Pros
I met some quality people in my 7 year tenure. Pretty generous PTO. Leadership summits we're always a fun time after all of the boring sessions with vendors. Relaxed dress code.
Cons
No payroll. At all. I got an average of 250 hours a week. I only got that much because I was selling so many dog training classes. Without earned dog training hours and cut demo table hours, average was about 235. 3 full time managers, a full time aquatic specialist, and a full time dog trainer adds up to 200 hours. 40 for each person. Aquatics maintenance alone requires over 40 hours a week (that came straight from the mouth of my regional animal care and education leader). So I have about 35 hours left to give to the rest of my employees? And you want us to "drop tasks" and greet and engage with every customer that walks through the door? Things would never get done. Payroll model is highly flawed. Expectations leadership were absolutely unrealistic and outrageous. All the company cares about is dog training. Salary was crap for a store leader. You'll really only make money as an external hire. Being promoted from within like I was (part time sales associate to store leader) they will absolutely low ball you on compensation, especially for the work you are expected do. Again, no payroll. I was terminated from the company for 'showing favoritism' to one of my employees. I let her take a filter home for her fish tank two days before payday because her old one broke and at the time, she was unable to afford a new one. Her fish at home were without filtration and would have died. She came in two days later on payday and paid for it. Store did not lose any money or product, I took care of my employee like the company says they want us to do, and her fish got to live. Win win situation, right? Nope, I lost my job for 'showing favoritism'. However, if they did any research, they would of looked at my partner promoter comments from the survey and seen that all of my employees unanimously said nothing but great things about me. Nothing but praise. Not a single negative comment. Everyone was treated the same. How can I show favoritism if everyone felt the same about me? My store was one of the only stores in the entire district with a positive comp. My scorecard was all green. One of the lowest volume stores in the district and still one of the top stores in dog training sales. Services both dog training and grooming were exceeding budget, merchandise sales had a positive comp, and payroll was between 97-99%. I was due a full bonus payout for Q1. I was terminated in Q2, but because I was terminated before the bonus was paid out, petco got to keep my money that I earned with my performance and exhausting 60+ hour work weeks because again, no payroll.
