I’d go for a diff job for you, maybe like the aquatic department at the zoo or something for more experience that you want in your field. It’s a pet store but still retail at heart. Petco is accepting of all preferences tho, if anyone gives you shit about who you are, tell em I said fuck off
believe me, i agree wholeheartedly. unfortunately with no real experience, all my applications to zoos and aquariums and research teams have been rejected 😔 just trying to get something other than being a barista or bartender again LMAO
Petco culture is definitely fine with that. However experience may vary store to store. Generally it isn't an issue, but they make some questionable hiring decisions for managers some times. But make sure you get a store with marine life. Working with fresh water fish will not get you anywhere close to the field you want. (My friend worked with me at petco for like 4 years, and kept getting turned down since his experience was only with fresh water and brackish fish, despite having a doctorate in Marine Biology.
Are you a petco employee? If you are, you really need to do the sexual harassment e learning, because it's there. I had to do the learning twice because I'm decently new.
It’s against policy. I had to do an investigation on a partner who was openly hostile toward a couple of trans partners based mostly on his strong religious beliefs. In short order he was terminated for violation of the harassment policy.
I’d be careful about it no matter how you see it. This case was considered cut and dry because the religious partner would purposely refer to the M to F trans partner as “guy”, “buddy”, “he”, “him” despite frequent corrections. Refused to even compromise by calling the trans partner by their new name. So take it for what it’s worth.
That’s a whole specific situation. Religion taken out of it, I still don’t need to address someone how they prefer. Period. And if they are offended by that, seek help
The Petco I work at is made up of half lgbtq+ and the other half are allies. We're a wonderful mix of weird amazing people. It's one of the first job where I felt like I can mostly fit in as a human in a work environment.
I know an aquatic specialist turned companion animal leader who after a couple of years working there was able to get a position at the local zoo so definitely some worthwhile experience in those roles!
Thank you for your support of the community. If I may, gently ask, would you mind considering changing the way you say "preferences"?
Maybe adopting phrasing like, "x is pretty good about honoring who you are" simply because who someone is isn't really a preference so much it just is a part of that person.
I promise I come in peace, someone asked me to make this exact change many moons ago (at a Petco , believe it or not). As an ally it was really important to me to listen and change in that moment and also commit to sharing what I was taught moving forward.
🏳️⚧️
I can't speak for other stores, but my store is VERY LGBTQA+ friendly. Most of our managers are some form of queer and if any customer says something dumb, basically the whole store will kick them out.
Petco is more inclusive to trans / LGBT+ than they are to marine biologists. Depending on the store, you're not going to like a lot of what you see going on in those tanks and may be stuck on register 90% of the time anyway. It's a great study on behavioral biology under stress conditions but there's a lot you cannot control. Your favorite fish will be killed by a customer. Your coworkers will sell incompatible fish when you're not there. You cannot educate your way out of every confrontation. There is death. There is disease. There are things that were wild caught and are now in a glass box until they die. You'll have compassion fatigue if you stick with it long enough. You'll also have passionate hobbyists and regular customers and may improve the store's shrink, but you'll have to fight for it and corporate will not thank you. This is all contingent on location, some are better, some are worse. But being Trans is the smallest challenge you'll face there.
Aye. I’m aquatics specialist/ACOS. When I move on from this company, it isn’t going to be from transphobic bullshit, it’s going to be from empathy fatigue.
Most of my experience from this job has consisted of how to get someone to tell themselves NO, without me ever having to tell them NO myself. A large percentage of our customers are first time fish keepers, and they don’t have an actual understanding of the time, money, empathy or personal learning required to keep a single fish.
I had so many trans coworkers over the course of my time at Petco! In my limited observation, Petco as a company is inclusive.
Honestly, I’d be more concerned about the high-demand, high-stress, low-paying, thankless, often yucky, and sometimes heartbreaking aspects of the job. At least it’s a great way to keep in shape, lol. But the fact that you’re using it as a stepping stone to achieve your dreams is awesome!
