Link – A Journalist turned Jobcenter case worker, recruiting for Pret.
Dear Journalists,
I just want to throw out a few questions to any journo, be it that you are independent, mainstream, at the beginning of your career testing the waters, or as a hobby writer, blogger, radio host etc. Twitter is full of “writers” of course, but my question is to the serious writers and show hosts who dig deeper than just the copy & paste journalism that we’re swamped with! And yes, I’d love a response and a dialogue, but I understand that most remain just observers from a save distance.
Of course I must be naïve to assume that journalists are neutral, just reporting news to the public. I often lose hope if there are more journos who particularly would expose the truth, lifting the carpet on issues which in turn makes it hard for them to get published to the masses. I can relate, even though I’m not a journalist or an established writer. Most jump on the bandwagon once a story breaks and everyone then copy & pastes. This happened with the recent JAB/Reimann Nazi story that supposedly broke from the German BILD at the end of March 2019. And yet, the Daily Mail published this already in September 2018.
Sathnam Sanghera wrote a good article in The Times after the customer deaths became public when he started to take a closer look. And yet, everything he wrote about, except the part on how investment and private equity works, I already publicly wrote about since May 2018.
I don’t have a clue on how private equity and business works, but I know how Pret works. And I have dangerously felt the impact of, what CEO and farmer Guy Singh-Watson from Riverford calls, those “bastards”. His clear and passionate words, as a multi-million pound employee-owned business is music to my ears: “To sell my business … to one of those bastards (venture capitalists) would feel like selling one of my children into prostitution!”
Having worked at Pret for 10 years and further researching extensively after my ordeal with the “firm”, trying to understand why Pret is the way it is, a lot makes sense now. I narrowly escaped the spiral of suicidal thoughts after my ordeal with Pret while already under a cloud of trauma. So, please understand why I am so loud against this company and their PR[et] machine.
Amy Sharpe from the Sunday Mirror went 100 steps further, going undercover into Pret for a few days after having read my blog and I suggested to go undercover. My huge respect to her! I wish she would have gone for at least a month, covering all of the business, morning shifts, kitchen etc. But it was a good start, and I won’t complain as I can write books on Pret from my 10 years “inside” and Amy covered a lot from the little time spent in a shop.
“… and staff who are hugely overstretched.”
She worked only in the late shift on the shop floor. But to really get the Pret blow, anyone should work longer, as staff are often treated better in the beginning and the evening shifts, until Pret starts pushing them hard after the little training they received, if at all trained. I wrote my thoughts on it as well in Undercover Under Pressure, and I still remember vividly how I felt when I found her article on Twitter after she was very silent about going under, and rightly so. Not to be sentimental here, but I literally teared up when I saw her article!
And then there are some other articles on Pret which many journalists and some bloggers keep referring to and copying from. But I lived through it.
MSNBC article on the Emotional Labour in Pret, Starbucks & Co.
Class Action suits, one on deceptive packaging which was settled out of court recently. I cover this extensively from Twitter posts on Class Action vs Pret where Pret even deleted a Tweet after I posted this.
Class action suits of workers in the U.S. regarding unpaid wages and illegal practices Pret used.
The Guardian on “The brilliant Pret A Manger marketing con we want to fall for”
… and many other early articles I leave to the reader to do their home-work searching for.
I recently wrote a post on the free coffee give-away and marketing Pret is excellent in and why Pret doesn’t do a Loyalty Card system. The psychology behind not doing a Loyalty Card is my interpretation and not something we have been told, but anyone who understands marketing just a little bit might get the idea behind all the freebies.
But in the free coffees post I concentrate on Journalists who tweet making advertisement for Pret.
So, my questions to Journalists are: what is your motivation for a story? What makes for neutral journalism, if that even exists? Is money, reputation and statistics as a journalist and writer really the driving force behind articles and tweets?
Of course asking so bluntly won’t get me anywhere. But I’m a writer, too, even if I never get established. I just have “established experience” and write about it now. And I certainly am not neutral when it comes to Pret A Manger.
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I worked at Pret A Manger for almost 10 years and survived systemic workplace bullying during bereavement that involved HR, the top leadership, HQ and even the CEO. 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 also tell my story for the first time verbally in this >>> podcast interview based in California. Thank you for reading/listening.
Unless otherwise stated or linked to, this website and all writings within this site are the property of expret.org, poetrasblok.com, LateNightGirl.org and are protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws. Reproduction and distribution of my writings without written permission is prohibited.
