Post by Rave on Aug 25, 2021 0:48:54 GMT -5
Forever and a day ago, a younger and somewhat more naive Rave worked at a Petco before she got very sick of a lazy manager deliberately trying to target her and quit. I loved working at Petco, she ruined it for me. I've talked about her before, she was my entry for that Boss Toss contest TNA put on years ago. Some of these are funny, some are just plain stupid.
Minding my own business one random morning, up on a stepstool cleaning a hamster cage, I suddenly hear "YOU BIT ME!" Manager for that morning (who was a sweetheart and easy to work with, he left at the same time I did and would joke about wanting to take me with him when he did) was in the bird room (RIP bird room, now they have stupid plastic bubble enclosures) feeding the birds. He comes out of there, covered in water that he had spilled all over himself because one of the birds had bit him. I nearly fell off the stepstool laughing.
One day, I went back to the break room to get my lunch, only to find sweetheart manager standing in front of the closed break room door. No one closed that door. Something was up. He warned me not to go in there. I persisted, saying that my lunch was in there, and he relented. The room was filled with smoke. He'd put in a bag of popcorn for way longer than needed. I calmly retrieved my lunch and ate in the managers' office. The store, him, and I smelled like burned popcorn for the rest of the day, while it took at least two weeks for the smell to fade from the break room. After that, one of the ladies who worked in grooming would bring in popcorn and jokingly mention that she should ask him to microwave it, to which I would always react in horror.
We had ridiculous turnover in managers at points. Easily the stupidest of these came when the GM at the time, who was a huge douchebag, thought it was a good idea to deny an assistant manager (not lazy manager, but this one was a bitch most of the time) who'd been hurt on the job workman's comp. This possibly resulted in a lawsuit against him and the company, I didn't hear anything about that part, but douchebag GM took off before he could be fired. Dude already had a job at Family Dollar lined up. The funny part came not long after this, when I popped into that Family Dollar looking to razz him a bit, only to discover that he'd already been fired for "not being family-oriented enough" (AKA being a douchebag to customers), which I wasn't surprised at all to hear. Bitch manager was nice to me for the rest of her tenure, mostly because my mom gave her advice on how to deal with douchebag GM but also because of his habit of screwing her over beyond the workman's comp incident. There was one time we had what we knew was gonna be a rush morning, think it was a Black Friday, and he'd scheduled several people including myself and her to open before suddenly revising the schedule so that we were the only ones in early to open. She was pissed, I was used to dealing with his shit by then.
Another bright idea from douchebag GM was rigging up an alarm to tell us when someone was in the bird room. Good idea in theory, but not in practice. The alarm was incessant and f***ing annoying. It lasted prob'ly a day before everyone got sick of it. Douchebag GM sulked about having to disconnect the alarm and proceeded to try to threaten to fire everyone if someone somehow stole the birds. Considering how large and awkward the cages in the bird room at the time were (plus they were kept locked), it'd have been a minor miracle if someone was able to get even one of those cages from the bird room (store was a large square in shape and the bird room was about in the middle of it) all the way to the door without someone noticing. The idea of an alarm persisted and a much more agreeable one was acquired.
Came in one morning to discover that douchebag GM had loaded a huge dolly cart with cages to put together during the day, as we were due a visit from the district manager and keeping me busy at the register was a priority. Taped to the handle of said dolly cart was a note: "To (my name), from Santa". He thought he was being funny, like the time he decided to take a picture of me up on a ladder and caption it with the Spider-Pig song. Real douche. This time I had the last laugh on him. By the time my shift ended all the cages on that cart were put together and he looked like an idiot. Between that and his response to me keeping the register bays clean (which I hated doing but no one else would do...story of my time there, no one else would do most of what I did), I think the district manager liked me.
Someone decided to name one of the parrots in isolation Ed, as in special ed. Taped a note to the cage and everything. Douchebag GM, who'd been on vacation when this took place, was not happy and decided to be an asshole to me about it. Not my fault. Never found out who did it.
Someone decided to hack up the power cord to the break room microwave while it was plugged in. Never found out who did that either. Again, douchebag GM thought it was me. I'm nowhere near that stupid, thanks.
One of douchebag GM's acquaintances decided to steal an aquarium from the store foyer. Just popped in and took it. Even he was confused by that.
After I quit, I came in sometime later and an acquaintance was still working there. Asked about people who'd still been working there and she was more than happy to fill me in regarding the shitstorm that had gone down. After the downfall of douchebag GM, lazy manager had a taste of power as she was defacto store lead. We had an interim GM, but he was more concerned with training his own team to open another store than he was with reining her in. So when word came that we were getting an actual replacement GM, lazy manager had no intention of giving up her power. It started with spreading rumors about replacement GM, who arrived just before my two weeks were up and seemed pretty nice. When that didn't work, it escalated in a hurry. One evening, the day's deposit "mysteriously" vanished. Lazy manager tried blaming replacement GM, but everyone saw right through her bullshit. She quit before Petco could fire her. Last I'd heard she was working at Lowes, but that was quite a few years ago and I don't care to find out if she's still there. As for replacement GM, the trend of high manager turnover continued as she didn't last long either, though I don't know what happened to her.
