Dear reader, the following is my email to Pret executives and journalists today (28.12.2023). Even though I’m inadvertently doing advertising for Pret, this needs to be written about.
Journalists I openly copied in for Pret to see include Sarah Butler (Guardian), Vivienne Nunis (BBC), Mike Powell (BBC, Times, freelance etc.), Janet Eastham (Telegraph), Amy Sharpe (Mirror etc.) …. and many others.
I copy my mail verbatim and haven’t changed a word here except corrected spelling mistakes. I only squeezed in the word “being” in brackets below.
Please also note that current CEO Pano Christou was UK Managing Director under former CEO Clive Schlee who patronised me and had a LAUGH about the state of my mental health (calling me his “late night girl”). Pano Christou was Schlee’s #2 right-hand man when customers died and when I was targeted at Pret under HR and management. He can’t wriggle himself out by saying he wasn’t CEO then. He was the #2 guy in Pret.
My email:
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To Pret A Manger executives, HR, journalists and others,
I hope everyone had a good Christmas and will have peaceful New Years celebrations and healthy new year.
I am openly copying (CC) journalists and others in, including Dr. Shani Dhanda, whose emails are in the public domain (Twitter, Linkedin etc.). I am blind carbon copying (BCC) others in who reached out to me and/or their emails are private.
Anyone who doesn’t want to receive my mail, please block me. I write so SUBSTANTIALLY for journalists to know NOW and have a reference as I still don’t know how long I can survive.
Upfront to anyone who doesn’t know me, I write so BLUNT after what I survived in Pret during bereavement with many managers shouting at me, gaslighting me/us, pretending our work is not good while we work(ed) our butts off. And behind all this is Pret A Manger’s CORE team in head office. Make my day and sue me Pret! You don’t because it would open a can of worms for you, and you have already bad press as it is.
I write to you Pret regarding your latest PR stunt which you ONLY post on Linkedin because on X/FB/IG you would get backlash from current and former Pret employees, especially frontline shop staff.
Scrolling up in the following X feed that was posted today (28.12.2023) where a former Pret staff is appalled about Pret’s PR stunt on Linkedin. I don’t know him, but have read his previous call-outs on Pret.
Please scroll up in the following X feed where a former staff with mental health problems calls you out after Dr. Dhanda spoke in your company. Quote by Juan Aquiles Gomez: “How can you have the audacity to publish something like that, when I am a victim of dismissal for reasons motivated by my mental health in pret? It seems very miserable to me.”
(Please note, my tweets disappeared due to censoring).
I don’t know him, but I believe him after what I and many others suffered in Pret.
PHYSOLOGICAL “ABUSE” VIA STRICT WEEKLY MYSTERY SHOPPER VISITS:
I could post countless blog posts I wrote with screenshots I took to show how Pret is NOT disability-friendly. Pret might be accommodating disabilities in head office where staff are not required to be super fast under extreme stressful conditions in shops, but even if Pret really wanted to have a disability inclusive work environment in SHOPS, they simply can NOT achieve this BECAUSE the objective of Pret has always been, remains and will always be: LOW wage workers working under fast and stressful conditions, having to smile and love-bomb customers or they don’t get bonus and then get penalised.
Please google Timothy Noah’s “The Enforced Happiness of Pret A Manger” and see examples of Pret’s shopper scheme on my blog. I stopped updating any new reports as the core effort remains the same: low-wage shop staff HAVE TO smile, up-sell, and bend in all directions to get a few pennies more bonus, and even then it’s not given or withheld:
LINK to blog post.
I was reprimanded by management after the mystery shopper commented that I didn’t smile, despite also commenting that my service was polite. This was days after I buried my brother. The mystery shopper did not know I was traumatically bereaved and had no choice but to work and STILL even helped shop after shop after shop to succeed, incl. becoming #1 and the top 10 in the premier league DURING traumatic grief!
