My experience working at Boots Watford I am writing to you regarding a conversation I had with Ade who is one of your floor managers for the beauty department at Boots Watford, whereby I was wrongly discriminated against. I am currently employed by Artisan People and have recently been working temporarily for Liz Earle in Boots Watford Intu. I do not consider myself disabled as having eczema does not prevent me from carrying out day to day duties but, it is however a long-term condition that I have no choice over. I would like to high-light that under the Equality Act 2010 provides that a disabled person cannot be discriminated against in the following circumstances: • At work • When buying, or renting property • In education • When providing goods, facilities or services I would also like to state that Liz Earle is a naturally active skincare beauty brand. They base their philosophy and principles around natural products, looking and feeling great and ensuring that their products are available for all skin types. Liz Earle also states; "we create products for every skin type and that while beauty is of course much more than skin deep, we want to make a difference in better looking skin that can attribute to our confidence and self-esteem". Today on the 23rd October 2016, I believe that I was wrongly discriminated against by a member of your management team, Ade, who is currently the floor beauty manager of boots Watford. The discriminatory act was as follows; Firstly, she asked me to follow her to the office. At this point I was under the impression that I was about to get into trouble for doing something incorrectly pertaining to the job role - this was not the case. Secondly, Ade took me into the office to talk about my Eczema, a skin condition I have suffered with since the age of two and I am now twenty-one years old. She then began asking if there was "something wrong with me", if "I were ill?" and "if I were okay?". The conversation then carried on as follows; employer : "Please we have had complaints about your itching, you were lifting your arm up to itch and it doesn’t look right. As a beauty department, this doesn’t look good for our customers, please can you not do that?" I then said in complete confusion: employee: "oh really? who has made the complaint?" employer: "I cannot tell you that but when we have customers or staff complaining about you itching it doesn’t look good, so please could you try to refrain from itching?" employee: "Okay, do you want me here?" employer: "Of course I do but as this is the beauty department it does not look good". employee: "I don’t understand, this is something I suffer with. I am not choosing to itch, if I could stop it I would and I think I am going to go home". employer : "Okay, if you’re feeling that bad that you cannot work that’s fine". The manager Ade had ultimately told me that having Eczema is not beautiful and I do not care if this is something you suffer from and cannot help, you need to refrain from doing so as it does not look good for us and prevents us from potential sales. I left the conversation without any hostility towards her and had remained entirely calm throughout. At this stage I could only look at her in dismay as I was trying to figure out whether or not she was being serious about the topic and content of the conversation, or essentially just had a complete lack of people skills. Following this conversation, I can only say that I felt broken and my confidence had been shattered by someone that had no understanding of how and why this was going to severely affect me. I later went home and began to feel embarrassed and ashamed, I could not stop crying about what had happened earlier in the day. I felt as though I were made to feel I had something wrong with me and that I had done something wrong. I should make it personally clear that if I were not the strong person I am today, this conversation could have broken me to the extent to where I fell into deep depression or turned to suicide. People who suffer from this condition are made to hear comments like these all of the time and have to look the other way. We should not have to go into a place of work where we feel safe and receive antagonising, patronising and vindictive abuse from managers who have a duty of care for us. In saying this, I do believe that Ade may not have understood or realised the extremity of her comments, but I would have thought that someone especially of a managerial position would have possessed the decorum, people skills and a sense of morality to better address a situation like this. I would also like to point out that the fact I was even brought into the office for such an issue is shocking and so I have no doubts that others may have experienced prejudice or discrimination during a recruitment process for this company, due to the idea that they feel such conditions may tarnish the 'look' of their brand. I feel there is a lot more to be said and considered about this issue I have personally been subjected to, and therefore suggest that Boots as a company invest more into their staff training and management to avoid further situations like these. Boots should be aware that there is no excuse for this type of behaviour from their staff, especially its managers, as they should employ people who have a sense of compassion for other human beings.