I don’t think people truly understand how draining it is at the moment working in retail/a pharmacy. A lot of people in the past have told me to get a ‘real’ job working in Boots for the past 4 years. Yet I am now one the key workers risking my health to help others...

Keep themselves safe. My shifts are normal, I do my normal 9 hours a day 5 days or more a week (nothing compared to the NHS who I am SO grateful for)...

The difference now is that I have to keep a smile on my face to keep our customers calm when I am actually terrified incase I catch the virus myself and bring it home to my parents...

I have customers of all ages call my colleagues and I every name under the sun, sighed at for asking them to wait a few minutes, one of my colleagues has been spat at as she asked somebody to step back behind a line...

Myself and some of my colleagues have stepped up to get pharmacy trained to be able to help with the huge amount of prescriptions coming through each day. Some other staff have stepped up to be delivery drivers...

We are only given gloves and a mask, although it gives us some sort of protection people who aren’t keeping 2M apart from us make us feel unsafe, we don’t need to keep getting verbally abused for asking you to step back to protect both of our healths...

My point of all of this is PLEASE next time you’re out getting the essentials you need, your medication etc, where ever you go RESPECT the staff still working to make sure the world keeps going round for you...

I’m not saying this for any praises or to make anyone feel sorry for our key workers what so ever, I’ve mentioned this because we are all human. We don’t want to be out of the house as much as you don’t want to be...

We would prefer to be at home with our families trying to keep ourselves safer, our families safer, the general public safer and be less at risk of contracting the virus than we are at now...

Next time you are out please consider what you say and how you act towards staff, we are all exhausted and trying our very best to help make your day easier when coming into our store. #COVIDー19 #coronavirusuk