UPDATE March 2019 – The first time I share my story verbally in one go in this interview. Underneath the interview section are selected reviews from current and former Pret Staff.
Above interview is with Adam from The Adam Paradox podcast on my experience in Pret A Manger.
We spoke about gaslighting, “shadow banning” and censorship on social media, as well as bereavement, trauma and mental health in general. I further talked about the significant timing of Pret CEO’s announcement of the £1000 Tweet for all staff. I also talked about a regular day in Pret and how staff have to cut corners, in order to fulfill the immense workload under constant pressure.
It is hard to squeeze my traumatic experience into a podcast segment, but we covered enough to get a good picture of today’s systemic stress environment for profit driven global companies.
“Dear Lord, protect me from ever need to work for Pret a Manger ever again. Amen. For this company you are numbers, robots, machines, you are no humans.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“Go back to the UK, Pret I have never worked in such a toxic, unprofessional corporate environment.
“Workers are slave Very bad management. They treat you like a slave. You have zero value for them. They don’t recognize your effort…”
“I want to be as loud as possible here – PRET DOESN’T CARE! …I just feel very strongly that the general public view of this company is very far off from the truth.
“Pret doesn’t care about workers.The most important is business, profits. That’s why they cut working hours and made you work harder.”
“horrible management … management is disrespectful, they fire people when they are having rough times in life… i was penalized for calling out for a funeral.”
“Never again – very poor screening system when choosing management, lots of hr issue unsolved … reconsider the Happy Team, Happy Customer scenario and solve the hr issues from headoffice”
“Not for british – I felt like an outsider in my own country.Train your managers! They look unhappy and stressed.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Paris: “Charge de travail horrible – Entreprise a fuir absolument, des rushs épouvantables parfois 7 jours de travails consécutifs sans repos.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“Never left a job so fast – I worked only a few week in Pret but fell used and stressed out. Expectations is high but no help from manager.”
“If I could give zero stars I would – Pret does not deserve even 1 star. I regret having worked there. Pret looks good from the front but once you work thete it’s a lot of stress”
“You can do better – I was stressed out nearly everyday. The manager was very unprofessional and disrespectful.”
“The place was always dirty. People wouldn’t take the job seriously. Everyday people would call out. I wouldn’t recommend working at this company. Avoid.”
“Pure Misery kitchen staff is treated like slaves… 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.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Exploitation, racism:“Sfruttamento– azienda poco seria e stipendi molto bassi, poca vita sociale e turni troppo lunghi, bullismo e razzismo erano all’ordine del giorno”
“Horrible – Pret A Manger is honestly a very unprofessional work environment. I’ve met great people at the job but the job itself is very stressful and not worth the pay.”
“Wouldn’t recommend – There are lot of slogans and promises of awards but when you do well there is no award. Manager is stressed and hectic no time to learn and make mistakes.”
General Manager:“Not the best place to work – Not much support to the management from the Operations Team. Had to work there at least 12 hours, as there was no other manager in the store, due to some HR issue … As much as they “Like to promote internally” you are still just a pawn for them.”
“Other locations were filthy. Seriously… I worked at a relatively new location with staff that enjoyed themselves… but I was sent to a couple other locations at times if they needed help and ooooh was it a different story.
General Manager:“Great company in risk of ruin! Forced to work without pay, expected to work during annual holiday, pressure on profit leading to unsafe food practices, bullying tactics used by Heads, unfair salaries, discrimination… 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.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Head Office: “Great brand poor management – Poor management resulting in poor decisions. Office culture is working really really long hours. No work life balance whatsoever
For an overview of important blog entries of my experience in Pret, please visit“My Ordeal with Pret A Manger”. The arrow next to each heading will lead directly to the post. Thank you for reading.
Unless otherwise stated or linked to, this website and all writings within this site are the property of expret.org, poetrasblok.com, LateNightGirl.org and are protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws. Reproduction and distribution of my writings without written permission is prohibited.
Pret A Manger DELETED their Tweet to Natalie Raybold about the new (bogus) reason for the “air” hidden behind the cardboard, after Pret read this blog entry! I explain further below.
@Pret, thanks for stopping by again, unfortunately your visit led to your deletion of a Tweet. Getting caught doing the “right” thing again!
As the case is settled now, the “wrapped too tightly” version started again… and the generic “oh no” responses from Pret continue with the usual “Please send us a DM with which shop you visited” as if this was an isolated incidence. To any reader, go unto Pret’s “Tweet and Replies” page and see their cut & paste responses, even though lately there seems to be new Twitter staff on the shifts, their wording is changing finally!
