Don't work here, I left with an anxiety disorder.
Pros
The benefits are nice, I loved working with some of my co-workers and a few of the upper management were clearly very committed to their job and loved what they did. Loved the animals, but felt bad at the treatment of some of them. I truly liked being educated on all the different dog foods and their benefits. That was about it, sadly.
Cons
Well, just about everything. The pay was "competitive" however it was literally impossible to get enough people in to meet our goals. The salon I worked in didn't have a manager the entire time I worked there. The groomer who was forced to play salon manager had to move on to bigger and better things after 6 months of asking to get a raise to reflect the amount of work she did (making grooming schedules, doing most of the grooms because there was no other groomer, taking care of paper work) and the manager flat out ignored her. Kept saying "I'll talk to the DM about it" and never did. There are a lot of manager favorites. One employee can go out for a smoke break every hour, another gets reprimanded for going out once on their shift. The training was absolutely awful. It probably didn't help that my store manager was gone the entire time and none of the assistant managers knew what exactly I was supposed to be doing, but really it's just a bunch of clicking and answering questions. Manager expected me to memorize everything I read. It literally was just NOT POSSIBLE because there was no association with what you learned in the computer and what happened in the store. Often times people in the salon would tell me what was learned on the computer and what was done in the salon was always different, and even different from store to store. How can you expect someone to learn anything with so much contradiction and no way to reinforce the things you "taught" them? Getting more hours was easy, but as an grooming assistant it was pointless, because the more hours you worked (with no dogs coming in) the less commission you'd make, therefore the less money you'd get overall. We had grooming assistants that purposely avoided slow days so the 2 days a week they'd work (obviously Friday and Saturday) they'd commission out, even if their work ethic was bad. Cruel treatment of other co-workers was never frowned upon. My last 2 weeks of working a co-worker who was battling me for the grooming position (which, another fun story, was PROMISED to me when I was hired, but then I was told I had to "earn" it by commissioning out.) was constantly lying to the manager, telling her about duties I "didn't do" after she had told me I didn't have to, and making the entire store a toxic place for me. I had more than one panic attack in the back when she was there, and I told the manager. So, what does he/she do? Comes into the salon, outs me, and asks if anyone there feels the same. I also watched this manager hire two groomers and tell both of them separately that they were both going to be salon manager. Both only agreed to the job because of the manager title. After working together there was non-stop friction for the same reason my co-worker and I had non-stop friction. The store manager told them whoever got the best numbers got the salon manager title, and both girls were cut throat to get that job. Which led to a salon that was filled with anger and women fighting because the store manager refused to intervene and just let us tear each other apart, calling it "competition." Competition isn't about lying and cheating, it's about legitimate work and how it pays off. Also, you probably shouldn't tell two different people they're getting one job and then let them fight when they find out you told them both they were going to get it. The blame went to each other, when it should have been directed at the manager who lied in the first place. I had to quit, or I would have lost my sanity there. The management is horrible, gets away with whatever they want and does not give two craps about their employees. The district doesn't give two craps either. Though, from what I hear, it's a situation where the manager was in with district and could get away with anything. Don't go for this company, look for one that tries to treat their employees like people, not money generating machines whose feelings are insignificant.