Minding my own business one random morning, up on a stepstool cleaning a hamster cage, I suddenly hear "YOU BIT ME!" Manager for that morning (who was a sweetheart and easy to work with, he left at the same time I did and would joke about wanting to take me with him when he did) was in the bird room (RIP bird room, now they have stupid plastic bubble enclosures) feeding the birds. He comes out of there, covered in water that he had spilled all over himself because one of the birds had bit him. I nearly fell off the stepstool laughing.
One day, I went back to the break room to get my lunch, only to find sweetheart manager standing in front of the closed break room door. No one closed that door. Something was up. He warned me not to go in there. I persisted, saying that my lunch was in there, and he relented. The room was filled with smoke. He'd put in a bag of popcorn for way longer than needed. I calmly retrieved my lunch and ate in the managers' office. The store, him, and I smelled like burned popcorn for the rest of the day, while it took at least two weeks for the smell to fade from the break room. After that, one of the ladies who worked in grooming would bring in popcorn and jokingly mention that she should ask him to microwave it, to which I would always react in horror.
We had ridiculous turnover in managers at points. Easily the stupidest of these came when the GM at the time, who was a huge douchebag, thought it was a good idea to deny an assistant manager (not lazy manager, but this one was a bitch most of the time) who'd been hurt on the job workman's comp. This possibly resulted in a lawsuit against him and the company, I didn't hear anything about that part, but douchebag GM took off before he could be fired. Dude already had a job at Family Dollar lined up. The funny part came not long after this, when I popped into that Family Dollar looking to razz him a bit, only to discover that he'd already been fired for "not being family-oriented enough" (AKA being a douchebag to customers), which I wasn't surprised at all to hear. Bitch manager was nice to me for the rest of her tenure, mostly because my mom gave her advice on how to deal with douchebag GM but also because of his habit of screwing her over beyond the workman's comp incident. There was one time we had what we knew was gonna be a rush morning, think it was a Black Friday, and he'd scheduled several people including myself and her to open before suddenly revising the schedule so that we were the only ones in early to open. She was pissed, I was used to dealing with his shit by then.
Another bright idea from douchebag GM was rigging up an alarm to tell us when someone was in the bird room. Good idea in theory, but not in practice. The alarm was incessant and f***ing annoying. It lasted prob'ly a day before everyone got sick of it. Douchebag GM sulked about having to disconnect the alarm and proceeded to try to threaten to fire everyone if someone somehow stole the birds. Considering how large and awkward the cages in the bird room at the time were (plus they were kept locked), it'd have been a minor miracle if someone was able to get even one of those cages from the bird room (store was a large square in shape and the bird room was about in the middle of it) all the way to the door without someone noticing. The idea of an alarm persisted and a much more agreeable one was acquired.
Came in one morning to discover that douchebag GM had loaded a huge dolly cart with cages to put together during the day, as we were due a visit from the district manager and keeping me busy at the register was a priority. Taped to the handle of said dolly cart was a note: "To (my name), from Santa". He thought he was being funny, like the time he decided to take a picture of me up on a ladder and caption it with the Spider-Pig song. Real douche. This time I had the last laugh on him. By the time my shift ended all the cages on that cart were put together and he looked like an idiot. Between that and his response to me keeping the register bays clean (which I hated doing but no one else would do...story of my time there, no one else would do most of what I did), I think the district manager liked me.
Someone decided to name one of the parrots in isolation Ed, as in special ed. Taped a note to the cage and everything. Douchebag GM, who'd been on vacation when this took place, was not happy and decided to be an asshole to me about it. Not my fault. Never found out who did it.
Someone decided to hack up the power cord to the break room microwave while it was plugged in. Never found out who did that either. Again, douchebag GM thought it was me. I'm nowhere near that stupid, thanks.
One of douchebag GM's acquaintances decided to steal an aquarium from the store foyer. Just popped in and took it. Even he was confused by that.
After I quit, I came in sometime later and an acquaintance was still working there. Asked about people who'd still been working there and she was more than happy to fill me in regarding the shitstorm that had gone down. After the downfall of douchebag GM, lazy manager had a taste of power as she was defacto store lead. We had an interim GM, but he was more concerned with training his own team to open another store than he was with reining her in. So when word came that we were getting an actual replacement GM, lazy manager had no intention of giving up her power. It started with spreading rumors about replacement GM, who arrived just before my two weeks were up and seemed pretty nice. When that didn't work, it escalated in a hurry. One evening, the day's deposit "mysteriously" vanished. Lazy manager tried blaming replacement GM, but everyone saw right through her bullshit. She quit before Petco could fire her. Last I'd heard she was working at Lowes, but that was quite a few years ago and I don't care to find out if she's still there. As for replacement GM, the trend of high manager turnover continued as she didn't last long either, though I don't know what happened to her.
