veterinarian

pet groomer

veterinary technician

general manager

store manager

Shively-Animal-Clinic-&amp

Typical day:
Yes you get to work with animals, but they consume so much time taking care of them that anything that interrupts that sets you back. As a leader you have a lot of responsibilities, but not enough people or hours to help do everything and then getting in trouble for everything not being done. You are expected to hourly animal walks, which is good, but gets difficult when it's busy and you don't have staff. The company has high expectations yet doesn't offer support and the manager thinks you should handle everything even if you need help.

Learned:I learned how to handle stress, solve problems, delegate tasks, figuring out strategic selling methods, increase sales, de escalate situations, prioritize, a good amount more about animal care, .

management: I was three different leader positions and the general manager did not help me very often, I was barely trained for any of the positions, thankfully I am a fast learner and have enough common sense to pick up on necessary tasks. The higher ups had you join a social media group to be able to ask others questions, which was nice, but also shouldn't be necessary to know how to do your job.. Managers didn't manage well and the leaders ended up having to do most the work because the manager didn't care what the lower positions did, they could sit up front on their phones and they wouldn't care. Then the leaders would get in trouble for everything not being done to expectations or not done at all, because there was no support and no help to meet the high expectations of the GM, DGM, and all those positions above them. 

culture: The stores I worked at the culture was very accepting of all people, no matter the background, lifestyle, gender, race, religion, etc. At all of my stores however they got very cliquey and it creates unnecessary drama and stress and can make you feel unwelcome and not liked. 

Hardest part was the high expectations, but not being given enough hours to have enough people working to get everything done. If a store had a call out they would have to borrow employees from other stores, which most the time wouldn't have anyone to help, because there are so few employees since we had very little hours given to us. We were basically a skeleton crew everytime towards the end of the fiscal year. The leaders being underpaid for everything they do and everything that is not in their job description. You are expected to do multiple peoples jobs with no pay increase. The company makes so much money, yet is so greedy that they barely give raises. They new employees end up making more than people that have been there for years. As an assistant manager that played GM a lot of the time barely made more money than the cashiers. If I was supported and trained more by my GMs, the store was given more hours, and had more employees, there was potential to be a really amazing job, but the greed made it super stressful and sets you up for failure as a leader. They didn't really do much as a thank you during the holidays, which I have experience at with other companies. When you get top in the company and stay in the top each quarter they give you an item that probably cost them 50 cents to make.. like a pin or paper thin nylon backpack, and they give the same ones out each time, which makes you feel your hard work is taken for granted and not appreciated at all. My store would continuously be in the top 10 in the company, yet we still weren't good enough and the higher ups would come in criticize how we did things and would bash on us for not knowing the exact wordature for something that didn't matter. They wanted us to do check ins and outs with people going over the exact same thing everytime which they would respond with the same thing everytime and most the time we didn't have to coverage to even do the check ins and outs. They focused more on the things that don't matter, like to ask why the cashiers aren't getting enough attachments or signing enough people up for their program, or the sale of certain items, as much and less on the care of animals, they always expected bettas to be spotless yet you are only supposed to clean them per company standard, which is nowhere near enough, I had my store clean them every other day. You get a way better prize if you personally get the most donations give, which they push very hard. Also the app always seemed to have issues which would waste a lot of time and would make customers angry. Corporate also didn't stick to policies a lot of the time and would make exceptions to customers who complained about anything and would make us look bad when we were trying to follow policy. I got in trouble constantly for trying to follow policies that they were stern about, but often would upset customers, which they are terrified of and are willing to bend over backwards to make them happy which makes the customer even worse the next time they come in. You just couldn't win. Cashiers were babied by management and got away with so much, yet a leader do one of the many things they do we would get in trouble and possibly written up, yet the cashiers or lower level employees don't even get spoken to about it. They care more about numbers and meeting expectations over your well being, they claim they do, but they don't. 

