Pros
adorable animals, working with said animals, tips, building sales and communication skills, discounted store items, getting to know your "regulars" and the community, pretty lax about personal decoration like tattoos and hair color, allies of the LGBTQIA+ community, it's a cool and straightforward job for *just* enough pay for a college kid to get by. if you have a dog, you get to bring them in to give them a bath once a month (on your day off) for free! met some really amazing people here and learned a lot about animals, life, and myself.
Cons
in the grooming salon: first off, the obvious, you WILL get bitten. and scratched. and knocked over. and the unlucky recipient of animal bodily fluids. you will see a different side of people, for better and worse. if you open the salon at 8am, you better be there by 7:30, 7:50 at LEAST, even though you still can't punch in at 8. but you WILL be expected to perform job duties like setting up the salon and checking in guests off the clock. not to mention when you will have to stay much later after your shift when a pet parent doesn't show up to pick up, because everyone is too overbooked (keep reading) to help! we were expected to regularly work through our 15 minute breaks, and often our lunches. although they were strongly encouraged due to labor laws, we were simultaneously told to overbook ourselves to compensate for potential cancellations. and if both appointments show up? more saless$$$!! but we reallyyyy need you to take your lunch - after you do the basset hound nail grind that just walked in during the only pause you have in the day you carved out to take that lunch! also - the 5 signs of stress you have drilled in your head? forget it! if you try to send a dog home early due to stress, well just try putting him back in the kennel for a minute and see if he calms down cuz WE have to pay if he has to go to the vet but if he goes home then we lose money! why have all these safety rules if corporate (i'm not blaming the store managers for this one, screw corporate for squeezing them) expects us to ignore them for the sake of profit? what happened to anything for pets? this also applies to cases of neglect. if you work there, you're likely an animal lover. and any time i raised a concern of legitimate neglect to any level of management (guess i never thought to call in to corporate), I was told that "technicallyyy, it's not ~neglect~ because they're bringing them in for a groom and that's taking care of them, not neglecting them." being a bather or a groomer, you hear a lot of sad stories from animals that can't say a word. I really hope that this has changed since I left. lastly, it's crazy how someone can have the best sales and add ons for months on end and never be employee of the month, but that's just me being petty. my best advice to someone considering this would be to work at petsmart for the training and intensity that they enforce their safety precautions, to make you a better bather/groomer at a private shop (where you will be much happier AND make so much more money!)