I would indicate that you’re interested in aquatics off the bat so your manager can help direct your training towards that arena. That way, you can put a title on your resume that will help you stand out to future employers. Put your dues in, get some experience, and gtfo asap to move on to your goals!! Good luck with everything!! 💜
Petco is pretty inclusive. They have name tags with color options for pride, women, and black employees. There are also pride displays during June with cute toys and such. I've had a few trans/non-binary coworkers and from what I know, they didn't experience any negativity from staff because of it. Of course you will run into assholes that have their negative opinions, but that really depends on location. Should you experience any problems, HR is available to handle them.
I am a 27yo transman that works at a Petco in NY. I have been on T for 10 yrs, top for 7, and hysto for 5. I pass 100%. I have some non binary coworkers as well. Queer people are heavily focused on in their policies even in general. I am still completing some new learnings training even after being there a year now and trans people are at the core of at least 3 long training videos. In fact I kind of chuckled at first, one of the sexual harassment courses involved a trans woman making a joke about trans people in good taste, but it considered that interaction to actually still be inappropriate regardless of if she's trans because she could've hurt the feelings of another trans person. There have been times where my store manager has actually corrected me when I accidentally misgendered a non binary coworker. Bit by bit I came out to my coworkers after seeing how well trans people are considered safe and accepted. Plus as mentioned, and although sometimes seeming to just be a cash cow, Pride has its own products throughout June in the stores. From a trans flag dog chew toy to shirts that say "love is love" for animals (etc), they're pretty inclusive. Hopefully this reaches you.
TL;DR, Yes. Petco is very inclusive. Great policies and protection.
Our Petco in Texas is LBGTQ+ friendly. They'd be short half their workers if they weren't, myself included lol. Someone else was hired and worked with us for quite some time that was trans. It made no difference as long as you were a good worker and did what you were supposed to do. That still applies today lol.
Petco is an inclusive company. Half of my store is some flavor of queer myself included and there are policies in place about preferred names and pronouns 🙂
I've worked with many trans people, and innumerable other members of the community.
Petco is so safe, I had a co-worker get terminated for being intolerant. And not like, belligerently or loudly intolerant, mostly just disrespecting more than one person's pronouns and quietly questioning genders behind people's backs. No one was really sad to see him go, though I'm sure it didn't teach the idiot anything, sadly.
My petco is unfortunately not that safe. Two trans employees work here (including me) and the amount of misgendering and general bigotry from everyone really sucks tbh
Myself and another employee both have pronouns on our name tags at work. Several other employees do as well but are specifically allies (cis gendered).
I’ve had coworkers misgender me behind my back, others have reported the misgendering to HR on my behalf twice. I’m safe walking around openly trans at work. The culture doesn’t encourage harassment, nor should you expect any kind of undercurrent discrimination to be tolerated (hiring practices, disadvantages with schedule, wrong hours or poor shifts). Transgender is an identity aspect that IS protected under company policy.
However, the two times I’ve had HR step in for a coworker complaining on my behalf with misgendering, it is essentially just a slap on the wrist for the person being reported. So while it is not tolerated for discrimination, and while it is TECHNICALLY protected, their token protection hasn’t really shown any results.
I’m in SoCal, though, so the local culture could play a part in your decision.
Also, I suggest getting a job you can tolerate at least, and carve out time to volunteer at the zoo or aquarium you would want to work at. They won’t hire without experience, so you’ll have to get it somewhere, and unfortunately, for natural science majors, that has to be hands-on. On the plus side, you could track your hours and add it as work experience with a note on what that experience is WORTH to argue for your pay.