Most enjoyable part was being able to help pet parents learn more about their pets and their needs. Helping take care of animals was very rewarding. The company would give bonuses, which was great.  They are pretty flexible with your availability and, excluding holiday season, most my GMs were very willing to accept time off requests. My last manager played favorites and denied my request off that I had placed 8 months prior because she wanted it off. Also let someone else have time off that I had again requested off 6 months in advance. This is also a great job for people who struggle to do just one thing all day long, there is a lot of different things to do and every day is different. The discounts were great.  

I was a pet groomer for years at petco. In general, the people that I worked with in my own store are great, supportive, understanding, helpful, etc. Particularly, in my salon we were all close friends and there is a strong sense of team work. I always looked forward to coming into work to spend time with them. My store manager had a bad tendency to play favorites and develop unprofessional close friendships with some of their employees, which shaped the work environment. That being said, they were very hands on working with us at our level and helping us when we needed it. They always supported us when we were having an issue with disrespectful or troublesome customers. Having a regular clientele that you get to know on a personal level, and see regularly is very rewarding.
This, of course, will vary store to store. When I started at petco the management on a store level was very different. My salon manager was verbally and emotionally abusive, neglectful when it came to training us (pushing us through the program when we werent ready), and all of my coworkers were catty and pitted against eachother because of the biases that developed. If that had continued, I would have quit years ago. I'm sure some petco salons are like this still. I'm lucky that mine was so positive and enjoyable.

However, upper management at  district and corporate level  is completely disconnected from the reality of what our jobs entail and what is reasonable and possible for us. They expect ridiculous numbers, and a very high level of customer engagement, which don't really coincide. In order to do the amount of dogs that they expect and be as productive as they require you to be, you either need to be a very experienced and skilled groomer (which their training program certainly does not set you up to be), or be doing a half baked job on the dogs in order to still have time to spend fulfilling the level of engagement that they want (pulling items from shelves for customers, filling out report cards, walking them through programs like vital care and the spa club on their phones, etc). To expect all of that and still expect us to take walk in nail appointments and keep everything clean, tidy, organized.. it's too much. When upper management is in town the job is absolutely miserable, as opposed to the more relaxed and forgiving atmosphere that is actually tolerable  when they are not. In addition, approval for fixing or buying equipment or maintenance orders on the building go through district managers, who deny almost every request we sent no matter how much we needed it. There were times that our floor drains in the tub room (which were previously a grease trap for the restaurant that previously owned the building) would back up with sewage because they weren't proper drains, and our kennels wouldn't close properly due to age and rust so dogs kept getting out of them, and we had to make do with these conditions because they wouldnt approve anything. When corporate came into town and all of these things needed to be fixed last minute so that district managers looked competent at their jobs, WE were expected to run around and stay late and stress to get everything done on time. Our computers and phone systems would frequently have serious technical issues that would make our jobs so much harder, and that was on us to deal with such as having to do forms by hand on busy Saturdays because the computer cant connect to servers. My salon got into the habit of printing out daily agendas with customer information because we didn't trust the computers.
The job itself is stressful, but great. The customers more often than not, are great. Benefits are pretty reasonable and the job gives you reliable hours, security, and decent pay. Management, and overall company wise atmosphere can be awful. They honestly prefer  you to look happy and smile and fan their egos than actually be honest about issues improve the company.It's so phony and infuriating. 
Overall, I didn't mind working there half the time but mostly due to a willing ignorance of the company's overall crappiness and purposeful focus on my own salon and the environment in my own store. Hated the company, but loved the job. I would only recommend if you have tough skin and an understanding that corporate Petco will never be your friend.

This is my second time being employed in the grooming salon at Petco. Enticed to return after some changes were made to improve pay from the horrible way they had it before.as well as new management. That rapidly changed. Retention of employees in both lower and upper management is awful. The policies are constantly changing to the point most managers won't be able to answer your questions or truly know what's happening. Since COVID-19 they've gotten exceptionally worse. They gave their groomers the choice of working the Sales floor for a base hourly wage that was on average $10 /hour which is nowhere near what is typically made or stay in the grooming salon. Either option risking you to exposure since they didn't have proper safety equipment or even hand sanitizer. If you didn't want this you were "free" to stay home but you wouldn't be eligible for unemployment since this is your choice. So it was either be at risk and get less money or stay at home and get no money. It didn't matter if you were high risk or not. They just kept claiming groomers were essential until they stopped making money and some salons closed. Then we became not necessary and they furloughed us and various other store employees.

