PETCO Reviews

Pros

Only 40 hours manditory, But more is expected
Great ideas and goals, But not being followed through by regional staff

Cons

Company does NOT care about its people only its image and making money!
District Managers are not supportive, They give tasks by the hundreds and expect miracles.
District managers take credit when things are good and "hold GM's acountable" when metrics don't meet the demands of corperate. SW Florida is extremely seasonal and has super great months and some super dead months, its the nature of the business and community yet store are made to feel useless because sales drop during the off months. Too many taks and directives and not enough payroll. Do c ustomers come first? NO, Animals come first? NO Employess come first?NO there is not enough hours for proper animal care, not enough for customer service and not enough for minimal store coverage.. Skeleton crews DO NOT lead to sucess...
District managers do NOT treat the General Managers equal, some get away with serious and consistant failure while other get canned at their first mistake or for speaking their mind and sticking up for their store an employess....

Advice to Senior Management

You need district managers and HR regional managers that care about their people! We don't work for a company, we work for our manager and no matter how great the company is, if the manager suck the moral goes down and the store does not run to its full potential.....

Pros

You get to meet a lot of sweet animals (mainly dogs and cats), you also get to meet a lot of different people. It's a great place to use as a stepping stone

Cons

Retail management can be stressful, but it's even stressful when you add the wellbeing of the animals. I worked for a clothing retailer as a manager for two years prior and made almost $3 more an hr than I did here. I think with the knowledge you have to have to take care of the animals, and train new animal owners, the pay is not worth it.

There are pointless recalls/withdrawals on products that "don't sell" Stores run of a skeletal staff. Only average about 35 hrs a week. Upper management from corporate are not very friendly with sales associates, all they want to do is talk to the GM.

Advice to Senior Management

Go public, for the sake of your employees. Give employees more incentives.

Pros

Fundamental belief in animal adoption and proper care, depth of knowledge (subject matter experts) in many fields, fairly high level of direction, hard working coworkers, nice perks (i.e. Padres games in SD), competitive benefits packages

Cons

Work life balance extremely difficult, on call 24/7 with Blackberry access, some micro managing leaders, unrealistic deadlines and objectives on some projects, silo mentality between key departments, lack of career paths for mid management, lack of true recognition (surface accolades given sparingly).

Advice to Senior Management

Be realistic about objectives and keep the focus narrow and deep. Try to do a handful of things really well and not 100 things partially. Great presence at companywide meetings but stay in touch with what is happening below the executive level. Conflicting agendas between departments create obstacles for the company goals- be aware and act on them. Be candid and truthful about upcoming changes to the organization.

Pros

customers that come in are wonderful.

Cons

you get no respect for the work you do. corporate seems to get it , but by the time those ideas are received by the stores they are not executed the way they should be.

Advice to Senior Management

hire more compassionate management staff.

Pros

My co-workers are great. If you work at corporate, you can bring your pets to work. Most associates genuinely care about animals. My boss was wonderful though I feel he should have been promoted faster. Great internal reward system at corporate level. Great prices on pet supplies!

Cons

I feel like the associates and GMs at store level weren't treated as well as they could have been. Upward mobility is really limited.

Advice to Senior Management

I really enjoyed the corporate culture on campus, but felt like there weren't enough companywide bonding experiences. Working there felt stale and grey. You need an infusion of energy, young blood, new thinking or something to revitalize the brand.

Pros

The animals are fun to be around (except cleaning up!) The atmosphere is pretty casual and customers were generally satisfied. The payrate at the was a good $1.50/hr higher than other retail places. Overall, I'd work here again if need be.

Cons

There was the lack of instruction to new employees. I was only to work the register but there are a handful of weekly sales goals management expects and none were ever explained to me until I failed to reach them (and was then punished). One of the managers would easily let blame slide to associates even if customers called him out by name (if they'd spoken to him earlier, etc). The GM of the store was reluctant to let the cashiers do ANYTHING else. I ended up leaving because I was tired of working a register 8 hours a day for 6 months straight and asked for more responsibility. I was not the only one who couldn't do much else.

Advice to Senior Management

Make sure the new hires are instructed in ALL aspects of sales! If there is a weekly goal, they cannot be expected to adhere if they do not know of it. Lack of advancement opportunities doesn't keep people around.

Pros

The people are very friendly and helpful. They really care about pets. They care about the employees and have a great team.

Cons

The hours are bad. They do not care about your home life. They expect you to put the company first.

Advice to Senior Management

Think about he people that work hard everyday that got Petco to the place is is. In other words remember the small people.

Pros

If you enjoy animals it is a job that can be fun and satisfying. Petco carries a good variety of fish, reptiles, and birds.

Cons

Payroll has been cut so tight that you can no longer provide proper customer service. In a speciality sales enviroment educating the customer is essential. Providing proper care for the animals keeps them healthy and alive. Petco feels that putting a board in the front of the store with pictures of all of the employees leds the public to believe there is lots of help in the store when in reality there is no one to provide assistance. They have totally disreguarded customer service and customer education for payroll cuts and more profit.

Advice to Senior Management

Please put enough help in the stores to properly assist and educate the customer how to properly care for the animals they purchase.

Pros

If you're lucky, you get awesome co-workers
Animal experience some don't get to have
Regular Customers that are genuine
Benefit package isn't bad; there's even one for part timers

Cons

Well, I'm glad I started at Petco five years ago. It was a good company, that had some easy going people, and great animals. But in these five years, this company has gone down hill and has ripped the happiness out of me.
Much like many of my peers, I graduated from college and was unable to get another job due to the economy. Petco seemed like an alright place as I was working there during school, benefits and all, but as I became more invested, the more I learned how inept some of the "leaders" are. For example, the department managers at the store are all college grads, with masters degrees, one with a degree in business management. We do the work, and our uppers reap the benefits. We can't even afford to move out because of the feeble salary. And let me say: there is no way, shape or form department managers are paid enough to deal with what they deal with. In our state, 2 of the 3 department managers are below poverty level. However, no matter when some salaried managers come or go, they get the same 40 hour check, every week.
Now it's not to say all are like this, but it's obvious some higher ups don't really care. We don't get any support and insult of raises. Some managers are free to do what they want. For example, ours decides to come and go whenever they see fit, and don't think it's a necessity for the department managers to have 1 weekend day off, even though that's what was promised.
It's become a feeble, unstable, work environment that has myself and others stressed to the point of illness.
It's great for some experience, but don't stay too long.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to the bottom of the rung people once in awhile. They are the true insight to what is really going on in your stores. Pay people a little better and they'd work harder and happier.

Pros

Probably one of the most satisfying categories of retail to work in
Decent opportunities for job growth/advancement
Pretty fun most of the time due to interaction with animals
Usually good/fun coworkers

Cons

Deplorable pay scales
Horrible corporate management from working in 3 different districts
Expensive insurance
If your store is more than 3 years old its probably a pit
Have to wear a uniform (ugly and uncomfortable)
Long hours, as salaried management has to work 40 hours with no option of incorporating PTO unless you take off a full extra day, no half days
Poor communication throughout company
Too many changes to keep up with
Unprofessional, cheap "answers" to try to fix problems or boost company profits

Advice to Senior Management

Not that it matters, but it seems like petco has too many problems on such a large scale to offer any usuable suggestions. The company knows of all their faults as they have made it mandatory for all associates to take an "anyonomous" survey asking our honest opinions about the company. So they know exactly how associates feel. But it seems like as long as the company continues to expand, increase sales, and take on naive new employees, there will be no change.