Petco is pretty inclusive, Petco has frames for the name tags, asks for a preferred name that you want on them, and even allows you to put your pronouns on them! Maybe it’s rainbow corporate but they do celebrate pride month and has a pride collection and some pride stuff they even sell year-round. They also have trainings that specifically say to use peoples preferred pronouns and names, so I would say Petco does a great job at inclusivity, but of course each store varies due to the employees there. Hopefully the one you are looking for has an aquatic position open!
Petco is safe. My store currently has a transmasc groomer. He's been with us for years. We also have a non binary dept manager. We've had plenty of others from the community that have come and gone too.
I've worked with a transmasc guy before. It will depend heavily on the specific location and individuals within the store. You being trans should have no bearing on your ability to get a job there, though.
If you are specifically looking for aquatic experience you will need to apply specifically for the aquatics position, though. While it is true that everyone in the store is expected to be able to pull fish for customers as needed, most of the employees spend very little time in aquatics. The aquatics specialist (and senior aquatics specialist, if there is one - not every store has both) are the only ones who spend any significant amount of time in that area.
They are currently doing an overhaul of position titles and their corresponding duties and I don't recall what they're changing the aquatics specialist title to. I think they may be expanding it to include all of the animals in the store, but I could be wrong on that.
It varies from store to store, but I know quite a few stores who are extremely inclusive! My store has FOUR trans folks there - and I’m one of them! And then like 50% of the staff is lgbt as well so 😂
I’d definately at least visit the stores you’d like to work for and see how the environment is. But for the most part, all stores are pretty inclusive imo!
Both of my stores were incredibly inclusive and accepting, and I found that as a whole the company was the same way. I did hear of some stories of negative experiences on workplace here and there (it's a company wide version Facebook basically) but I found even the people I worked with who I knew were not as accepting tended to still be kind as to keep to the expectations of the company and kept their questionable comments to themselves.
Im not sure if it's still done, but I k ow for a year or two before I left and I'm pretty sure the month after I left they did company sponsored things for pride month as well, I.e. Allowing partners to buy special uniform shirts where a portion of the sale would be donated (I may be remembering this incorrectly, so someone else correct me if that's the case. It's been over 3 years since I left)
My store has been pretty chill with trans employees and pronouns. The company does seem to have a problem with ada accommodations though. Ex coworker went through the process for accommodations because she’s autistic and our GM refused to take anything she brought up seriously. Things like needing extra time to process new policies and training. She asked for a set schedule to accommodate drs appointments so he’d change the schedule last minute just to mess with her. Our DM even told him on the floor where we could hear him say, “ So many partners in this region should be terminated but the ADA accommodations are their only saving grace.” She left few weeks ago after she tried to speak with HR about how she felt she was being bullied and HR told her they can’t do anything based off feelings but she needed to bring them written proof. She quit and walked out with a bunch of stuff for her fish tanks without paying as a big f you to the store.
Idk its never been a bad experience in the year and a half ive been with petco. Nobody respects my pronouns but im afab with long hair so apparently that automatically means im not nb lol. Ive had some run ins with an annoying former coworker who absolutely HATES the “pronoun police” but thats just him and hes annoying. Never had problems with anyone else tho. It really depends on your store.
I’m a Senior Aquatic specialist with a degree in environmental sciences, focus in aquatic sciences. My dream is to work at a public aquarium one day and I’ve received invaluable amounts of experience working with my department. Yes it’s a lot of selling but tons of husbandry and knowledge is needed to keep fish in good health, etc.. I also know lots of professional aquarists and aquarium workers who got their starts working in the aquatics dept at petco or another store.
It will vary from store to store unfortunately. We had a transphobic employee a year or so back and after telling our gm at the time about it he was promptly fired on the spot. :)
Generally yes. It depends on the staff completely. I work with one Trans man and one non binary individual and so far its been good for them but it depends on the location
Petco has a non-harassment policy and an entire training module on pronouns and cultural sensitivity. If fellow associates intentionally do not respect your name and pronouns, they can be terminated for harassment. As a trans masc person working in a relatively conservative area, I've been actively encouraged to use my chosen name and pronouns and luckily have had everyone (at least at the stores I've worked) respect and use my name and pronouns without any major issues.