NEW PR STUNT USING DISABILITY-FRIENDLY SPEAKERS:
(But ONLY on Linkedin 😉 )
Pret, you purposely don’t post Dr. Dhanda’s talk in your company on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter/X because you know very well that Pret staff would raise their voices again and you have a hard time trying to hide their comments, like you did a while ago when PR-stunting again looking for staff. And you know how I call you out on the BS you post on social media. But you feel safe on Linkedin because business people who are mostly working in PR and marketing, which involves putting out a fake image to the public, they love you and tell you all day what an awesome company you are! You have always surrounded yourself with “yes-men/women” and avoided platforms where people with inside knowledge and common sense call out your bullsh!t, pardon my French, but “foreign branding” works both ways.
And YES, it would be helpful to have a more inclusive work environment for staff with any disabilities, but to Dr. Dhanda, please know that this is yet another of Pret’s PR stunts to appear ethical and caring in the public. Reality is VERY different and I keep imploring journalists to go into Pret for longer than a week, which Amy Sharpe from the Sunday Mirror did. She only worked a week in the late shift. But it needs a journalist to work for at least 1 MONTH in both shop and kitchen in the morning to SEE the systemic issues and dodgy things staff are forced to do to achieve targets!
I KNOW Pret having worked there 10 years in over 30 shops, and survived their antics DURING traumatic bereavement. Please see my post about Lila Warren. I declined Pret’s “hush money” and never signed an NDA.
To Pret, I did screenshots of what staff said before you hid/deleted some comments by staff and then disabled the comment section for further comments by staff.
I put some screenshots here, but there’s more:
LINK to blog post.
So, Pret you only use Linkedin where mostly business and marketing people frequent and most low-wage staff and customers don’t hang out or if they do, they are still brainwashed by your lies, yes LIES! But even if I speak out on Linkedin, you’ll get my Linkedin account reported and disabled again as usual. Make my day!
You used NHS workers for PR when you made the announcement on 18. March 2020 just before first lockdown announcing free coffees and 50% rebates for NHS workers. And the very next morning 19. March 2020 Pano Christou sent a mass email to all shops to announce cuts to staff (beginning with hour cuts on their contracts to save money and later cutting wages as well while Pano got a juicy payrise and millions in bonus).
Low-wage Pret workers PAID for your NHS freebie PR stunt.
I was contacted again as usual by staff with your full CEO email, but this SLIPPED by journalists as everyone was DISTRACTED by this PR stunt: https://expret.org/2020/03/26/to-nhs-employees
You made Pret workers pay for this PR stunt. Are you not ashamed?! Do you have NO shame?!
You read my blog and copy ideas as you usually do because I keep pointing out how badly you treat staff with mental health problems. I even wrote an open note to the Pret Foundation after you did NOT take on a man with mental health problems, even though he did excellent, but he was too slow! You didn’t even take him on in the shop like I often fought for when my manager wanted to fire a staff in the kitchen and I pleaded to put them in the shop where they’d thrive!
Open Letter to the Pret Foundation:
LINK to blog post.
Your newest PR stunt, that you only post on Linkedin is to pretend to be disability-friendly while your workers suffer mentally as well as physically and financially. And no, your pay-rise PR stunt came because the government raised the minimum wage and will raise the min, wage again in April 2024. You had and have no choice to raise pay a few pennies above min. wage when the govt raises the pay again, and you will PR your way through the media again in 2024 proclaiming to be so generous.
The Guardian’s Sarah Butler’s article again from 2021, and I have already seen that CEO’s bonus has reached over £5 million now.
“Pret CEO handed near-£4m bonus in year staff pay was cut.
Pano Christou also given 27% salary rise in 2021 as chain took more than £50m in government support” LINK to article.
DISHONESTY, LACK OF INTEGRITY, DISCRIMNATION, CARELESSNESS … WILL ALWAYS BE EXPOSED:
I will stop here as I tend to write long emails and blog posts, but I will never stop speaking out against Pret’s fake façade, hypocrisy, discrimination towards staff with mental and physical disabilities and how you targeted me under the watchful eye and involvement of your corrupt HR department, David Carter, Lila Warren (development manager), Sarah Bohn who also held a grievance and blocked me on Twitter/X already a while ago after I posted to her about Lila Warren, her direct colleague’s conduct under Pret’s leadership. (Please note, my tweets disappeared due to censoring).
LINK to blog post.
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And then I was fired days after my dad came out of a three-week coma which you knew about after what Lila has done which confused me further!
