I really need to vent and it going to be a long one…
So back in March I left my career in casino management (which paid very well, almost 40$/hour with an amazing benefit package) in pursuit of happiness after being miserable for so many years I decided dog grooming was the way to go and I have fallen head over heels in love with this work. It’s right up my alley working with my hands, being physical, surrounded by animals, an endless supply of new things to learn and just very satisfying work.
My first salon hired me as a bather in March and fired me after 3 weeks. They said I couldn’t keep up with them and they weren’t wrong. They were grooming about 60 dogs a day (3 groomers, 3 assistants about 9 hour days) and the majority of them were large dogs with a healthy mix of doodles and double coats such as BMD, GSD, huskies and goldens. I averaged 24$/hour after tips and was literally glued to the bathtub bathing one dog after another.
Exactly one week after being fired I started at another salon as a bather and I absolutely loved the people I worked with. They were amazing, patient and treated me like family. There I bathed usually just under 40 dogs a day, but it was mostly very small and toy breeds with 3-4 of them being large dogs. They paid me cash, completely under the table and I made about 25/hour working about 7 hour days. As an adult, I really need some documented income so I can have access to loans when needed. As amazing as they were they do not have space for a third grooming set up and are far too busy to teach me haircuts.
Here’s where the problem starts…
A friend of a friend gave my number to another groomer who was interested in training someone to groom. She reached out, we talked and it sounded pretty good. I made it very very clear that I had no interest in leaving a job as an assistant where I was happy for another job as an assistant. If I left, it was going to be to groom, period. Her exact words were “I need another groomer more than I need an assistant”. I was very honest about my employment history, my experience at that point and where I felt my weakest points were as well as what I had loved and hated so far about my experience. If I made this move I wanted to KNOW that it would truly be a good fit and hopefully my last move for a while.
She was waiting for her business partner to leave because they were separating so when the day got closer she brought me in to work for a bit part time and around my existing schedule to make sure it was going to be a good fit. She begged me to put my notice in at my last job saying “we need you here”, “great job today, I think at this rate we can have you on commission in as little as 3 months…. You can clearly handle double coats and bath brush so a few of those and maybe one or two haircuts a day will get you started….”, “wow,, I’m really impressed with how well you work on XYZ coats”, just raving about me and again, insisted that I was NEEDED.
So I left my other job only for her partner’s (and their shared assistant who was leaving to work for her partner) plans to keep being delayed and I spent about a month working like five 3 hour days a week (making 15$/hour and doing far more cleaning and busy work than actually working on dogs) only to be cut because there was no need for two assistants. I kept my mouth shut and stayed patient. She asked me how I felt about the reduced hours and I told her that I didn’t want to compete with the other assistant (single mom) for hours since she needed them more than I did. Once her partner finally left about a month later the hours were plentiful to the point where she asked if it would be okay if she just paid me cash for anything over 35 hours/week including any potential overtime (without time and a half because she couldn’t afford it)… I agreed because I was there to learn and be a team sport also assuming I wouldn’t be on hourly long.
To get to the point, I’m now approaching 4 months at this job and beginning to feel completely taken advantage of. I bust my ass and bend over backwards for this 15$/hour with no more talk of when commission will be starting and working about 50 hours a week. I use all of my own equipment to almost entirely groom her dogs (everything except the face), get no share in tips (even if I groom a short haired bath brush dog that she doesn’t even touch, she takes the tip). She went from grooming 4 dogs/ day (with an assistant that she shared with her old partner doing her bath and blow outs) to today I’ve bathed and dried 9 dogs before noon! 3 short hair and 6 haircuts! From noon to 1 I finished the grooms on the three short hair dogs and at 1 the last haircut dog came in and I bathed and blew her out as well.
After the last bath, I did the complete groom on a long haired chihuahua (very much like a pom coat - c comb, tidy ears, sani and thinners to make everything nice and round) and did 3 of her other grooms leaving only the face for her.
Now, if you’ve made it this far, here’s why I’m having a problem. I have no problem with the work load, I enjoy working at a steady pace and I enjoy being able to work with this dogs through most if not all of their groom as opposed to my last two salons where it was just about bathing only to pass them to someone else and move on to the next dog. I also really enjoy that this shop favors a fully hand dried coat, but they have heatless cage dryers for the dogs that truly don’t cope well with HV dryers or hand drying their faces. My issue is when she says things like “wow, I’m grooming so many more dogs now that (old partner) isn’t here” and will openly talk about how much more money she is making because (old partner) “was holding her back”. She hardly ever double checks my groom work anymore and when she does, I get nothing but compliments. She raves about my baths and blow outs, compliments my scissor work and handling. In fact, the only time she has anything negative to say to me about my work is related to cleaning! She’s not indicating that there’s anything related to my skill level holding me back. The kicker, she not complaining that I don’t clean well.