I'd also like to mention during this they cut the groomers PTO rate due to them claiming our tip money was not supposed to be included. This coming months after our PTO rates got reestablished and conveniently around the time people wanted to start taking PTO to be safe.

The additional benefits they gave during this was an additional 5 days (based on your average hours worked) of COVID-19 Pay which for groomers was not the regular PTO rate but a base hourly rate. In order to use these days you technically had to have been exposed or be in quarantine. 

I guess I give them somewhat of the benefit that they finally start a fund for employees that needed financial assistance but it was all based off of donations from their customers and a donation from the company. 

Outside of their reaction to the coronavirus and how willing they are to put customers and their employees at risk even though they claim they value us all there's other issues with this company.

They fail at retaining employees due to the good ones being improperly cared for or respected and the poor ones seeming to be patted on the back if they're in a high ranking position. The animal care is mediocre and a lot needs to be addressed. The policies are all contradictory. Sometimes they'll implement a policy only to remove it a week later. They're more willing to suggest products from companies that pay them to advertise than actual good products. Their training for new employees is all done on computer with the majority of the training being outdated and not extensive. 

They want all the salons to be uniform yet have individuality unless they individuality doesn't fall along Petco's uniform image. So more contradictions. They won't update salons that are falling apart due to finances yet are willing to establish brand new high quality ones. 

If you're a groomer looking to work here, I'd probably try elsewhere first. The only good thing here is you can make a decent salary. Petco encourages this yet they will hinder you every step of the way. The schedule is not as flexible as they claim unless you get a really good salon manager but be prepared for mandatory work days and PTO black out periods. You'll only want a job as a salon manager if your team is well established as your pay is dependent on them. Im not even exaggerating when I say this. 

If you're looking to just find a grooming job temporarily then apply for it. They'll hire anyone if you have experience and even then will pay to train you if needed. (If earning minimum wage for several months because of the awful training program is okay with you.) They've even rehired people that were supposed to be black listed from working at Petco, simply because they fail to retain employees. 

Oh, it is somewhat easy to relocate around the country to different Petcos at least if you move.

They 401k is good but they changed all their other health benefits to something that was even worse than before.

Ok so I was warned not to come here to train to be a groomer but I thought I would try it anyways.. I am not sure if it is this particular location or if its me or a combination of both but I would say my experience here overall as been pretty bad. 

they start you off as a bather and you are SUPPOSED to bathe dogs for 3 months before you get passed along to grooming school. At this location my salon manager actually tried to fast track me and wanted me to go sooner. I knew I was not ready for that and when I told my coworkers I was not so sure about being sent that fast they told corporate what I had said and after that I think all chaos broke loose. seems like the salon manager got very upset with this decision because he started to treat me really mean after that.  

second complaint. the training here is there is none! The salon manager is supposed to train you but the one here did not train me at all on the bathing aspect of the job. All he showed me how to do was shave down feet and do sanitary shaves which isn't even a part of the bathers job here.  He had other groomers show me how to do things when they had the time to which is basically never because grooming salons are VERY busy and the groomers are on a time crunch to get their dogs done. The other groomers have no incentive to help me out and were very impatient with me and basically made me feel like a idiot. The fact that they do not train you properly here not only is dangerous to you but the animals as well! 
 
third complaint. no one follows protocol here which is pathetic because all of the groomers have been doing this for years and they have been showing me the wrong way to do things. I would never bring my dog here to get groomed ever after seeing what does on here. too much to type tbh.


4th complaint: a lot of the workers here are racist and I have heard racial slurs used here several times since starting. not only racist but ablest as well. I have heard several crude jokes about people with learning disabilities while working here. Everyone here also gossips about everyone behind their backs. the drama here is like high school. 