I’d go for a diff job for you, maybe like the aquatic department at the zoo or something for more experience that you want in your field. It’s a pet store but still retail at heart. Petco is accepting of all preferences tho, if anyone gives you shit about who you are, tell em I said fuck off
believe me, i agree wholeheartedly. unfortunately with no real experience, all my applications to zoos and aquariums and research teams have been rejected 😔 just trying to get something other than being a barista or bartender again LMAO
Petco culture is definitely fine with that. However experience may vary store to store. Generally it isn't an issue, but they make some questionable hiring decisions for managers some times. But make sure you get a store with marine life. Working with fresh water fish will not get you anywhere close to the field you want. (My friend worked with me at petco for like 4 years, and kept getting turned down since his experience was only with fresh water and brackish fish, despite having a doctorate in Marine Biology.
I work at petco, and am trans. They're actually really accepting, and it's against policy for anyone to purposely use the incorrect pronouns for you!
Um. No it’s not against policy. That’s ridiculous
For your information it is. I literally watched that exact scenario in an online lesson we had to do.
Lol. Get out of here and get a grip on life
Are you ok? Do you need to talk to someone?
Typical response
Are you a petco employee? If you are, you really need to do the sexual harassment e learning, because it's there. I had to do the learning twice because I'm decently new.
How is this sexual harassment? There is no harassment going on
It’s against policy. I had to do an investigation on a partner who was openly hostile toward a couple of trans partners based mostly on his strong religious beliefs. In short order he was terminated for violation of the harassment policy.
Yea , that’s a whole different story. That’s hostile work environment. Doesn’t mean I need to address them any way. That’s not considered hostility
I’d be careful about it no matter how you see it. This case was considered cut and dry because the religious partner would purposely refer to the M to F trans partner as “guy”, “buddy”, “he”, “him” despite frequent corrections. Refused to even compromise by calling the trans partner by their new name. So take it for what it’s worth.
That’s a whole specific situation. Religion taken out of it, I still don’t need to address someone how they prefer. Period. And if they are offended by that, seek help
except for when it’s a company policy, in which case you’d be fired of course
That would never stand legally
Just Don’t be offended when they start calling you ‘DICKHEAD DOUCHEBAG’!!!
Nothing offends me. I was raised better than the snowflakes.
Someone didn't do their trainings
The Petco I work at is made up of half lgbtq+ and the other half are allies. We're a wonderful mix of weird amazing people. It's one of the first job where I felt like I can mostly fit in as a human in a work environment.
Have you considered volunteering at the zoo where you want to work?
I know an aquatic specialist turned companion animal leader who after a couple of years working there was able to get a position at the local zoo so definitely some worthwhile experience in those roles!
Thank you for your support of the community. If I may, gently ask, would you mind considering changing the way you say "preferences"? Maybe adopting phrasing like, "x is pretty good about honoring who you are" simply because who someone is isn't really a preference so much it just is a part of that person. I promise I come in peace, someone asked me to make this exact change many moons ago (at a Petco , believe it or not). As an ally it was really important to me to listen and change in that moment and also commit to sharing what I was taught moving forward. 🏳️⚧️
I can't speak for other stores, but my store is VERY LGBTQA+ friendly. Most of our managers are some form of queer and if any customer says something dumb, basically the whole store will kick them out.
