Another company who has gone big retail. - Anonymous employee Pet Food Express Employee Review

The company has implemented a dramatically different business model change this recent past year. The company culture began to change for the worse. The employees at the forefront (store managers, ASMs, leads, and sales consultants) work the grunt work in trenches we call the stores are the most mistreated while upper management and corporate collect the cash. If one dares to stand up and speak about the absurd amount of micromanagement because "higher management wants feedback", the individual will either be terminated immediately without notice or suddenly accumulate a whopping two whole write ups which leads to sudden "grounds for termination". A plan to set up examples to hush all the naysayers and terminate all those who resist into complying robots. DO NOT voice anything. It is a trap. The disconnect between higher ups and store workers is exponentially increasing. Not a "small brick and mortar/mom n pop store" they like use to sugar coat their profit driven core. What was once about the welfare of the customer and pets is a thing of the past. Don't be fooled. Area managers (A DM and GM) will pop in without a single hello and will vulture the employees. They are only physically present to negatively, and ONLY negatively, criticize customer interactions (whether good or bad). They expect utter and complete compliance and for one to continue selling one of six most profitable products. Look past their smiling facade and one will see that they are here to let someone go or find a petty reason for write ups. Otherwise, they are on vacation. Closed a sale on their highly profitable product? Then one must (mandatory) report back for a bucket of negativism of one's performance. Closed a sale on of their "loyalty brand" or "first and best" product? Come report the sale for another heaping pile negative criticism with a side of a write up for poor performance! Recommended and sold the proper products for the customer and their pet? Report your conversation to the GM to get a generous dollop of negativity because it was not one of two of their profitable products. Lure and snared another innocent new pet owner and closed a $500 sale? Report to the GM for an additional write up for poor performance because it did not include one of the most profitable products which "leads to grounds for termination"! A fellow employee will be dispatched soon after in another attempt to hawk down one's "failure" to harass the customer which also sets them up for a talking to of poor performance and write ups . The same customer complains about multiple employees breathing down their neck, overheard the electronic surveillance about sending even more employees to stalk them one after another with the same "who's the lucky dog?", and vows to never come back because of harassment to the store manager? Every employee is now a problematic poor performing employee that needs to be let go! Customers are targeted as walking ATM machines that need to be poked and prodded of all their money. Latching onto the same customer who comes in for supplies every few days with "who's the lucky dog/cat at home?" (mandatory to approach customers with this type of language ) is beyond uncomfortable. Does not matter if the customer is a regular and the whole staff knows their pet(s). One must approach with the cheesy ice breaker questions. Customer simply cannot afford a certain product? Then come back to the "floor coach" for criticisms of your performance because one was unable to regurgitate an hour conversation about the insanely expensive "first and best" product(s) the poor customer could not afford. What once may have been about the well being of the pet and owner is far gone. In it's place is heavily aggressive sales tactics and language to push for profit. Moving up is nearly impossible. 2 options. 1. Wait and kiss butt for 2.5 years (or more) to move up to a key holder if position hasn't been filled. 2. Quit and reapply in 3 weeks for the same position and get position. They do not believe in promoting within and would rather hire another person who has not seen the ugly of the company. Red flag. Work at the grocery store next door if you want to make enough to eat and feed your pets with one's dignity intact.