Managing Life Threatening Food Allergies and Dust Allergy as a Retail Worker
For many years I worked at a cosmetics counter in a department store. It was a great job and allowed me flexibility to attend university and pick up shifts during the week. But there were times when my allergies posed a challenge, specifically when management wouldn't listen. As a retail worker it's easy to feel like you have no voice if you don't have a manager who cares.
I recall once when I was about 18 years old, I had to go into the back room to pick up some stock. This wasn't a typical task for my role, so I had never been back there.
The storage room was covered with so much dust that it immediately made me itchy all over. The dust was easily an inch thick in some places, as though it hadn’t been cleaned in many years. There were employees who were in and out of this room all day, and never picked up a duster, or who potentially had dust allergy like myself.
There was no mirror around and my epi pen was back at the cosmetics booth in my purse (it was too large to fit in my uniform pocket); I asked the manager if I had hives on my face. She glanced over and said, with a very annoyed attitude, "you're fine let's get this done.”, completely dismissing me.
I started to feel faint and my throat and face were itchy. My body sensed danger. I got out of that room as quickly as possible and headed back to the cosmetics counter. I took one look in the mirror and saw that my face was visibly swollen and covered in splotchy red hives. I could breathe okay, so I took 2 Benadryl as per my allergy action plan. I was on the fence about whether to use my Epi Pen.
The manager returned and I nervously told her I was leaving because I was having an allergic reaction to the level of dust in the storage room. She was not happy, especially since I had left the storage room in a hurry and hadn’t finished my task. She didn’t say much, but kept giving me glaring looks as I packed up to go home. She did not offer to see me to a cab and did not check up with me by phone or text later to see if I was okay. She did not report the workplace incident to HR. She did not ask the cleaning crew to remove the dust. She did not ask if I needed medical attention. This was the supposed team leader.
As I left I worried that they would never want to have me back at that location, that I would lose shifts, that I did something wrong, or that I was being too dramatic. I worried about my direct manager hearing about it, and about leaving the counter short staffed that day. I wondered whether the right thing would have been to stay at work even though I needed to monitor the reaction and lay down.
The manager was in the wrong when she saw I was visibly swollen, and chose to pretend she didn't see it. She lacked care and was a poor leader when she failed to acknowledge that I was having a medical emergency, and showed no compassion.
It can be hard to stand up for yourself when you are in a vulnerable position. I was a teen in university and relied on this retail job that paid better than other stores.
Fortunately I also had many great experiences in that job. There were many other colleagues and managers who were wonderful. This was not the only medical emergency I had at work, but it was the last time I had one at that location as I switched to another department store shortly after.
I used to think the story stopped there, that I would have walked away from the job if needed and relied on my parents until I found a new job, or reported it to my aunt who was the senior level director at the cosmetics company (not at the department store). As I said, I switched locations and joined a much better team environment.
But the story doesn’t end there for everyone. What are people with food allergy or other chronic conditions who are in that vulnerable position and do not have the privilege to walk away from a job or to report it to a senior level person who is related to them - what are they supposed to do? The stakes are undoubtedly higher. I don’t know the answer, and perhaps that’s not my story to tell. But what I can do is open the conversation, raise awareness, and hopefully guide someone who may find themselves in the position I found myself in to know that they do have rights and that they deserve to be treated with compassion and respect.
Watch my video about managing my multiple severe food allergies as a barista and server at a restaurant, below.