THE GREAT Why workers are quitting their jobs, after the trauma of the pandemic. BY DAVID DAYEN ILLUSTRATION BY POLLY BECKER
The first thing you should know about Caroline Potts of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, is that she loves her pets. “I have five cats and three dogs,” she told me, proudly. “The only thing I don’t have is birds.” So when she needed a job, PetSmart seemed like the perfect solution. “My sister worked at PetSmart and I was in there so much,” she said. She started as a bather, and showed enough promise to be invited to the company’s dog grooming academy, where they teach how to cut hair. “I knew it was what I wanted to do with my life,” Caroline said. “I was really passionate about animals and I loved grooming.” There was only one problem: PetSmart. Groomers were pressured to complete as many dogs as possible, through a constant whirlwind of commotion and barking and often verbal abuse and harassment from customers. Without enough staff available, Caroline sometimes worked seven days in a row. Company policy was supposed to prohibit grooming dogs with seizure disorders or those that couldn’t handle the stressful environment. Managers in Murfreesboro 16 PROSPECT.ORG NOV/DEC 2021
continually pushed Caroline to groom them anyway. “Some can die in the kennel from stress,” she said. “One dog was terrified of the dryer, and they wanted me to dry her straight through. They said, ‘Figure it out.’” For someone who loved to be around animals, inflicting pain on dogs for a living was a nightmare, Caroline told me. “Every day when I was driving to work, I was hoping for a car accident so I didn’t have to go in. I talked to friends about it, they said, ‘Yeah, that was my thought too.’” Before going to the academy, PetSmart made groomers sign a two-year contract, without the ability to work for any rivals. Caroline approached her district manager and said, “I want out of my contract. You didn’t give me the training I needed and you made this experience so bad.” Amazingly, the district manager ripped up the contract. She went on to Petco, where things are a bit better. But if Caroline gets her way, she won’t be there very long either. She has a vision of going out on her own as an independent groomer. A friend of hers just rigged up a mobile grooming van and has seen the business take off. “That is all I can ever think about,” she
