Pros
Working with animals and building relationships with pet owners. Once upon a time animals did come first. The awesome bonus program that was continually underfunded no matter how well you performed and the pay for performance annual raises that on average were 2, maybe 2.5% were outstanding.
Cons
The constant berating over pieces of the business that make up less than 1 % of total sales. Dog training and vaccinations. The focus shifted away from retail basics, inventory controls at the distribution center are abhorrent, leading to in stock concerns throughout the store. POS systems are grossly outdated. The only retailer that does not have a live inventory system. In fact the entire technology infrastructure is outdated and , buggy. The company continues to be reactive (over reactive) and makes knee jerk decisions at the last minute. The grooming salons were suffered with a loss of safety equipment, sub par facilities and an annual spending freeze that prohibits any possibility of polishing a turd. Salaried Managers are more like over paid sales associates/janitors, instead of being able to run an effective store, payroll is constantly cut as tasks are increased or hours are "reapportioned" from other tasks in order to accomplish BS cleaning intiative that left many managers acting as johnny fixit, painting and patching walls. Animal care has taken a back seat to ridiculous programs where an undertrained associate stands around for 14 hours handing out coupons for dog and cat food. Now as the company approaches an outright sale or IPO, stores are being handicapped in to cutting productive grooming hours to inflate the average dollar per hour productivity in order to improve fiscal appearance. Good luck actually running a store you spend all day on conference calms writing action plans about writing action plans for the initiative du jour. The future is not bright at the store level, but as long TPG and Leonard Green and associates get their 5 billion dollar pay day, this is an awesome place to develop ulcers, migraines and alcoholism.