retail sales associate

brand ambassador

production operator

maintenance technician

laborer

Blue Buffalo

The job was ok. Management was down right awful. I started with the company in 2007. My issue was with my lying manager. Here is the deal. I started out with Blue  when Blue was the new kid on the block in dog and cat food.  I had a number of ideas on how to improve blues website to be user friendly. I gave my suggestion and ideas to my manger. She in turned took my ideas for her own.  The website layout was my idea and the training  videos was my idea also. So when I saw the website and training Video I blew a gasket.  I asked the manager did she receive credit for my ideas. That fool told me yes she did receive recognition for my ideas.  Then this fool asked me did I have any more ideas and for sure I would receive credit for anything I submitted from this point onward.  She told me this during one of those boring training session when I saw make ideas in full bloom. After the training session I walked out and never looked back. I mailed my blue stuff to my manger's  house and wrote on the Box I quite. Contacting Blue to voice my concern was pointless there was no number to call and I guess this is the reason so many people come to this site to voice their concerns about working for Blue. 

Anyhoo the food is not that great and Purina is suing Blue and Blue Buffalo filed a countersuit against Purina today 5/2014.  Purina claims Blue is a lying dog about the ingredients in the cat and dog food, particular the life source bits. Purina's claim is that Blue life source bits has awful by-products. 

As for being a Pet detective the job is a dead end job. So if you have nothing better to do on the weekends as if you didn't have a life then you should work for Blue until the job gets old and the management at Blue Buffalo gets on your last bloody nerve and you end up quitting your job. So, if you decide to work for Blue you will be back posting on this website how much you loath working for Blue Buffalo.

I worked for the company almost a year. As any company, it has good  and the bad sides. Now, you start with 8 hrs per week, however that could increase if manager likes you.Only weekends, so you don't have a life right there, however the weekends is where they make more money or expect more sales of you. Even they said sales experience isn't necessary, believe me! it is important! you have to start conversation with strangers who shop for their pets, know what their pets like, hear a little story of them and then boom! introduce their products, so yeah! it's definitely sells important.. It will be nice if they pay you per sale as well (I'd have made quite of money there).. but no... hourly is enough for them. 
So, not career in this type of job, yes ! you have certain benefits but nothing compared to a FT job. It's a good experience if you need money quickly every week and loved pets (plus). Sometimes it's so slow that you don't know what to do since there is no customer, who to talk.. but you have to kill the time in some way... walking all the store and try to find a customer. It's a kind of lonely job but independent if you like that. Ah! you are in charge to submit your sales every week and look for the manager to sign up when you are done with te shift. Be on your feet all the time except when you go bathroom or take a  break. 
So there you got it! recommendable for spouses (mostly female) or elderly people (you see quite of them on meetings), student perhaps, but not for people who need a stable income. Whatever you make it the best or worst, it's up to you! Overall, you learned something of it. I did!

This company workers are pathetic and unprofessional, i submitted a resume for a job open in my area on a SUNDAY, that SAME day received a call (THEY SEEM PRETTY DESPERATE) a lady tells me she is sending out and email that I must respond to to confirm a phone interview the following day, and if i did not respond and confirm the email she told me i would not receive a call. When i asked her what email address it was sent to she could not even tell me. SO after seeing how they call me back within 20 minutes of submitting a resume online on a sunday and how the lady could not even inform me of what email it was sent to, I decided not to confirm the phone interview for the next day. WELL when the next day comes, sure enough i received AN UNWANTED UN-COnfirmed call which i was told i would only receive once i responded to the conformation email. SO i decided not to answer the call hoping that this would be the end of the story, WRONG, the following day, DAY 3, i received yet ANOTHER CALL although i did not confirm ANYTHING. SO i decided to PRESS THE IGNORE BUTTON on this one, LITERALLY 3 mins later i received and email from the same person claim that and i quote 

"Dear JON, 

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to consider you for employment. We have reviewed your background and qualifications and find that we do not have an appropriate position for you at this time. We appreciate your interest in Blue Buffalo Co. Sales & Demo and wish you success in your job search. 