Cleaning, oh cleaning. I enjoy a clean work space and believe in cleaning up after myself. Well, today she pulled me aside and scolded me like a child for taking 60 second between dogs to move some laundry around because we were really low on towels. No, we weren’t behind at all. Her scolding me like a child took longer than I did fussing with some laundry. So the bathing area is a shared work space, I use it along with two other groomers that work for her. One of those two other groomers does his table work in the back and next to the washer and dryer so he’s usually the one staying on top of laundry, but towels end up everywhere and once or twice a day I usually take a moment to clean up dirty towels and move them to the laundry area and maybe move laundry around if possible and nothing is running.
SHE SCOLDED ME FOR PICKING UP A FEW TOWELS AND BRINGING THEM TO THE LAUNDRY AREA!
! I can’t even wrap my head around it! Her reasoning? “It’s (groomers) job, he makes more money than anyone else here and is always the first to leave. Don’t help him.” He grooms 12-15 dogs a day! Large dogs only, for commission, does wonderful work and cleans the entire bathing area and back room every day, cleans our bathroom, does the laundry and mops all of the floors. He makes more money because he works harder than anyone there and he finishes early because he works quick and doesn’t take breaks, but please explain to me why on earth any of that means that I should not contribute literally a minute here or there towards picking up and maintaining our SHARED workspace and tools throughout the day?!? It’s not like I’m spending a ton of time “doing his job”, I’m literally maintaining the workspace THAT I AM USING TO WORK FOR HER!
I’ve been telling myself for a month now that I just need to ride out the busy holiday season and see if once the rush is over she truly intends to work on faces with me and move me to commission, but I have this feeling that this really just isn’t going to work and that I have been strongly misled into believing that this would be a good work environment. I am crushed and can’t help but wonder if after 3 jobs in less than a years time, maybe I’m the problem. I mean, am I crazy or are these red flags?
To be honest, her prices are insanely low and not even worth commission. She charges 70$ for a large doodle, period. Regardless of behavior or coat condition. Bath/brush dogs are 30% commission and she charges like 35$ for a boxer. During all of our initial conversations she talked about how the split with her partner was amicable and they were great friends and were going to continue sharing an assistant, but she is constantly trashing her former partner and as soon as I had given my notice to my last job she told the former assistant to just go work at the new shop instead of doing both.
Seriously, what do I do here? Do I run? How do I honestly yet respectfully explain to any future potential employer why on earth I’ve been through 3 salons in less than a year. Am I the problem? I’m at a loss, feeling incredibly defeated and completely in love with this work, but not with the drama.
So back in March I left my career in casino management (which paid very well, almost 40$/hour with an amazing benefit package) in pursuit of happiness after being miserable for so many years I decided dog grooming was the way to go and I have fallen head over heels in love with this work. It’s right up my alley working with my hands, being physical, surrounded by animals, an endless supply of new things to learn and just very satisfying work.
My first salon hired me as a bather in March and fired me after 3 weeks. They said I couldn’t keep up with them and they weren’t wrong. They were grooming about 60 dogs a day (3 groomers, 3 assistants about 9 hour days) and the majority of them were large dogs with a healthy mix of doodles and double coats such as BMD, GSD, huskies and goldens. I averaged 24$/hour after tips and was literally glued to the bathtub bathing one dog after another.
Exactly one week after being fired I started at another salon as a bather and I absolutely loved the people I worked with. They were amazing, patient and treated me like family. There I bathed usually just under 40 dogs a day, but it was mostly very small and toy breeds with 3-4 of them being large dogs. They paid me cash, completely under the table and I made about 25/hour working about 7 hour days. As an adult, I really need some documented income so I can have access to loans when needed. As amazing as they were they do not have space for a third grooming set up and are far too busy to teach me haircuts.
Here’s where the problem starts…
A friend of a friend gave my number to another groomer who was interested in training someone to groom. She reached out, we talked and it sounded pretty good. I made it very very clear that I had no interest in leaving a job as an assistant where I was happy for another job as an assistant. If I left, it was going to be to groom, period. Her exact words were “I need another groomer more than I need an assistant”. I was very honest about my employment history, my experience at that point and where I felt my weakest points were as well as what I had loved and hated so far about my experience. If I made this move I wanted to KNOW that it would truly be a good fit and hopefully my last move for a while.
She was waiting for her business partner to leave because they were separating so when the day got closer she brought me in to work for a bit part time and around my existing schedule to make sure it was going to be a good fit. She begged me to put my notice in at my last job saying “we need you here”, “great job today, I think at this rate we can have you on commission in as little as 3 months…. You can clearly handle double coats and bath brush so a few of those and maybe one or two haircuts a day will get you started….”, “wow,, I’m really impressed with how well you work on XYZ coats”, just raving about me and again, insisted that I was NEEDED.
