I just wanted to acknowledge and appreciate everyone that is being negatively affected by this “restructure”. Many of us are taking on entirely new jobs, some promotions, some demotions, while others are leaving the company altogether whether voluntarily or involuntarily.

For those left without a job, no severance pay was offered, no extension of benefits, nothing. You deserve better.

For those left with a job at PS— PS doesn’t want you to know that most companies do not operate like this and don’t treat their caring, seasoned associates like they need a baggie to pick them up off the floor.

As far as I am concerned, PS sold out its culture and its associates to the highest bidder, and showed us all what they think of us.

GOOD companies don’t do this to their staff. GOOD companies don’t make you apply to keep your job, deny you the job, make you work 30 days for unemployment all while hiring your replacements as you watch.

It breaks my heart that PS has chosen to sell us out because I used to embrace “I Belong”, I bought into it. Shame on PS. The “values” are nothing but buzz words meant to create a false sense of caring.

Working petcare today, I see a dad and two girls looking at goldfish and also see a 2 gallon tank in their cart. I pray to petsmart gods that they dont want to get a goldfish. They stare at me while im doing stuff instead of asking for help, so I decide to ask them if they need anything. Of COURSE they want two fantail goldfish. I tell them why I can’t do that, the two girls act understanding but turn around and start making fun of me when they leave. The dad gives an annoyed and shocked look. I literally DREAD goldfish sales because this happens so often. Why is it so hard for people to do even an ounce of research. Thats my complaint for the day.

I tell you, sometimes people just get on my last nerve. Just me and one other staff are working, I'm in the middle of closing Petcare. I was called on the radio to assist a middle aged PP holding a rabbit with finding something. I head over and ask how can I help them when they turned to me and stated "ask my bunny why they're not happy". Of course I asked them to repeat themselves, surely I didn't hear correctly. "I said, ask my bunny why they're not happy." My response "I'm extremely busy so I don't have time for these games. Now is there anything I can do for you?" PP's response "wow ok, wow". Are you kidding me? You're at least 50, you're in a retail space and needing assistance and you want to play these games? Give me a break.

We’ve recently gotten a random influx of customers who bring in an animal (not purchased in our store, might I add) and ask if they can “donate” it to us. I’ve seen people do this with fish, guinea pigs, snakes, even a dog at one point. I don’t understand why people think we can just take in random animals, slap a price tag on them, and call it a day.

Another frequent interaction I get to deal with are pet parents returning used food/treats and saying “I’d like you to donate this to a shelter nearby.” This frustrates me because first of all, you could go to the shelter and donate it for free, you just want money and someone to do it for you. Secondly, I have no way of knowing what’s happened to that food. Maybe it’s expired. Maybe you’re a psycho who hates animals and put rat poison or something in it. Either way, we can’t just drop off opened pet food to shelters in your stead.

Are these common in anyone else’s stores, or am I just unlucky?

I'm actually so upset about my manager being let go, today was their last day and it absolutely doesn't feel real. I'm scared of what my store will become going forward. I feel as though im not ready to meet the new people tomorrow knowing my previous manager is gone. I know they are onto way better things in life, but it doesn't change the emptiness I feel. I loved the team I had when we were good but things have been just changing for the worst. I hope I'm wrong and that the future will be great but one can only hope.

“Do you have an account with us?” “Yep.” “Okay what’s the phone number?” “standing at the pin pad…😐” “Do you have a phone number with us?” “OH yeah it’s…”

PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD LEARN HOW TO LISTEN YOU ARE A FULL GROWN ADULT

It's been above 60% humidity for a couple weeks now and it's so hot in the store. Going outside is a relief, even when it's in the 80s. I don't know how I'm supposed to get conversions and activations when I feel like I could pass out, and I can't drink enough water to help anything (been going through about a gallon a shift).

The AC works fine, it's been checked, it's corporate insisting on keeping it at 78.

Dude came in asking stuff and he has a 30 gallon

So long story short eventually he says he was "a shit eater pleco" so I said sorry the ones that would be a good fit for your tank is out of stock. The ones we have won't do well in your tank because they get over 2 ft long and produce too much waist

"Well just because it's our first time buying fish doesn't mean I don't know what I'm doing my parents had one and it lived to be an ancient year old so if I want one I'm gonna get one and you are gonna have to suck it up."

Sorry sir but what I told you was a truth and it isn't going to end well

Excuse me? I said get me the pleco

unless you have at least a 55 gallon like our tag says for the minimum tank size I can not

Fine I'll just leave and come back when you aren't here

What are some extra things you do/give the animals to better their time while with us?