5th complaint: the pay is pathetic for the amount of work this is and the risk you are put at everyday. 13.25 plus tips is TOO low . you will get scratched, you will get bit, you will get knocked down and dragged around if you are small and you will and can possibly get very hurt here. even with tips you average about 14-15 per hour on a good week. most people do not tip. 

only good thing about this job is that you get to work with dogs that sometimes act good and want to be groomed but most of the time they don't want to be and when you need help to control them you will not get it. 

all in all I would only suggest this job if you have had a lot of experience with bigger dogs that are not well trained and don't even know simple commands like sit and stay and you are at least 5 foot 5 and weigh about 120-200 lbs. this is NOT a good job for people like me who are only five foot one and 112 lbs. Most of the dogs outweigh me and are taller than me when on their hind legs and this has resulted in me getting injured a few times. I have had dogs pull me so hard that they smacked me into walls, made me trip, stand up and knock me over ect. ect. Manager and the other groomers do not bother to help you if you physically can not lift a dog up unless you basically beg them to then they give you an attitude when you ask for help. our training videos show us that if you ask for a team lift your coworkers need to help you! 

I would suggested trying to get into a private salon because Petco cares more about numbers than the safety of its workers and the animals that are left in their care. Don't believe me? check out petas website and see how many times animals have died in their care as well as petsmarts. 

I would like to preface that personality and culture of the workplace is going to vary wildly due to the different personalities of management and coworkers . Also, I had the unique experience that my Pet Stylist training started right when the pandemic was starting to affect the US, so I am going to avoid talking about it in the review. I do want to say that it did give me a solid foundation to start dog grooming. PetCo was my first job as a dog groomer, so I am not sure how much of the experience there will be similar to other grooming companies.

The coworkers at my store were one of the best parts of the job. The groomers there were supportive and help me improve in so many different ways. We went through some changes in management, but the one who was there the longest when I was working did great at keeping communication open and keeping the store running.

For the salon, PetCo provides your tools, but you can bring/buy your own. The customers vary so much, as do the dogs. Working on dogs while answering the phone and checking people in was pretty annoying and stressful at times, but it's part of the job. PetCo does have policies in place to minimize injuries and risks, but even following them, there are still going to be issues. Towards the end of me leaving, PetCo was pushing hard for us to sell and promote things, so much so that I sometimes felt more like a salesman than a groomer. One of the things they are pushing hard is their subscription service, Vital Care. In our store, it fell to the groomers to sell it, and we had to sell a certain amount each week or we get on a call that basically scolds us. So on top of rebooking, selling packages, and checking in the dog, we had to sell Vital Care, dog training, grooming perks (punch card service), and ask for donations and do the dog's wellness check (new thing to help sell more products) for each customer. 

The workplace culture was very centered on "company first". There was a huge amount of pressure to come in by any means necessary. There were times where some people should have called off (like physically injured or obviously ill), but they didn't want to be a burden on their coworkers. This extended into the grooming salon where if someone calls in, the other groomers had to figure out what to do with their dogs, so most of the time, they just show up no matter what poor state they're in. This also means they rarely use their PTO because it'll put more work on the salon. The company does not give much wiggle room to allow for real-life situations to happen. If you call-in, it's considered a no-call/no-show, and if you get more than a few of those within a yearly period, you could get fired.

PetCo as a company has their hits and misses. They recently had a  huge push for inclusivity and diversity, which allowed us to customize our nametags by listing our pronouns and choosing a style that incorporates one of their Partner Resource Groups (women, Pan Asian American, LGBTQ+, Black, etc.). They also made their bathrooms gender-neutral. During the pandemic, they were slow at putting procedures in place, but did eventually have a cleaning/sanitation list specifically for COVID, extra PTO days to use that are COVID related, and had the ability to take leave if you were at high risk for COVID. Currently, if you show signs of the delta variant, you still have to go to work, and they have incentives if you get your COVID vaccine. The pay isn't that great, but I heard they are working on getting more competitive with it.