So I left my other job only for her partner’s (and their shared assistant who was leaving to work for her partner) plans to keep being delayed and I spent about a month working like five 3 hour days a week (making 15$/hour and doing far more cleaning and busy work than actually working on dogs) only to be cut because there was no need for two assistants. I kept my mouth shut and stayed patient. She asked me how I felt about the reduced hours and I told her that I didn’t want to compete with the other assistant (single mom) for hours since she needed them more than I did. Once her partner finally left about a month later the hours were plentiful to the point where she asked if it would be okay if she just paid me cash for anything over 35 hours/week including any potential overtime (without time and a half because she couldn’t afford it)… I agreed because I was there to learn and be a team sport also assuming I wouldn’t be on hourly long.
To get to the point, I’m now approaching 4 months at this job and beginning to feel completely taken advantage of. I bust my ass and bend over backwards for this 15$/hour with no more talk of when commission will be starting and working about 50 hours a week. I use all of my own equipment to almost entirely groom her dogs (everything except the face), get no share in tips (even if I groom a short haired bath brush dog that she doesn’t even touch, she takes the tip). She went from grooming 4 dogs/ day (with an assistant that she shared with her old partner doing her bath and blow outs) to today I’ve bathed and dried 9 dogs before noon! 3 short hair and 6 haircuts! From noon to 1 I finished the grooms on the three short hair dogs and at 1 the last haircut dog came in and I bathed and blew her out as well.
After the last bath, I did the complete groom on a long haired chihuahua (very much like a pom coat - c comb, tidy ears, sani and thinners to make everything nice and round) and did 3 of her other grooms leaving only the face for her.
Now, if you’ve made it this far, here’s why I’m having a problem. I have no problem with the work load, I enjoy working at a steady pace and I enjoy being able to work with this dogs through most if not all of their groom as opposed to my last two salons where it was just about bathing only to pass them to someone else and move on to the next dog. I also really enjoy that this shop favors a fully hand dried coat, but they have heatless cage dryers for the dogs that truly don’t cope well with HV dryers or hand drying their faces. My issue is when she says things like “wow, I’m grooming so many more dogs now that (old partner) isn’t here” and will openly talk about how much more money she is making because (old partner) “was holding her back”. She hardly ever double checks my groom work anymore and when she does, I get nothing but compliments. She raves about my baths and blow outs, compliments my scissor work and handling. In fact, the only time she has anything negative to say to me about my work is related to cleaning! She’s not indicating that there’s anything related to my skill level holding me back. The kicker, she not complaining that I don’t clean well.
Cleaning, oh cleaning. I enjoy a clean work space and believe in cleaning up after myself. Well, today she pulled me aside and scolded me like a child for taking 60 second between dogs to move some laundry around because we were really low on towels. No, we weren’t behind at all. Her scolding me like a child took longer than I did fussing with some laundry. So the bathing area is a shared work space, I use it along with two other groomers that work for her. One of those two other groomers does his table work in the back and next to the washer and dryer so he’s usually the one staying on top of laundry, but towels end up everywhere and once or twice a day I usually take a moment to clean up dirty towels and move them to the laundry area and maybe move laundry around if possible and nothing is running.
SHE SCOLDED ME FOR PICKING UP A FEW TOWELS AND BRINGING THEM TO THE LAUNDRY AREA!
! I can’t even wrap my head around it! Her reasoning? “It’s (groomers) job, he makes more money than anyone else here and is always the first to leave. Don’t help him.” He grooms 12-15 dogs a day! Large dogs only, for commission, does wonderful work and cleans the entire bathing area and back room every day, cleans our bathroom, does the laundry and mops all of the floors. He makes more money because he works harder than anyone there and he finishes early because he works quick and doesn’t take breaks, but please explain to me why on earth any of that means that I should not contribute literally a minute here or there towards picking up and maintaining our SHARED workspace and tools throughout the day?!? It’s not like I’m spending a ton of time “doing his job”, I’m literally maintaining the workspace THAT I AM USING TO WORK FOR HER!I’ve been telling myself for a month now that I just need to ride out the busy holiday season and see if once the rush is over she truly intends to work on faces with me and move me to commission, but I have this feeling that this really just isn’t going to work and that I have been strongly misled into believing that this would be a good work environment. I am crushed and can’t help but wonder if after 3 jobs in less than a years time, maybe I’m the problem. I mean, am I crazy or are these red flags?
To be honest, her prices are insanely low and not even worth commission. She charges 70$ for a large doodle, period. Regardless of behavior or coat condition. Bath/brush dogs are 30% commission and she charges like 35$ for a boxer. During all of our initial conversations she talked about how the split with her partner was amicable and they were great friends and were going to continue sharing an assistant, but she is constantly trashing her former partner and as soon as I had given my notice to my last job she told the former assistant to just go work at the new shop instead of doing both.
Seriously, what do I do here? Do I run? How do I honestly yet respectfully explain to any future potential employer why on earth I’ve been through 3 salons in less than a year. Am I the problem? I’m at a loss, feeling incredibly defeated and completely in love with this work, but not with the drama.