Ten Things You May Not Know About the John Lewis Partnership....

.... because only some of them are true....

1. Within "The Partnership", only the Chairman (it is never a woman) is allowed to write with green ink.
2. The structure of The Partnership, with elected committees of "Partners" holding the self-appointing management to account, is based on the episcopal-synodical structure of the Church of England.
3. On "Partners' Bonus Day" each year, a chicken is sent to each branch. The chicken has been fed a piece of paper with the Bonus Percentage on it. The job of the "Branch Dispatcher" is to kill the chicken and find out the bonus. Although the John Barnes branch staff can't face the brutality, and wait for nature to take its course. They're like that round there.
4. If a Partner (never an employee) has been with the Partnership for 5 years, it is assumed they will never leave. They are sent on a "Partnership course" to ensure all memories of the outside world are erased.
5. Every year, the aim of the Christmas Advert is to upset the people who love the backing song. They act all nice, do the Partnership, but they've got a mean streak.
6. Mr Waite and Mr Rose took advantage of a legal loophole to have the first gay marriage. To celebrate, they merged their names. They would totally have got away with it if they'd not named the shops after themselves. When the Archbishop of York went shopping, he twigged and got the rules changed.
7. The company magazines have to print all letters from the Partners, as long as they're not libellous. The Management have to respond to these letters, no matter how silly they make themselves look.
8.  The Founder, Spedan Lewis, is preserved in brandy and has a non-voting presence at every Partnership Council meeting.
9. Whenever any customer goes through a till at a JLP or Waitrose store, the cashier presses a button to indicate whether the customer is "A proper John Lewis customer" or "Lost".
10. The word "Partnership" is a proper adjective. It is possible for somebody to be "not very Partnership".