Overall, I am glad I went to PetCo for my dog grooming training, but due to the junk that comes with retail, it did make the job a lot harder that it needs to be and the job itself is hard enough. 

I started working at PetCo (Grooming) in 2007 and was there for three and a half years. The day I went in for my interview, the grooming manager asked me a couple of questions then put me to work that day. I was officially hired on as part-time at minimum wage, but never worked less than 30 hours per week. Everyone was professional and friendly. I felt like my coworkers were my friends and the store had a family vibe. After working there six months, a new store opened up and half the management and workers were moved to the new store to get it running. I stayed because I lived just a fifteen minute walk away. Grooming went without a manager for about a month during which time I did the manager duties. My first problems with the company started when they finally hired a new salon manager. My coworker was originally up for the position, but declined. The new manager was rude and unprofessional to the point I had to have several meeting with store management. She had no respect for the current staff and proceeded to change everything to her liking. The new manager injured several dogs and was told she had to work in front of the security camera at all times, but did not. Regular clients were stolen from myself and others. She would force dogs she didn't like onto other people. Her behavior led my coworker, the one who was originally to take the manager position, to quit. When I was forced to move and would be taking the bus to work, I requested a schedule change. Although it was reasonable to give the hours I needed, my hours were cut to two days a week. I went to corporate about this issue and was completely disregarded, being told that I had been getting full time hours so I had nothing to complain about and since I was in the computer as part-time, they could give me as little time as they wanted. Word of my trouble with the new management got back to my old manager when the new one decided to talk poorly about me at a district meeting. My old manager offered for me to transfer to her store, but I could not arrange transportation. After continued harassment by the new grooming manager I finally ended up breaking and quitting. After a couple of months I was contacted to come work at the new store. It was a new store with a bigger salon. Things went great again until the same thing happened at this store; a new store was built and corporate sent management to open up the new store. I started getting in trouble to things that had never been a problem before, as if they were stretching to reasons to get me in trouble. The new management drove my grooming manager to quit. I unofficially ran the salon for about seven months until they hired a new manager. Again things changed, my hours were cut and clients stolen. A new training program opened for which I denied because I wasn't working enough hours, but I was being refused more hours. I had more incidents due to unsafe practices by my coworkers during my last two months than the entire past three years. After I was repeatedly denied a schedule change (which I needed because I could not find a sitter for my step-daughter) I was told I would be fired if I did not come into to work on a day I had already said I couldn't. I was given the option to quit and be listed at re-hire-able. Though I applied again over a year later, I never got a call back. During those last six months, the entire crew of the store and salon both turned over twice due to the management problems. There are a lot more things that happened, but I think this review has gone on long enough.

I've been working with Petco for 3 years now. I've seen and experienced working at many different Petco locations in the DMV area, from Standard Petco stores with live animals, Vetco and prefessional grooming to their smaller boutique Unleashed by Petco stores with little to no animals, monthly Vetco clinics and self-serve washing stations. Each location has their specific pros and cons but I will sum it up and generalize. At the Full-on Petco locations, the animals were the high light of my experience. I enjoyed learning about and interacting with them (But that was a rare occasion for me). As a full time Guest Advisor LOD/ Key holder my tasks were not limited to my job description. In most Petco locations, you should expect to work in multiple different departments, doing anything and everything and you'll be expected to know a fair amount about every single service, department, and product that Petco offers. You'll even have to become familiar with local pet services outside of Petco. Don't worry, Petco provides extensive training per your department. I always joke around and say that they practically send us to pet nutrition/care college. Also, it is never frowned upon to step away and google search information you don't know for a customer. Petco is all about creating lasting impressions and really going out of our way to help our customer base. Larger Petco locations are faced paced working environments. They tend to stress animal care (Most stores don't do the best job caring for them, due to improper training), services such as grooming and dog training and keeping the shelves stocked. Due to the high volume of the store, and the fact that there is ALWAYS something that needs to be done, the focus is not customer service or product knowledge oriented. I enjoyed the fast paced locations because it made the day pass by a lot faster and kept my experience interesting and brand new. At Unleashed stores, it is the opposite working experience.  It is a very laid back working environment that is geared toward exceptional customer service, services and product knowledge. The Unleashed stores are smaller so therefore less stocking needs to be done and most stores do not have live animals other than the occasional betta fish or parakeets. Unleashed locations heavily focus on promoting services such as Petco Positive Reinforcement Dog training, Vetco mobile vet clinics, and Self-Wash dog bathing stations. If you like relaxed and routine work, Unleashed is the place for you. For me, it proved to be boring and it makes my time drag by. As far as promotions and raises with Petco, the company is exceptional about helping deserving people move up, transfer, and change fields. You get recognized for hard work and some participating stores allow a free lunch date between the store leader and the selected employee of the month. If you are dealing with the right district leader and store leader, they are pretty personable and motivated to help you within the company. Whatever you do, don't let a negative manager dictate your day or working experience, don't be afraid to reach out to HR, and don't let it define your experience with Petco. You will come across lazy and mean store leaders, the majority of them will spend most of their time lazing about in the office. As long as you maintain a healthy perspective, you'll be fine and enjoy your time working with the company.

