-Management simply ignored customers on the best days and fostered a toxic environment by gossiping and amplifying tension between employees on the worst days.
-Training is laissez-faire; there were no designated new hire trainers in stores and no template to keep track of skills learned.
-It was not uncommon to be chastised in front of peers.
-It is a requirement to work a "pack schedule", meaning you must available to be scheduled at any store within 30-ish minutes of your home store, at any time.
-There may be rivalry between the stores, so while you may be working at another store once a week, there is a possibility you will not be welcome there.
-Mud Bay does not provide any training on animal behavior or body language, which can become a hazard since staff is "highly encouraged" to 'greet and treat' every dog that comes in. Since behavior training is not standardized, Muddies may be practicing unsafe handling of dogs and giving out damaging advice to coworkers and customers.
-The standards that are pushed by Home Office regarding customer interactions seem like an AI generated script, denoting a clear divide between upper-level staff and in-store employees. Standards are unclear and often vary from lead to manager to other lead to other manager. Often, staff-level employees take the blame for "mistakes" that are actually unclear communication between leads, managers, and Home Office.
-Coworkers were bullies and management protected the bullies because they were friends outside of work.
-Under-qualified people were promoted based on management favoritism.
-This is not a small business, this is a large, 60-store chain of retail locations.