I didn’t want to put this “wrap collection” into a blog post, but Twitter and Facebook keep hiding, deleting etc. my posts, FB even deletes my PRIVATE messages when I have a link to my blog in the message! So I enter the below list into one post, hence only one link to post and a list of customer complaints.
In the U.S. people easily sue companies, in the UK they just go to Twitter, rant a little and that was that. Even customers dying, getting hospitalized from unlabelled allergen in products, no law suit! In the U.S. it would hail a storm of law suits upon Pret with lawyers drooling for cases like this! But in the UK they fall asleep being cooked like frogs while getting bribed with cheap free coffees! Unbelievable!
After my repeated comments on Pret’s funny reason for the cardboard to hide “air” behind it and letting customers pay overpriced half products, Pret keeps sweet-talking customers into sleep, “Oh no, this looks like it has been wrapped too tightly”.
But let’s rewind to 2016 where the version was, starting as usual with “Oh no…” to pret-end that the Pret-Tweeter is surprised. The rather TRUE response here is: “this isn’t right…”
Exactly! This is NOT right! Thanks for the honesty here, Pret. Unfortunately nothing was changed in the packaging to be decreased, or an increased size of wrap to fill the packaging for an honest product. And communication down the line, of which version would be best to give on Twitter complaints, got messed up over time.
And this one from the U.S. in October 2018 is a give away that this indeed is not an honest packaging for the later “version” of a 13. Jan. 2019 explanation by Pret. Stephanie feels “very tricked” and Pret EVEN agrees by saying:
Fast forward a little … the version is that this is “wrapped too tightly”. This loosely wrapped product Pret says looks too tightly wrapped. LOL! The consistent “Oh no”… “Oh dear”… Oh gosh”… from the UK Twitter side remains, to give the impression that this is an EXCEPTION while Pret is being sued in the States for deception.
Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, here is a brand new version of a warped wrap packaging!
After repeated comments on this ridiculous “reason” for Pret having spread that version too broadly, the version now is even more ridiculous, I added the bold highlight. New reason completely holding customers for idiots!
Quote: “Our packaging is designed to leave a space in the middle so the wrap can be displayed clearly at both ends and doesn’t get squashed. We’re sorry if you feel mislead on the size, Natalie but we can assure you that you’ve received both halves of the same wrap.”
How absolutely amazing Pret now openly fools customers! The Wrap WON’T get squashed as the cardboard center is sturdy and protects any product from being squashed. This should be a UK law suit (the bot that bookmarks my blog in the States on behalf of Pret can send this one to them! Be my guest!)
The issue is NOT the size of the wrap, but the misleading size of the packaging. It’s an old trick businesses do knowing that customers buy via sight, not probing on the weight and measure, even if a package would state that. But as everyone knows, Pret packaging has hardly ANY useful information on it, as at least the first of the two customers who died had to pay with her life, and only when the public became aware of their deaths does Pret SLOWLY change labelling. Let alone have a weight and measurement of the product on the packaging. Pret’s packaging just has bla bla sweet-talk of whatever, but NO useful information on ingredients, weight etc. except in stores where ingredient/allergen labelling is TRIALED as I write this.
So with Pret products that are assembled in the shops each day, customers rely SOLELY on their eye-sight, and as they don’t have time during their lunch break to weigh out the product with their bare hands if it is too light, or the usual weight, they go by eye-sight. They cannot purchase according to weight or how much of a certain ingredient is “behind” the packaging. Companies use this to their advantage and what I find, mislead customers to “assume” the package is completely filled inside.
The most common is items like Washing Powder. Yes, it does state the amount in KG, but what customer carries a scale or knows how to size up the packaging. So, the washing powder packaging is often very large, but upon opening at home a quarter is just air, because businesses know customers buy according to eye sight, not information and weighing the product.
And Pret’s wraps get the most complaints because it has the middle section to hide air, whereas the sandwich and salad packaging has more “window” to show the majority of the item, and less possibility to hide air.
I cannot believe my eyes reading this! From “Oh no, this isn’t right…” to this hilarious open fairy tale, holding customers for complete idiots! And customers swallow the fast, efficiency of Pret’s Twitter feed and go back to sleep while they remain happy to pay for hidden air.
PRET’S DELETED TWEET:
The above link used to lead to this tweet from Pret:
The whole feed again before Pret deleted their Tweet:
Natalie Raybold’s Tweet here has no Tweet above anymore, as it is deleted.