I will never be silent Pret, Clive Schlee, Pano Christou, even Julian Metcalfe whom I chased off Twitter, but screenshot his appalling tweets before he deleted his account after 2 days on Twitter:
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And now you jump on the Disabiliy-inclusiveness bandwagon to appear great again!
I am sickened by your ongoing disregard for human beings, customers and employees alike. I am still appalled that you didn’t tell us, didn’t do ANYTHING when 2 customers died and 20+ got injured.
73% of customers on Trustpilot (1&2 star reviews combined) disapprove of Pret on a variety of issues, many having sworn to never set foot inside Pret again
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/pretamanger.co.uk?sort=recency
Go on, send some people to post FAKE reviews like it is alleged that you tasked someone to post false info on Wikipedia until the person got banned! Because you don’t want the public to know that Jeffrey Hyman founded Pret before he went bust and sold the rights, incl. name and LOGO to Beecham and Metcalfe which you still use at HQ and some shops! A friend of Jeffrey Hyman spills the beans on this, and yes, I already screenshot in case it gets deleted/hidden:
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GROWTH DOESN’T EQUAL (being) ETHICAL AND CARING:
You will grow as you are tasked by JAB to speed-open worldwide. Pano Christou will set a legacy for himself to have grown Pret worldwide, but the truth about your work conditions and how horrifically bad you treat your employees will continue to be told, not just by me.
You can keep on trying to get me shut down everywhere, I will pop up again and again and again and again and again and will NEVER be silent about your appalling way you treat employees who helped you become so successful, as well as having carried you through the pandemic and as a thank you get their pay, benefits, paid breaks etc. cut.
I am proud to have put Pret on the map of reality where 5 years ago hardly anyone believed me how badly you treat your staff, and now it’s become more common knowledge and customers also call you out publicly. And I am extremely proud of having made the step to speak out publicly even while I was shaking in my boots. I don’t shake any-more. You have become the laughing-stock of many.
I have PTSD and am still only surviving and have written thousands of posts and emails in traumatic state and work on the drinking bit, I have written to GOOD people who deserve better in my traumatised state and had Pret managers and HQ staff LAUGH about me. I have many regrets with GOOD people, journalists, friends and strangers, but after what you Pret did via Lila Warren it has destroyed my trust in people. I hope you’re proud to have destroyed yet another staff member on top of customers’ lives, now continuing to sell Mislabeled and even MOULDY food due to the immense stress you put on understaffed workers.
To ALL journalists, friends, former and current Pret staff who reached out, my ongoing apologies to you for my mails! It’s NOT you, it’s me.
To Pret, I apologised enough to you and was gaslit by your disgusting conduct from the CORE of Pret employees incl. executives (Clive Schlee calling me his “late night girl” having a laugh about my mental state). I will NEVER ever regret having called you Pret out on their lies and appalling treatment of myself and many other staff. My www.LateNightGirl.org url remains as a reminder of your poor conduct with hard-working employees. Weeks after he called me that, he gave the green light to fire me, KNOWING my dad just came out of a coma. You have no scruple and will be called out until my last breath.
I continue to put in my late-night-girl shifts and will never be silent.
If anyone outside of Pret wonders WHY not more staff speak out, they are EXHAUSTED and disheartened! And many are “brainwashed” to function and believe Pret are good to them. They feel stuck without a choice of a better employment. Pret degrades hope and confidence in people. I was brainwashed for a while and then too exhausted to find another job. Staff, mostly from other countries, have been conditioned in fear management. I don’t fear Pret any-more. Not one bit!
Having survived and still surviving, I will never be silent! All I hope is for Labour to enter government and in time change the appalling work conditions in companies! Hope dies last.
For anyone OUTSIDE of this toxic Pret A Manger team, my apologies for this long mail. This is mainly for reference for journalists and friends and for Dr. Dhanda.
Kind regards,
expret.org aka former CEO Clive Schlee’s “late night girl”.
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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. 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 and HQ Staff say about Pret and their leadership.
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 and was mentioned by the BBC.
Please also see the MEDIA page for more.
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Thank you for reading/listening.
©2017 – Present: expret.org aka LateNightGirl.org
Interview:
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©2017 – Present: expret.org unless otherwise stated. All Rights reserved.
Bullied during bereavement in Pret A Manger 
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