Has the corporate route been more challenging for anyone else?

[light88]

I’ve been working at Petco since November. Was told I would go through grooming school in January. The only mentor in my district is going through a divorce and is indefinitely taking a hiatus, so I don’t have anyone to teach me. I’ve been a bather since and now I’m being told that even if there was a mentor my “productivity is too low” to be considered for grooming school.

Here are my issues with this:

1) Our store has the highest foot traffic in our district, but is located in the heart of a poor, crime ridden city. The salon suffers by having at least 1/3 of appointments a day get cancelled or turn out to be no-shows. And almost all of those are bath dogs. So, I’ll sometimes have 5-7 dogs on the books but only 1-2 show up.

2) I was told that because my productivity is low that I’m not getting online bookings because they go to more “productive” stylists.

3) We had a salon meeting where everyone was told to book bath dogs that call into the salon under me so I can be considered for grooming school. No one has done this and my manager is just like

4) There’s one specific stylist who lies, takes dogs, moves appointments to her schedule, and has been a problem for every single stylist in the salon. She has been “talked to” but there are no real consequences and she continues to behave that way.

I had a 1:1 meeting with my manager where she explained I needed to start cold calling lapsed clients and ask them to schedule to get my productivity up, but I never signed up to be a salesman. Never. I understand there is some degree of networking in this job, but I was told when I was hired that I would be going to grooming school after a trial period of bathing, not that I would have to call people who are 66% likely going to cancel or not show up for their appointments and beg them to come into the store so I can bathe their dogs. If I wanted a job like that I would have been a car salesman.

I’d it worth it to stay and go through their grooming school? Because honestly I don’t think it is when I have people not coming in, a girl taking all my bath dogs and nail trims with no consequence, and a computer system that only gives productive stylists appointments. Would a grooming school be a better choice for me?

 

[thankfullness]

@light88 I'll be honest and say if you don't want to call people to get your books up, corporate is probably not for you. You'll be doing that even as a groomer during slow seasons.

 

[light88]

@thankfullness Fair and true. I’ll start looking into grooming schools this week

 

[rattikin]

@light88 I haven’t gone to grooming school, but I haven’t heard a lot of positive things about them. Often there doesn’t seem to be a lot of hands on experience. Private salons won’t hire them bc they require too much training. Or they hire them as bathers with the option to apprentice in the future. They seem very expensive to end up back at square one. Could you transfer to a different location?

 

[light88]

@rattikin I can’t transfer. I’ve already tried talking to my manager about it, and again, she told me my productivity has to be high or else other salons won’t see me as a valuable asset in terms of my “numbers” and that I’m not getting enough dogs throughout the week.

I feel like what you’re saying applies more to online grooming schools, which I would not attempt to do. I actually spoke to quite a few grooming schools on the phone yesterday that seemed pretty legitimate. They specifically mentioned being entirely hands on. Two of them in particular told me to expect 500 hours of actual grooming experience to graduate. It’s pricier, but I have some savings and I would be on track to graduate faster than I believe Petco could even guarantee me to go through grooming school. If I did transfer there’s no one in my district that can teach me, so it wouldn’t be certain when that would happen.