Even the whole feed of her Tweet has disappeared and some are only visible because I have the remaining Tweets in my Replies as I responded. Pret changed quickly after Natalie kept protesting as well as my post on the bogus reason: “It does appear to be a rather small wrap, Natalie…” Link
Initial Tweet standing on its own, no other Tweets are found. This looks like part of shadow banning.
Direct link of part in the feed from my own Tweets & Replies as I tweeted within this feed. Natalie Raybold here responds to the new reason and finds this misleading. But from her initial Tweet, this cannot be traced anymore. If I wouldn’t still have my Tweets, only her initial post would be visible.
Twitter and Pret are in this together on behalf of protecting profit driven companies! Katschink!
Thus, it should be clear again how dodgy this is and how Pret tries to hide this, as this may get people’s attention for another lawsuit.
These, the list below and others I didn’t include here, are only those that people bother posting on Twitter. Not every customer produces a photo publicly as they don’t have time and may think this is a one-off, not realizing how much this happens.
Links to Class Action Suit and customers’ complaints on Twitter. Links open in new window:
12. Jan. 2018 Little Duck (expensive), lots of Greens (cheap)
13. Jan. 2019 Pret’s NEW reason for packaging “deception”
Ok, didn’t expect the next day to have to continue on this…
14. Jan. 2019 I should get paid for giving Pret so many tipps, now Pret does NOT give any reason anymore but write instead: “We’re sorry to hear that, Sam. Please could you send us a DM with some more info including the shop you visited?”
There isn’t even a “oh no… oh gosh” response anymore, well done Pret! Them spies and boss are reading my blog. Well, thank you! Keep it up and be on your toes! 😀
On 28. May 2019 a customer posted a video and I will include the whole feed as the exchange is brilliant. This customer won’t let Pret BS him or get lured into DM:
Pret being desperate to get the customer away from the public into DM.
Little side note, where it says “1 more reply” is my reply LOL! Twitter hides it, even though I’m not shadow banned (yet!) they do hide posts for companies or political issues. They hide it so it can’t be seen immediately as people are busy often, they don’t realise there are more replies and don’t always see the “1 more reply” thing.
Here’s my reply when one clicks on it, tucked away in-between two tweets:
Peek-a-boo… PreT-A-Boo…
Direct link to the first of my tweets as I feel a shadow ban coming! 😀
One solution would be for staff just “spread” the wrap to fill the package!
It’s certainly a good give-away that Pret knows what they are doing and the versions they keep giving when they don’t even respond to the Tweets addressed to them directly in this feed HERE further down the Tweets.
And I can’t help but think that Pret now changed the version because of this law suit. Time will tell. I cannot find any more info on this suit.
A TripAdvisor Review on Pret and the oldest trick in the book on shrinking products but charging same or higher price. I have seen this many times over the years when I worked in Pret. The brownie for example disappeared for a while, we were instructed to tell customers that the product is being “improved” and when the brownie returned, it was smaller.
And currently customers on Twitter keep lamenting that the Vegan cookie is not on sale anymore and Pret again says that the recipe is being improved. And yet customer after customer says that it was perfect, doesn’t need improvement, even today again:
Someone recently mentioned a rumour that the Vegan cookie wasn’t even Vegan in the first place, hence Pret did what they do best, they “deleted the cookie”. Vegans point this out a lot that many products advertised as Vegan have eggs in it, not to mention Celia Marsh’s death as she was allergic to dairy. This second death in Pret from a non-dairy product that contained Dairy Protein is still under investigation who is responsible, Pret or Coyo that supplied the non-dairy yogurt.
And to finish on a positive, just today when I cooked something, I was pleasantly surprised when I opened a brand new Colman’s mustard powder package and upon opening had to catch powder falling out as the jar was so full it ran over. The photo is already after I used some of it, but it’s still filled to the top. This is rare these days, and maybe it was an “accidental” overfill, as I haven’t bought this product for a long time and can’t remember how it used to be before.
But maybe there’s another blog entry on deceiving vs honest packaging one of these days and companies need to be called out for it, the good and the bad guys. But on a positive note, the good stuff needs to be mentioned as well.
I worked at Pret A Manger for almost 10 years and survived systemic workplace bullying during bereavement that involved HR, the top leadership, HQ and even the CEO Clive Schlee. 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 also tell my story for the first time verbally in this >>> podcast interview based in California, and wrote a recent 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 expret.org, poetrasblok.com, LateNightGirl.org and are protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws. Reproduction and distribution of my writings without written permission is prohibited.
