird. I used to be diplomatic, kept my head down, went on my way. But that old person is dead.
Apologies again to everyone regarding emails, and a huge thank you for the patience and helping wherever I was unable to help myself. It will never be forgotten.
How Pret steal from low-wage staff to fund their “charity” projects for PR:
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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. Schlee has been appointed CEO of itsu in 2024 by Julian Metcalfe who gave him the CEO spot at Pret many years ago.
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 and What shop MANAGERS & HQ staff say about Pret incl. CEO Pano Christou.
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 as well as mentioned by the BBC.
Please also see the MEDIA page for more on my work with the press.
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Thank you for reading/listening.
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Interview:
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Bullied during bereavement in Pret A Manger 
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