I loved the animals. Especially fish. Though management was always sub par. We went through 3 gms and multiple lead positions in my two year period there. In the district I work they only have 5-6 male managers in over 17 stores. Yet they claim to never discriminate and always be inclusive. No diversity at all though they have programs like the "Black partner network" which is racist in its self. Its hard to be one guy out of two on an all female crew. Never offering help in any of the heavier work loads, but always offering constant critique. I worked freight with one other guy every Monday night for over two years with no help. Anywhere between 10-15 pallets weekly. My boss also claimed to work 80 hours a week which was more like 40-45 hours a week if that. Though most of that time she is in the office "working". When they had issues to address with me it would always turned into an all day event. Instead of quick and to the point...it had to be dragged out for hours. Shaming me, threatening to post my job, making me feel bad about myself, hurling insults, and yelling at me. So much so that other employees could hear what they were saying to me. It was so embarrassing, and degrading. After their verbal lashing they'd send me to do some job that they weren't willing to perform themselves at any point in time. Not a job for equal opportunity. Not a friendly environment for men. Its great if you like to sell your soul for a paycheck. I wont even get into the mass amount of dead or dying animals they have in the back "wellness room"...which is always filthy. A "sad" freezer always stocked with dead carcasses. Cross contamination is constant. Animals are always being sold and returned dead. They say "at petco, animals always come first!" which is a hard lie. They have an hourly animal check where a manager is supposed to check on how animals are every hour. All their signatures are lies. I've never once seen any manager perform these hourly checks. Most of the time they don't even feed them or clean their tanks properly during opening shifts. To their own standards. They whine about customers calling them out on their animal care. They are constantly blasted on social media for their lack of training and knowledge. They don't offer commission sales for their employees yet they are always driving sales that aren't necessary for the consumer. Its not about animals, or their customers. Its about looking good on paper to the big bosses. Petco is always 2nd best to pet smart. In everything. And its obvious why. Petco is not a good company to work for. Their national 5 star ranking system reflects that they are less than one star as an overall business. It is a fake environment for fake people. Your good effort is never good enough. The only reason they offer advancement is because their turn over is insane. I couldn't take it anymore even though I needed that job. They offered up my job to the guy under me in less than 15 minutes of me leaving. They didn't even try to find someone qualified to replace me. Please don't give them the time of day. Don't let them take advantage of you like they did me. Don't let them have a chance to put you down, or make you feel less than you are. Oregon district is especially bad. Don't believe me? Go secret shop them and witness the neglect for yourself. Guarantee you will see dead fish, dirty housing, animals with empty bowls, and they will shove UN-necessary products down your throat. This is my honest opinion of how they conduct themselves. Hopefully it keeps you from wasting your time.

