Mary is a retail worker who works in a pharmacy in Dublin city centre. She started working there pursuant to a written contract of employment in May 2019. Mary takes pride in her work and is especially interested in the range of natural and holistic medicines that the pharmacy sells. During the Covid outbreak, the pharmacy stayed open, and Mary has been working as normal.

She normally works from 9am to 5pm. Due to how busy the shop is, Mary rarely gets a full lunch break, even though her lunch break and breaks are set out in her contract. The customers are generally appreciative of the service the pharmacy provides however sometimes when issues arise with prescriptions customers can get very agitated and take it out on the staff.

When Mary started working, the pharmacy had a security guard, however he was unable to work during the Covid pandemic as he is immunocompromised. Mary understands that he left the country in the wake of the pandemic and a new security guard has not been hired.