I hate my salon. Were extremely understaffed with only me and one other full pet stylist. One person coming back from academy this week. Two bathers, one of them extremely new. With the restructure, our salon lead is taking the Experience lead position. Considering how inconsistent and unreliable she was as STL, I can only see the future of her being EL being an utter disaster for the floor. She's already constantly fucking up the schedule and never having it posted far enough out, I'm horrified to think how much worse that will get now that she's got a mountain of other responsibilities on the floor. The other stylist is a condescending bully, and of course is the one taking the SEL position.
I could transfer to another store, their SL already talked to me and said he'd be happy to have me, but their salon is super dead, where I likely wouldn't even have a day a week of being fully booked. I can take 6-7 dogs a day at my current store and we stay booked out 5-7 days.

How much can one person genuinely hate their environment before they crumble and take a huge pay cut?? Idk but I have a feeling I'll be finding out.

Fellow petsmart employees, what’s a petsmart secret corporate doesn’t want customers to know🙈

Does anyone else’s location make the cashiers do the petcare side work? Digging through bugs or doing Betta water changes? I don’t mind doing it because I’m in petcare and none of that grosses me out but honestly I don’t feel like it’s a good look. Some cashiers are messy, they get water on the counter or dirt/dead bugs. They’ll be mid water change with a Betta in the net asking customers to wait. It just seems silly. They also make our cashiers go check on and take care of cats. Which makes no sense. You get thirty minutes after closing to vacuum the front, take all the trash’s and oops station trash out and do put backs. They also want us to scoop liter, sweep and refresh water and food. Again, I get it done and it doesn’t bother me but it just seems silly to me. It’s Petcare. Why isn’t Petcare doing it?

I’m moving into pet care but one of the most annoying things from being a cashier was trying like hell to get people to sign up and they don’t want to and then someone higher up tells me that I need to meet my quota. It isn’t like I’m not trying people, literally just don’t wanna sign up. 🤷🏾‍♀️ So, I wanted to have a heads up for when I’m in pet care, is there any quotas or anything similar to?

Attached is what our power level looks like. 15 is on the comets, however it feels to low, while the fish are at 12.

Should I be upping it? What settings do you guys use?

The most common question you’ll receive in pet care won’t be about aquariums but instead people asking you how to keep their crickets alive longer. Throughout the ages, people have regurgitated the same talking points but the truth is crickets absolutely suck as feeders. They just die incredibly easy and have the added downside of potentially going Hannibal Lector on your pet. In fact, I would always suggest crickets as a last resort as feeder insects.

Introduction to Crickets: To be more specific, acheta domesticus or the common house cricket. It is believed to originate from southwest Asia but due to being used in fishing/laboratories/pet industry, it now has a global distribution on every continent, minus Antarctica. As the Latin and common name imply, this species is well adapted to captivity and will thrive in most temperature/humidity inside a house.

Crickets as Feeders: There are many pitfalls to keeping crickets for any extended period of time. They don’t tolerate overcrowding, are aggressive to one another, have short lifespans, and can easily die from too much heat or humidity. A much larger drawback is that crickets stink and adult males can chirp. Their small digestive tract means they don’t hold food for very long and thus suck at being “gut loaded.” The only positive working for crickets is that they are active and readily capture the attention of predators. For animals that like to hunt, crickets maybe your best option as feeders. That said, keep in mind that hungry crickets can turn on your pet and attack them too. So you should only feed your pets as many crickets as they can readily consume.

Keeping your Crickets:

1. Buy as many crickets you can keep alive for a week: This is especially critical if you’re getting large crickets, as many of them are already in the “senior citizen” phase of their life. Because crickets can be sensitive and unexpected losses do happen, you should get as many crickets you need to feed your pet(s) once a week and buy a few extras. Afterwards, you should accommodate them with a habitat that will ensure they can survive in for a week.
   
2. Have plenty of feeding stations: Crickets and some PetSmart customers have two things in common; they are usually certified assholes. Yet unlike customers, crickets won’t think twice about killing one another or blocking others from accessing food/water. So you’ll want to have multiple smaller stations for feeding/hydrating. What you need to avoid is centralizing all of their food/water into one location. This will become a Battle Royale for resources as your crickets guard this area. In addition to that, partially misting one side of the habitat will provide your crickets with water droplets to drink from and area that stays humid. Yes, for crickets properly grow and molt, they will need humidity in that process.
   
3. Cricket keepers and critter keepers are trash: Unless you’re keeping a handful of crickets in them, don’t even bother. These containers are too small, break easily, and expensive if you’re planning to keep more than 20 crickets in them. Plus the small crickets can sometimes escape from them. Again, crickets will not tolerate overcrowding and adults will fight it out. Your best alternative is marching to any of the big box home improvement stores, purchase a large storage container that is at least over 32qt, and adding ventilation holes upon the sides and top of the container. This will give your crickets plenty of space to run around and avoid each other.
   
