Long hours, work life balance, horrible shift patterns you can be finishing after 9pm then in again before 6am. Being retail you have to work 365 days a year. Pets at Home class bank holidays as normal working days so store colleagues have to work them without choice and get standard rate of pay. Yet those in Support Office still get them off. This includes New Years day. You will likely have to work Christmas Day, Boxing Day and Easter Sunday due to the animals needing care. Again you will get basic rate of pay for this.
You will spend the day picking up animal waste, sieving animal waste and mopping up urine. All in impossible time limitations which can sometimes lead you to continue working after your shift has finished without pay. If you are on a late shift you will be expected to work 15-30mins each shift for free, which adds up to at least 1 day each month you work for free. The other options are the usual shelf stacking or everyones least favourite job - standing on a till for 8 hours in a freezing cold draft. Here you will be moaned at by other colleagues for ringing for assistance and understandably moaned at by customers for having to wait so long, many of whom walk out. This is a result of the lack of colleagues due to stores consistently having their hours cut due to poor sales, however the poor sales are due to lack of colleagues…
Stores have inadequate heating, expect in winter to have to wear multiple fleeces and gloves whilst inside. Expect to get wet inside when it rains. Expect to get fed up of customers complaining to you it is cold. And expect to try your best to keep to pets warm to little avail. Pets before profit though, especially when they are all in the isolation room due to the cold and you get questioned for spending too much on vet bills.
I’ve been threatened and received abuse from customers on regular basis, one colleague was threatened with violence and chased through the store!
You will be made to push the VIP and customer feedback and threatened with disciplinary action if you don’t achieve your target. This is because it is a measure of “performance” from which management bonuses are calculated. While they get thousands, you will unlikely get more than a days pay despite the fact that you were the one that got people to sign up and not them.
Training courses are offered with offers of progression into management, however these are just used as tactics to stop you from leaving. Promotion is completely down to favouritism, qualifications and experience count for nothing. They fear initiative and thinking for yourself. If you are a Pets at Home puppet and can regurgitate everything the company and senior managers say without any thought for yourself you will do okay. This is due in part to insecurities of senior management lacking in qualifications, experience and some cases intelligence.
Pay was always incorrect for the hours worked, always under never over. One month they forgot to pay me altogether! As has happened with quite a few people, they then think it is okay to request you wait another month before paying you. Somehow I don’t think this happens to senior management just those at the bottom.
I was finally bullied out by management who treated us all like dirt. Drinks, smoking and visiting the toilet were activities only to done on your single break or if permission was begged for. All to make the manager feel powerful and important. Pay and references were used as bullying and threatening tactic and people suspended and disciplined for not following managers specific made up rules.
This was a fantastic place to work 5 years ago, and now having heard the claims about Sports Direct this place is not too dissimilar. Half the colleagues from the store left within weeks of each other.
