retail sales associate

sales associate

manager in training

pet groomer

regional sales director

Choice Pet

Work was always cheerful. There was always happy customers, employees and animals. It was not exactly fun to clean after the mice and crickets every Wednesday and Sunday but meeting all kinds of personalities in people and their pets was exciting. 
Choice Pet has you in training for two months. You must take 13  long tests online. Let me tell you, when you know nothing about lizards and guinea pigs it can be hard! But I must admit, their training is super educational. Every one knew what they were talking about and they never hesitated to teach and correct you. I had no idea bunnies should not be bathed or that the most common allergy in dogs is chicken and rice! I never knew that the food I was feeding my puppy was like a large bag of fast food when he should have been eating his fruits and vegetables with his meat! It was truly an awakening to my own health as well.
At Choice pet I only had 1 co worker and 1 store manager that I worked with regularly. I still keep in touch with them. They are amazing and helped me so much in how to be a great sales person and how to gain your customers trust. They looked after me like a little sister, as I was the youngest. Whenever we had some one new training in our store we were always warm and welcoming.
Then we had our two major district managers who were always on top of their game, changing the look and presentation on the store and making sure we met our monthly sales goals. They were always aware of our old and new competitors. After all it was our job, as a Mom and Pops, business to stand against major businesses like Petco.
The hardest part of my job was trying to educate the stubborn customers about their pets needs! It's not easy to sell a $70 bag of food to some one who doesn't have large income. However, when you compare what they are paying on vet bills and medicines with the perfect diet it is way more affordable! Why pay for vet visits, tests and pills if you can take away the rashes and itching by the food the pet eats? After all, vets don't exactly study nutrition so when they are recommending cheap foods for your pets check the ingredients! Corn, wheat, animal digest, chicken meal, etc. Talk about cheap fillers and more allergies.
The most enjoyable part of work was being able to make that food conversion and customers coming in a month later to thank you and bringing in their pet to show you the difference. You turn a new customer into a regular. They are happy. We made business and now we have that trust. Customers share our knowledge to friends and their friends come to us. It's a cycle and it's business but it was enjoyable. I like making people happy.

Wish I found this place when I was in high school. A lot of people complain about the job, but it really isn't that hard. You do get paid breaks, you just have to eat in the store..I personally don't mind being paid to eat. They just don't want you running personal errands or anything if you are on a paid break, which makes sense. I believe you can get an hour off for a break if you mention you need one during your interview. Honestly if you come in and do your job, you'll be set. They do recognize people doing exceptional work and will promote you as soon as your probation period (first 2 months) are done. There is testing that needs to be done when you are hired. Those are long and a bit painful, especially if your in a store that does not carry animals. These are still helpful, but monotonous sometimes. Pay is decent when you first start. Minimum wage, but there are bonuses which are fun to aim for. As you move up, pay could definitely be better especially for the amount of work you put in. Since it is a small company, there can be times when they ask a lot of employees (working different locations/ coming in early/leaving late without additional pay, yet they give you a hard time if you are a bit late and will deduct your paycheck). Upper management constantly stress numbers and blame store managers for poor sales which can create tension because sometimes stores are just in difficult locations and just don't get any traffic. They tend to dangle management promotions in front of you without giving it to you which can be annoying, but that depends on who is training you..just stay on top of everything and you'll eventually make it....Overall the job is a great start. Everyone is close and friendly. They definitely do not deserve such harsh reviews..Past employees tend to only focus on negatives and not recognize the positives. If you come in and are consistently looking to improve yourself in the job, they will help you out wherever you can. You can request days off, and they are usually granted (though weekends/back to back days off are tougher). Even when they dont approve a day off, the district managers will always try to work with you. Events are always fun to work. If you ever have any questions, there is always someone who can answer them. You get what you put in.

I learned a lot about animal care and nutrition and I will value the information I learned there. 
However that is about the only good thing to come out of this job. Management is underpaid for the amount of stuff higher-ups expect out of the store. The higher-ups are too "involved" with the inner management of the store while at the same time they are so secluded from the way they run that they don't understand the problems the store has. This sounds confusing, so let me explain a little bit. The higher management is continuously raising prices in our stores while customers are visibly upset with the cost of product. Yet upper management expects the stores to be making more money and they do not understand why the stores are continuously producing negative sales, their big thing is that we price match to any competitors prices but they don't realize that a lot of customers wont think about that when they see the price of something they are just going to go wherever else they can get it cheaper. The higher-ups than proceed to blame us on a store level for the failing numbers yet when we do discounts to makes sales to try to keep customers the management questions everything, like why did you discount this item why didn't you have more add-on items on this transaction, why isn't every customer walking out the door with hundreds of dollars of merchandise in their arms. The store managers need to clear almost everything they do with the higher-ups to a point of where it seems that us managers really have no power within our own stores. 
I could say more but its honestly not worth my time, they will tell you everything that you want to hear but in the long run they take as much advantage of you as they possibly can. Like claiming to pay you salary, yet they only do that when it is convenient for them, ie. no overtime, but if you don't work a full forty hour week you wont be paid your allotted salary.

