When to the local Pet Supplies Plus this morning and…

[knr80]

As I’m walking in, there’s seven people standing by “the manager’s room” yelling and arguing with the manager and cashier.

They all exclaim “I QUIT!”, and march out the door.

I’m in disbelief, and so freaking proud of my fellow pet stylists/groomers, but I still needed cat food.

Once I get up to the register, the woman cashing me out mutters “I can’t f’in believe it”, and I respond with “I’m sorry?”.

She proceeds to tell me that ALL SEVEN of their groomers just quit, she has no idea what they’re going to do now.

“We can’t seem to keep any groomers, and this is the third time THIS YEAR that we are back to not having a SINGLE one!”

Idk you gurls, but I’ve seen some of your work and freaking KUDOS for knowing your worth and standing up for not only yourselves, but each other as well as a collective force!​

Know your worth! And don’t let corporate keep taking advantage of your amazing talent. I want to wish you all the best and I have my for you!

 

[jay2242]

@knr80 Must be a crappy place to work if they all quit at once. The store deserved it I'm sure.

 

[knr80]

@jay2242 That’s exactly what I was thinking, and for it to happen three times just this year, with yesterday being the start of the 8th month…

Blew my mind for sure, and I was both happy but so sad to witness it. They weren’t even being outlandish or anything.

It was like the manager going “no you can’t leave” and them all going “try and stop us! We quit!”… “oh no… you can’t quit”, “well we just did! Byeeeee”.

 

[thegiant]

@knr80 Corporate is treating their groomers worse and worse.

I just quit being the salon manager at a PetSmart, and the store manager's first move taking over the salon until they get a new manager was to force the only groomer left in there to do 8 dogs a day (she's only been grooming for maybe 6 months) and force the bathers to all do 10 dogs a day, who have all been there less than 3 months besides one.

She told the groomer she'll give her a bather to help with the 8 dogs a day, but that's still fucking stressful because I know she's only going to schedule her and that bather, so they are still the only ones who are there to answer the never ending phone calls and do walk-ins. Plus I imagine she will still make the bather have their own bath appointments too.

I'm pretty sure she's doing it as a way to try to make the groomer make more money at PetSmart vs if she left and joined me at my shop I'm opening. Which, if she does join me, I'll pay her 60% commission and she won't have a mandatory minimum number of dogs to do .

The Blain's Fleet and Farm here has a grooming salon and they recently had all but one groomer quit. Not sure exactly why, but I know they also have generic corporate bullshit. Corporate groomers are severely underpaid, expected to do way more dogs than the industry norm, and the average corporate groomer customer isn't really a "dog person", so they often have little to no knowledge on how grooming works and in return are very argumentative and have unrealistic expectations.

 

[xekuter]

@thegiant In my district there’s almost no PS left with actual groomers (several are running with bathers only…) We get all the overflow and corporate still rides us harder and harder to do more… how are they still surprised pikachu face when people quit? Like maybe it’s the last two dozen insane policies you made?

Found out recently that it’s policy to spray our table with virex (yep ok sure) and let it sit for ten minutes between each dog. We do eight dogs a day, where the hell is that hour and twenty minutes coming from?? Virex doesn’t even kill rabies or parvo, so what’s even the point?

 

[thegiant]

@xekuter Yeah I knew about the Virex thing, but I actually knew about that from being the CEL before going into the salon, and PetCare uses Virex for everything. Virex as a product isn't effective until it sits for 10 minutes.

I was very anal about sanitization when I was PSL, but yeah we didn't let the Virex sit for 10 minutes unless we sprayed our table and then like went to bathe/dry a dog. We sprayed with Virex, let it sit as long as we could while we disinfected our other tools/prepped for that dog, and then we had a clean towel for each day at every table that was used solely for wiping Virex/drying the table.

Some other fun fact policies you may not know:

1. You must remove EVERYTHING off the dog if it's going on your table. So if you're doing a walk-in nail trim and the dog comes in with a nylon collar, seresto collar, and a harness, you must remove all of that before you can start the nail trim. But you can't have the owner remove it. It's actually part of the Check-in/Check-out P&P that you must walk all dogs with their own leash, plus a slip lead, through the grooming area. If the dog doesn't have a leash, you are supposed to double slip lead them. You are also supposed to match what the dog is wearing. So, if a dog came in wearing a harness, you must crossbody or figure-8 them any time you are walking them.
2. You aren't allowed to engage the 2nd motor of the velocity dryer on any dog that doesn't have a thick double or curly coat. The nozzle must always be at least 6" away from the dog.
3. You aren't allowed to use the groomer's helper on any dog displaying any signs of anxiety or as means of trying to get a dog to stop flailing or spinning. Any dog displaying a sign of anxiety, flailing, or spinning must take a 15 minute break in a kennel. If after the 15 minutes the behavior has not resolved, you must end service. If the behavior did resolve, you are not allowed to use the groomer's helper for the rest of the service.

If people actually followed every policy perfectly, PetSmart would decline service to literally every single dog.

 

[xekuter]

@thegiant No kidding!! I’ve heard some variation on a lot of these but seeing them all spelled out is so laughable. Not only would we decline service on every dog, but a complete service would take about 4 hours, lol.

Also, in that recent safety ‘course’ thing they specified that we have to send home any dog that sits for trimming the tail… with an untrimmed tail of course. Which is another 95% of dogs right there.

But you know if you did send a dog home for that with an untrimmed tail, you’d be given shit for the inevitable CRO.

 

[mcwilson40]

@knr80 The Pet Supplies Plus near me seems to have new personnel in grooming every time I go in. They are almost always advertising for groomers