Boots, or Boots the Chemist, or boots.com (boots.co.uk), or Boots Insurance, or Boots diets were the top most visited health websites in early 2008 and usually the first thing people thing of when they think "pharmacy" or "chemist", and are therefore part of the nations "psyche", but here I hope to show you how they treat their staff, and how they can afford to offer bargains (at the expense of staff wages) and like most things in life for every bargain there is someone losing out behind the scenes (like allegedly Tesco's v. the farmers who supply them).
If you substitute "boots" for "lidl" in the following article you can get a sense of the atmosphere and working conditions at Boots.
Overtime is expected to be worked without pay. If you do over half an hour of overtime, you can claim (begrudgingly by BTC) Time-in-Lieu (TIL) but it is discouraged. I worked many hours overtime without pay or TIL - nearly everyday I was required to work 8:15-8:30 and/or 6-6:10pm without compensation (about 2 hours a week without pay - which equates to about £1500 before tax a year that I WASN'T paid! based on my pay of £16.60 per hour), and many days I had to "choose" to start work early to get the pharmacy ready for a busy day like prepare the Methadone's (otherwise it made it a very difficult day with staff shortages), without compensation. Other times I had to work 20 minutes extra while I waited for another pharmacist to arrive to relieve me. Staff shortages were so bad at stages I had to give-up breaks and take shorter lunches, without compensation once again.
This may all sound petty, and it would be, except the way Boots The Chemist treats you it makes you angry.
Conversely you are always being informed by Boots The Chemist of how employees being late or sick is costing Boots money - there is usually a flyer sent out once a month with your wage slip informing you of how bad employees are!. You are treated like criminals by being de-personalised (no money/cards/phones are allowed to be carried on you) and staff searches (turn out pockets, lift up shirt collar and take off shoes). I am sure Jesse Boot would be spinning in his grave if he saw how the employees he loved were being treated today.
I have worked on the Isle of Wight and in Portsmouth and neither was a pleasant experience, so bad in the end I had to resign and even after then I had trouble.