Pros
It can be fun to work with animals and educate pet parents about taking proper care of their pets.
Cons
Pay is low for most employees. Upper management expects AMAZING results in ZERO amount of time with ZERO labor hours to give out. Customer theft is a problem as a result of low labor hours. It's hard to open five live animal departments with one manager (who spends most of their time in the office) and one regular employee in the whole store. A lot of inspiring ideas are thrown around but nothing ever happens (e.g. "By the end of the year we will sell only US made consumables!" -- 3 months later we get a shipment of frozen fish food that proudly displays "MADE IN CHINA" in bold on the packaging). The motto "Animals always come first" only applies when money has absolutely NO bearing on the situation. The motto should read: "The bottom line always comes first." Employees that commission have to eat the discounts and coupons that Petco offers. If you plan on being a dog trainer you'd better make sure you keep track of when you become "Certified" because even if you train 20 dogs all by yourself you won't get paid for any classes until your managers get around to making sure you are certified and coded as a trainer. You will never see the commission for those classes that were sold before that date. TOO MUCH OFFICE POLITICS!!! If you aren't willing to have the brownest nose in town you won't go ANYWHERE with this company. The brownest nose in my store gets to make her own schedule and takes hour lunches and leaves early whenever she wants to. DM knows exactly NOTHING about animals and refuses to answer legitimate questions on the basis that the company is called "Petco, not [DM's name here]co." The company advertises that it is lowering prices on thousands of items every day when in all actuality 95% of the price changes that happen each week are price raises (this is not an exaggeration). Performance reviews are never really done. They are put through the system to make them go away. You won't get any constructive criticism or correction of improper behaviors until it is in the form of a write up. No one can give a concrete explanation of the PTO policy. It changes from week to week depending on who you ask and how they feel at that moment. 90% of the work is done by 10% of the people. Those that do not do their jobs continue to get a paycheck while those of us that actually do our job get told that it's not good enough. All store support is located in another country. I am certified in Aquatics, Small Animals, Birds, Reptiles, Dog Training, Nutrition, and I'm a Customer Advisor Specialist and I get paid very little compared to the amount of knowledge I am required to retain and the amount of work I am expected to do. I could go on forever.
