@christiangirl30 I'm so sorry about your experience, that sounds like hell.
I recently graduated from bather to stylist-in-training, but I've been with Petsmart on and off in different departments for around a decade, at different stores in different states. I think the one thing I've learned so far is that the general vibe changes
a lot between stores. Like almost night and day difference. The shitty stores I've worked in were a goddamn nonstop nightmare, constant mixed messages between managers with constant corporate interference, nothing ever got done and expectations were always WAY too high for what could realistically be met. People being thrown under the bus constantly. Managers being shitty and sexist and manipulative and overly demanding.
I'm grooming in a very low volume salon right now and we happen to have a store manager who's very good at navigating corporate demands, and the difference is just... wild. It's like a completely different company. Christmas week was hell as per usual but it wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting, and I think it's solely because of the managers I have and the lower volume to manage.
The corporate interference is still godawful and we're still expected to meet plan / hit addon rates etc etc, but the difference here seems to be that the managers aren't pushing that stress onto us. We're still expected to offer addons and shit but we're not being berated and talked down to for customers refusing it. I never worked with the last manager, but everyone tells me they were a fucking nightmare about it even in such a low volume store.
Of course on the flipside there's a lot less job security in lower volume stores, and meeting commission once you're a stylist can be difficult, but it might be worth seeing if you can get a transfer. Petsmart is definitely not the best thing out there but it also doesn't have to be
that awful, the people around you definitely dictate how bad it can be.