Upon being hired, there was no proper training due to leaders being too busy, and I was given incorrect information by one leader and reprimanded for being wrong by another.
Never given full training due to being understaffed, put on register the first day, did online training courses for 1 or 2 hours twice much later than expected and was never capable of continuing. I did not know most of anything I had to do and was often either put on the spot by leaders or expected to wing it.
Taught incorrectly about how to feed and care for animals.
Was not taught how to correctly handle animals, which is not good if you don't already have experience with them. Despite this, I was still expected to give people small animals while the register isn't busy.
Management is imbalanced and the general leader is unprofessional, it isn't uncommon to be laughed at for not knowing everything off the bat despite improper training.
They are not prepared for the end of your shift and you are often asked to stay extra hours due to not setting up anyone to take your place.
You are told to call for extra cashiers whenever lines get long, but can repeatedly call for help due to having over 5 people in line without anybody coming, resulting in clients becoming restless.
The leaders never gave me a name tag, nor my own keys. For the first couple weeks I had to borrow keys from leaders to open small animals, then was given an extra set of keys near the end that weren't meant for me.
If you already have experience working with animals and don't mind the specific ones you are expected to work with, cleaning their habitats and handling them is joyful. Small animals and birds especially have a lot of personality, and seeing all the diverse animals and getting to work with them helps you gain a lot more experience along with overall being generally fun.
Customers were most often handled very well by all those who work there, and it fosters a space where even disabled customers, including those who are blind and need help going around the entire store and getting what they need.
A typical day at work starts with cleaning small animal cages and refilling their food and water, sometimes birds are also included. You vacuum the carpeting by the doors, then proceed to help customers whenever capable while also managing the register when someone is there. Cleaning the cashier areas is also common. You are expected to restock all returned items that do not have to be thrown out near the end of your day, then you can sign out and go home.
Even as a part-time employee, all items in-store are discounted if you enter your employee number while buying them. The deals are very good.

A typical day at work was basically assigning tasks to associates and following up with them periodically to entail what needed to be done still. Stocking shelves, assisting customers, caring for animals, and promoting products and events.
I learned an incredibly vast amount of information about the company and more importantly about animals. I have always been an animal loving person, but the information and knowledge gained about them while working there was incredible. Also learned about managing store operations. I have been a manager in retail before but at lowes, I was in charge of a department, here I was entrusted with operations of the store entirely. It was a wonderful experience and probably the best job I have had to date experience wise.
My co-workers were great people. While I never felt I was the best that I could have been (until the store manager that hired me in 2010 was let go and we received a new manager who really helped mold me in to becoming a better manager) my co-workers worked with me as I improved. They are very knowledgeable workers, and incredibly friendly and hard working individuals who come to work excited and get caught up at times with customers due to excitement of talking about the animals and products. At times it was frustrating while busy, but I never intervened due to my belief that although we may be busy helping customers one associate with a person or group spending more time than needed, is building a relationship with that person to our company. Which in my opinion not only brings them back, but their friends, family. With social media as well playing a role I'd like to think they would post how great of an experience they had, and urged others to not just come out our store, but speak with our informative, friendly associates.
Hardest part of my job was in the beginning, dealing with a store manager who was honestly bi-polar it seemed, she would be very friendly and laughing and encouraging, then out of nowhere would write me up over what was always almost make believe. It was difficult trying to be a manager when the store manager was incapable of managing. After the new store manager came, things changed, things got done, and the store improved incredibly. This encourages not to say names so I will just say J did an incredible job turning this store around and it was a great blessing to have the time to work with him and grow as a manager through his direction and advice during my time there. That store succeeded cause of him, and I as well as the associates succeeded as well because of his direction.
The most enjoyable part of my job was the animals and associates. As a manager I have always believed its absolutely imperative not to build friendships with associates so there is always a line divided as well as understanding of manager/associate. But, it was impossible here. I admit friendships were made, although bias was never in existence. Rules were managed, policy was enforced and regulations were understood. Which I believe this store gave me the best people to work with to date. Great group of people, hard workers, friendly conversations, and trust was built. Everyone could talk to anyone about anything and it was great. Work and animal came first always thought.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
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Store manager 1 salary reported	$50,000 per year

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