Sincerely, 

The Blue Buffalo Recruiting Team"

I received it due to ignoring ones call in which i never confirmed.

THIS COMPANY AND ITS EMPLOYEES ARE PATHETIC AND UNPROFESSIONAL

While the customers were wonderful and the product is actually a good one everything else really sucked about this job.

It was pretty hard to ever contact management and by management I mean ONE person directly above you, you could literally not ever contact anyone else within this company. The hours were weekend only so not really anything to live off of. No benefits and no real discount on the products either.

If a store you are stationed in doesn't like you then watch out because they will file bogus reports weekly and your "boss" wont properly check in to it. For example I was accused of harassment and throwing things, I am a small female who was stationed in a store of males, there are cameras and proof of the lie, I still got in trouble. So watch out.

If you like this food/company then don't work for them because it will soil that that. Also if you don't like being yelled at about prices you have no control over i suggest staying away, that was the only thing I hated about the customers was the name calling and yelling about the price of the food even though they knew I had nothing to do with it. 

there's no benefits and the pay is minimal at best, you're on your feet and there are no breaks or co-workers, there's is practically zero room for advancement, also the stores i.e Petco and Petsmart tend to treat you pretty poorly because you are essentially "competition" they will yell at you and walk all over you and call your food garbage right in front of you and you cant do anything but smile. its not a fun job it sucked, id rather buy the food then sell it for sure.

On average my shifts total at 4 hours each. All of these shifts, in a given week, will take place in a different pet store, in which I am the only representative for my company.

The environments tend to be relatively slow. The strongest focus of my work is to "have a conversation" with wandering customers, for the purpose of learning about their lives with their pets and, hopefully, educating them about our products.

Employees of these pet stores tend to be friendly, though more often than not it's my responsibility to inform them of my duties.

The most contact I typically have with my fellow employees (of Blue Buffallo) is during semi-monthly, but ultimately unscheduled visits from my boss. I cannot speak for every other employee, because of this, but my experiences with my boss tend to be positive. These meetings largely consist of discussing my experiences over the past month, reviewing any pressing questions I may have, and assembling a plan to further improve my performance in the next month.

The largest challenge, for me, has been navigating conversations with strangers who were not expecting them, in order to achieve a particular set of information. More often than not, the customers I encounter are not willing to reciprocate my efforts - but that's just how it is!

In my experience, as long as I've done what's asked of me and given my best efforts, my boss has been understanding and helpful.

Talked to another Pet Detective today that is in the store I wanted to transfer to. I was told by the Regional Rep in that area that I wouldn't be a good fit after working 9 months faithfully and had a turn rate of 66 pets a month in 8-12 hours a week that gave me personal fulfillment in my job as well as constant pet parent thanks for my "intelligence" about the product.
I was never given a quota to meet, therefore had no idea if I was in the upper or lower rung in sales.
I walked away from excellent management in the Pet Smart store I worked in who stated that they loved what I did there.
The regional managers seem to be in a numb and do not seem to have a realistic grip on reality as to what really takes place in front of the pet parents. Great Plains Leasing totally hides in all professional business sites on line. After numerous times of trying to get through one way or another, not a soul ever responded.
I am glad to know now that this is a company wide issue. So sad that I spent my money and time in a store far from my home because the regional manager was upset at the Pet Smart Manager for letting a boundary less Pet Detective go after two years. I paid the price....
Basically those of us who have done the right thing outweigh the Great Plains Mafia.
KARMA is going to be real interesting in the near future...

The Job is an OK job if you have nothing to do, however DO NOT look into advancing with this position.  They have strict guidelines on how they want you to sell the food by calling it, "Honor the Bond".  I only do this when the Manager comes around to give you an evaluation, as it JUST does not work...  I made the Blue Elite Award without the Honor the Bond technique.  That is, talking to your customers like a NORMAL person and not like some Robot.

