Terrible company culture, will overwork and underpay, management very incompetent - Administrative Closer Pret A Manger Employee Review

-Management is very incompetent. It is clear they have little to know training and have absolutely no training or experience in employee relations or even customer relations for that matter. Every manager I have worked with - I have worked with 6 - will immediately try to belittle you. Not sure exactly why this is such a common practice among managers but it is an intrinsic behavior within the company itself. -Team leaders work hard but shop leaders tend to be more of facilitators than leaders. It's a roll of the dice if you get a good shop leader. Most try to delegate responsibilities rather than carry out any of their own. -There are no sick days or flex time. Even if you're extremely ill and have to miss a day's work and give last minute's notice, your bonus will be taken away (mystery shopper bonus given for meeting company standards). Say if you're late because of train delays, which happens, you still lose your bonus. You tend to lose your bonus for almost anything and start to wonder if this "bonus" is just a carrot held at the end of a stick. -Career advancement depends on who your manager is. Some managers may pigeonhole you depending on what the shop needs or what you're good at. There isn't much information exchange on what opportunities are out there because the career database is only open to managers. So if you think you have control of your future in Pret, think again. You don't have much and your subject to a manager's judgement on where your career path is headed. Very, very sad reality of Pret. -Company culture. Being that almost all managers I have worked with seemed like tyrants and had not the slightest bit of patience or understanding, it lead me to believe the company culture is strictly sales based and not people driven. Even though Pret A Manger emphasizes that they are a "people first" type of company, the reality of it is is that they are solely concerned with sales and view their employees as faceless and a dime a dozen.