If you have no other life obligations and enjoy letting people run your life for you then this is your kind of gig. However, if you’re like most of the population you value your time and prefer to live at home not at your job. The actual work itself isn’t bad, but the way the stores are run are horrendous. The schedule changes every week (sometimes 2-3 times before it’s set) and you can forget about your days off. They’ll call and ask you to come in, all while expecting you to plan your life around them. If you like overtime good cause it’s always available since upper management refuses to hire anybody that isn’t full time with an open schedule.  They claim their stores are “fully staffed” meanwhile those two employees are working 8,9,10 hour shifts day after day sometimes 10+ days in a row, but don’t worry it won’t count as overtime! That bonus? They’ll try to make excuses for it as to why you haven’t gotten it yet. Paid travel to cover other stores? You’ll probably never see it even if you’re driving 40 minutes out of your way. They’ll also have you closing alone by your second or third week working there (even thought they tell you they have specific closers so you won’t have to worry about it). So enjoy your two week grace period of getting out at a reasonable hour when you start.

These people let their air conditioner breakdown in the dead of summer and let the employees, customers, and pets sit in the heat and they were perfectly fine with it being that way for months till the heat made the cameras malfunction. They had plenty of resources to fix it but they rather the money be spent buying huge lots of food to help their bottom line rather than invest their resources to do what's right not only to their employees but every single customer that lines their pockets. Multiple stores had infestations that they refused to hire exterminators for. I've personally asked and been shot down and beyond that when I pointed out that said infested products got my dogs sick and will likely get other dogs sick nothing was done no one was even reprimanded. If you're okay with making tons of money for people that wouldn't even bother to p*** on you if you were on fire while getting very little in return compensation wise you should work here. If you're okay with the wellbeing of animals and humans alike being put on the backburner for profits you should work here. If you like getting your schedule 1 day before it takes effect you should work here. 

This job is very dishonest at times. My experience from last year was that while relaxing and not much work to do, hours were rather tough to deal with in conjunction with my family life and children. Scheduling is so strict and while certain managers are nice others, have the ability to bully and force on you unreasonable expectation. There is not much room for movement up the corporate ladder even from sales associate to senior associate. Along with this they DO NOT PAY MINIMUM WAGE at times. In the county I previously worked at they did not pay me the right wage making claims that since they do there taxes in one county they can pay that wage from there. I was shorted around .50c to 1.00$ amount after reviewing my W-2/ stubs. If i had know that I would have taken another job easily over this. I personally say if u need to find a job do not go here for any reason there competitors offer far better employment and benefits for a better wage.

Choice pet is generally a nice place to work in terms of the actual work. The pay is just acceptable, though they expect you to work like youre paid $2-$3 more than they are willing to pay. There is little consistincy to scheduling, it feels like they decide schedules each week completely at random. You never have the same days off or the same schedule week to week, like they expect you to plan your life around them. They run everything as cheaply as possible, the pinpads frequently dont work, the sale system is constantly having problems, and plenty of small things are half broken and they wont replace them. Benefits are meager, with pto only starting after a year and only giving 5 days a year. There are no bonuses, no matter how much they claim there are. A lot is forgiven if youre lucky enough to get a decent manager and coworkers, but that really depends. If the owners ever learn to invest in their employees, id love to work here. Until then, its stingy, even if the work and people tend to be nice.

Every day we rotated responsibilities. Some days I'd be asked to come in on the earlier side and take care of the animals and stock shelves. Other days I'd come in around mid day and face products, clean floors and dust. On night shifts I would sweep, mop floors, take out the garbage and aid in closing procedure. Customer service was our highest priority and customer assistance always came first before all other tasks. All shifts involved aiding customers, operating the cash register and organizing displays. I was very lucky to be friends with all the people I worked with and that was definitely the best part of the job. The hardest part of the job was only having one day off per week and regularly working seven days in a row. (Our day off was not set for the same day every week).

For a smaller company, they have dreams of the big leagues. As such, they treat their employees like those big box retailers. The turnover is ridiculously high mostly because they higher kids who don't have any sort of work ethic and don't care about their employees. Employees can request time off but there is no guarantee it will be approved. It doesn't matter the reason, they will always ignore your requests because of the understaffed locations. Associates have certain requirements but they tend to give concessions to those least deserving. They only care about their bottom line.

What is the best part of working at the company?
THE WORST JOB EVER IF YOUR BLACK THE WORST JOB EVER IF YOU DONT DRIVE CO-WORKERS HAVE NO RESPECT FOR TIME YOU'LL FIND YOURSELF OPENING AND CLOSING THE STORE DOING MORE THEN MANAGERS THEY EXPECT YOU TO LIFT BIG BAGS OF PET FOOD BY YOURSELF ON HIGH SHELFS JUST DONT DO IT TO YOURSELF THAT COMPANY IS A JOKE.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
DEALING WITH CADDY ENTITLED CUSTOMERS AND AGAIN IF YOU BLACK DONT DO IT COMPANY MANAGMENT DOES NOT APPRECIATE YOUR WORK ETHNICS AT ALL THEY TO PROUD AND TRUST ME EVERYONE IS REPLACEABLE IN THERE EYES THATS WHY THEY CANT KEEP WORKERS.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
UNORGANIZED AND JUST HORRIABLE

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
CLEANING SHELVES AND LIFTING BIG BAGS OF DOG FOOD ON HIGH SHELVES

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Retail sales associate 71 salaries reported	$16.71 per hour
Sales associate 18 salaries reported	$17.64 per hour
Manager in training 15 salaries reported	$17.20 per hour
Pet groomer 8 salaries reported	$20.00 per hour
Regional sales director 2 salaries reported	$16.00 per hour

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