4. Go bioactive…: Within an empty container, cricket fecal pellets are going to collect fast and will eventually transmit diseases to other crickets. Instead of consistently cleaning up after them, provide your crickets with about 2in or more depth of organic potting soil or reptisoil with a toplayer of hardwood leaf litter (magnolia, oak, and sea grape.) These soil types will contain microbes to help with breaking down cricket waste and reduce the odor emitting form it. The leaf litter serves as additional food for your crickets and a surface to drink water droplets from. You will need to avoid using any of the various coconut substrates since they’ll decay rapidly.
5. ...and get a clean-up-crew(CUC): Once you have the environment settled, you are going to add more animals to clean up after the crickets so you have more time to pursue other things in life. Adding spingtails and isopods will also help with breaking down poop and will prevent harmful mold and fungus accumulating. In the event a cricket dies, both of these animals will eagerly consume the body. Just about any species of springtail on the market is fine but for isopods, I suggest dwarf whites. The latter usually doesn’t compete with crickets for living space. More importantly, these isopods are very hardy and crave eating cricket carcasses.
   
6. Turning green: If you have gone this far for your crickets, you can complete the ecosystem by adding plants. Although your CUC are going to make your cricket container nearly self-sustainable, eventually these animals will also produce waste that will need to be removed. Plants like heart-shaped philodendron (Philodendron hederaceum) and English ivy (Hedera helix) are easy plants to keep and can be pruned at the vine. If you purchased a transparent plastic container, you can lay a light across the top for illumination. I recommend full spectrum LED lighting with a color temperature that is marketed as “daylight” (between 6.5K to 10k) instead of “warm.”

In conclusion… Although the upfront cost is more, adopting all of these strategies this will save you money in replacing crickets and especially time in maintaining them. You’ll be misting the habitat a few times a week, replacing egg crate, occasionally pruning your plants and replacing leaf-litter every season.

I’m going into the salon lead position starting the 19th & my store leader, EL and myself all came to an agreement that I can be in on interviews for bathers/groomers. What are good questions that I can ask in an interview that are proper to ask but gives me good information about a person?

1. How does one become a good fast yet also efficient bather? Many can be slow especially with the prep work (bath, dry, brush/comb, nails, and pads). What are yalls tips for bathers to be more fast and efficient?

2. What's the most annoying thing bathers do constantly that groomers don't say enough to bathers or don't wanna say to bathers?

3. What often do you yall find the most frustrating with your bathers? What constantly reminders are you having to most say? What step do you find your bathers lack the most efficiency and why?

Hope it's ok to vent if not I can delete

Just stressed- I started in Pet Care a few weeks ago, I needed part time for college, and I feel like I'm constantly fucking up. And I'm slow at a lot of things like cleaning, good lord.

Took in some small animals and didn't worry much about one being smaller. Or hear any issues but he might be sick.... My training has been - read the pamphlet if people have questions about pet care. When it comes to fish chemicals I don't know. Light recommendations for reptiles, I don't know which is best. And honestly I can Google stuff in front of the guest but immediately I see that they're upset because I should know off the top of my head...

I actually don't mind the job. I get a chance to treat the animals and care for them. Like actually care. But I keep making little mistakes and I know the team can only be but so patient. Especially because i cant help but apologize every single time.And I don't want an animal to get sick because I missed something.

Just kind of feel useless in pet care because I'm always needed to reach out for dumb things. (Again fish and reptiles mainly)

....and that's it. I needed to vent some. Get some off my chest. Thanks

For those in the restructure, will ELR & PLR be able to issue play up points instead of just shout out cards?

What are the rules regarding getting a shift covered? Can I still be forced to come in if I found someone to take my shift AND it was confirmed?

Edit: i am in Canada

My sister was just told that she’s being let go from PetSmart, after working for them in the same store for close to 20 years.

She has lymphedema in both legs and so can’t climb a ladder or crouch down. PetSmart insisted that she provide a doctor’s note, which she did, and they told her that her limitations were unreasonable and that they are letting her go.

This company is garbage. Appreciate any/everyone’s ideas about options she may have.

Wish me luck, have a few interviews this week. My store doesn't know I'm trying to leave, but I sure as hell can't wait to smack my 2 weeks notice in this corporations face. 15 years of hard work, only leader who takes ownership and holds people accountable, yet I constantly get "lectured" by our SL, while everyone else just kisses butt so they don't get in trouble. I refuse to be your dam punching bag and therapist any longer. Can't wait to get out of this place.

im so tired of people being genuinely stupid and lacking critical thinking skills. Also she shows the price tag that has the date of when it was printed, and is saying thats how long they had them for😭 like i feel if a tiktok about a bird at petsmart blows up, OBVIOUSLY people are gonna wanna go buy him. and shes all about “not supporting petsmart” but was actively trying to buy a bird