This position with Blue is a "Dead End" job.  It will not go anywhere. How do I know this...  Last year, they had a Territorial Demo Managers' position open, and I applied.  ONLY to find out from my NEW Demo Manager telling me how he was hired without applying. Of course, he didn't know I had applied for the position...  The position was listed on Monster.  

The hours are undependable, and DO NOT get use to the same amount of hours each week.  They will take them away from you without notice.  The Max hours you can achieve with this Company is 20 hours.  

The Positive side of Blue is, they do give you $40 each month towards any of their products.  They now have a 401K and they help pay for Pet Insurance.   I stay with them, even as I write this ONLY for the benefits, as I do not see any Future with this Company, and the turnover is high.  It is great for those who wants some extra funds.  Also, you must work at least one shift on a weekend....

This is a great part time job. I have been working with this company for a little over 3 years. If you are a animal lover and is looking for extra money at a stress free job, this is for you! There is possibility of advancement but doesn't happen frequently but managers will let you know when there is an opportunity and they much rather hire those jobs with someone who has been with the company already. They have nice incentives, especially for part timers. Rebates for food, 401k, discounts on pet insurance and a prescription savings card. Not that I ever needed it but its good to have, and they have teledoc if you wanted to use( call in a doctor on phone for little things like a cold). They also offer money back from adopting pets once a year. They cut down on a few things like large seminars they would have once a year.(Those were really fun). Now it's smaller groups that get together at local shops just to go over new products and information. But this doesn't happen often. A typical work day is walking around the pet store that your station in each week and educate pet parents on the importance of healthier pet food versus the grocery brands. Its relaxing on the sense you don't feel obligated to push people into buying the food but you want to share your acknowledgment.

I have been with Blue Buffalo for four months now. The pay for where I live is really great. The only issues I have is how boring it can get. It feels like I am doing my job wrong because when I work in the grocery stores vs the pet stores it is very difficult for people to listen to my spiel about pet health. And I work in the grocery stores more often. All customers want in the grocery stores is to get in and get out, and usually they don’t care to spend a lot of money on their pet let alone listen to my pet health spiel. They always ask about coupons or will only buy it if it’s on sale. They only want the cheaper stuff. 
It’s also more difficult because I don’t have a quota per say. I try to have a personal quota of like 2-3 products sold a day but the whole thing my manager is pushing for us to focus on is just talking to customers and educating them about pet health. It’s not terrible that I don’t have a quota and it can be less stressful but it’s not as motivating. 
When I do sell a product I have to close the deal with the awkward “Thank You” card while they stand there waiting to leave the interaction. Then I was told that no one has been filling out the Thank You card surveys online anyways. It just feels like I’m slacking when I’m standing around my whole shift when the store is slow or when people won’t listen to me. I feel like I should have had more training or better shoes for standing.

I thought this was going to be the best job. I did my work, was never late, met all conversion goals and sold a lot of dog and cat food.
I some how was shorted 19 hours over a couple of months. I had all my paper work in order, signed by store management proving I was at the store and worked my 4 hours shift. I spent $40.00 faxing all this info. to my DM who said she never got it, I then mailed it all to her. She totally ignored the mail and proof, told me I could work extra to make up the 19 hours, then take a 2 hour drive for "cat" training which would help make up the hours they didn't pay me for. Now I had written proof from management of Petsmart and Petco about the hours and NOTHING was done. I quit. I have been in sales forever and have never been treated like I was at Blue. They could care less about their "Pet Detectives". It's a good dog food with HORRIBLE management and the worst pay in this field.
It's a shame because I loved being in the pet stores and interacting with the pets and parents. I'm moving to another company with a $4.00pay increase per hour. There is no sneaky sales pitch like Blue. Just facts and the truth. Don't waste your time at Blue. It's a terribly run company and the products are so overpriced, I believe Blue will not be #1 for long.

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