Sandwich shop, Pret, has come under fire after a female employee was spotted wearing a, “I am new, kiss me” badge.
The badge was first spotted by journalist, Bella Mackie who tweeted a picture and wrote, “Come on Pret, it’s kind of gross to make new female employees wear this badge.”
Come on @Pret, it’s kind of gross to make new female employees wear this badge pic.twitter.com/NQvrF9uyqd
— Bella (@bellamackie) November 13, 2017
Other Twitter users have also commented, calling the move “inappropriate”, “unacceptable” and “gross”.
MP Harriet Harman joined the backlash, writing, “Oh no! This cannot be for real! If it is, Pret, stop it immediately! I love Pret but hate this!”
However, the sandwich chain has clarified that it does not make its staff wear these badges.
Responding to the outrage on Twitter, Pret said, “…we definitely don’t ask our employees to wear badges with this message. Could you please let us know which shop it was so we can investigate?”
They also clarified, “Our teams can order badges with names on and can personalise them. Thanks for letting us know which shop it was and for making us aware of this in the first place.”
“We will look into it.”
Despite this, another Twitter user said it had seen another Pret employee with a badge displaying an inappropriate message.
He tweeted, “Interestingly, I saw today both that one alongside a black employee wearing one with ‘hot chocolate’ and thought ‘am I being bad, or are they really doing this?’.
“If this is company policy, or even just encouraged, it’s quite appalling.”