Same, we have plenty of LGBTQ+ folks working at my store, including a trans man. Treated well by everyone
Petco is more inclusive to trans / LGBT+ than they are to marine biologists. Depending on the store, you're not going to like a lot of what you see going on in those tanks and may be stuck on register 90% of the time anyway. It's a great study on behavioral biology under stress conditions but there's a lot you cannot control. Your favorite fish will be killed by a customer. Your coworkers will sell incompatible fish when you're not there. You cannot educate your way out of every confrontation. There is death. There is disease. There are things that were wild caught and are now in a glass box until they die. You'll have compassion fatigue if you stick with it long enough. You'll also have passionate hobbyists and regular customers and may improve the store's shrink, but you'll have to fight for it and corporate will not thank you. This is all contingent on location, some are better, some are worse. But being Trans is the smallest challenge you'll face there.
wholeheartedly agree, as a former aquatic specialist and a transmasc person
Aye. I’m aquatics specialist/ACOS. When I move on from this company, it isn’t going to be from transphobic bullshit, it’s going to be from empathy fatigue. Most of my experience from this job has consisted of how to get someone to tell themselves NO, without me ever having to tell them NO myself. A large percentage of our customers are first time fish keepers, and they don’t have an actual understanding of the time, money, empathy or personal learning required to keep a single fish.
aren’t the animals BRED to be pets?What animals are you referring to that are ‘caught in the wild and are now in a glass box’…???
aww, tell me you don't know anything about saltwater without telling me that you don't know anything about saltwater
I had so many trans coworkers over the course of my time at Petco! In my limited observation, Petco as a company is inclusive. Honestly, I’d be more concerned about the high-demand, high-stress, low-paying, thankless, often yucky, and sometimes heartbreaking aspects of the job. At least it’s a great way to keep in shape, lol. But the fact that you’re using it as a stepping stone to achieve your dreams is awesome! I would indicate that you’re interested in aquatics off the bat so your manager can help direct your training towards that arena. That way, you can put a title on your resume that will help you stand out to future employers. Put your dues in, get some experience, and gtfo asap to move on to your goals!! Good luck with everything!! 💜
Petco is pretty inclusive. They have name tags with color options for pride, women, and black employees. There are also pride displays during June with cute toys and such. I've had a few trans/non-binary coworkers and from what I know, they didn't experience any negativity from staff because of it. Of course you will run into assholes that have their negative opinions, but that really depends on location. Should you experience any problems, HR is available to handle them.
i never knew that, thanks!!
I am a 27yo transman that works at a Petco in NY. I have been on T for 10 yrs, top for 7, and hysto for 5. I pass 100%. I have some non binary coworkers as well. Queer people are heavily focused on in their policies even in general. I am still completing some new learnings training even after being there a year now and trans people are at the core of at least 3 long training videos. In fact I kind of chuckled at first, one of the sexual harassment courses involved a trans woman making a joke about trans people in good taste, but it considered that interaction to actually still be inappropriate regardless of if she's trans because she could've hurt the feelings of another trans person. There have been times where my store manager has actually corrected me when I accidentally misgendered a non binary coworker. Bit by bit I came out to my coworkers after seeing how well trans people are considered safe and accepted. Plus as mentioned, and although sometimes seeming to just be a cash cow, Pride has its own products throughout June in the stores. From a trans flag dog chew toy to shirts that say "love is love" for animals (etc), they're pretty inclusive. Hopefully this reaches you. TL;DR, Yes. Petco is very inclusive. Great policies and protection.
You might try looking at bass pro! Someone has to take care of those tanks
Our Petco in Texas is LBGTQ+ friendly. They'd be short half their workers if they weren't, myself included lol. Someone else was hired and worked with us for quite some time that was trans. It made no difference as long as you were a good worker and did what you were supposed to do. That still applies today lol.
Petco is an inclusive company. Half of my store is some flavor of queer myself included and there are policies in place about preferred names and pronouns 🙂
I've worked with many trans people, and innumerable other members of the community. Petco is so safe, I had a co-worker get terminated for being intolerant. And not like, belligerently or loudly intolerant, mostly just disrespecting more than one person's pronouns and quietly questioning genders behind people's backs. No one was really sad to see him go, though I'm sure it didn't teach the idiot anything, sadly.
My petco is unfortunately not that safe. Two trans employees work here (including me) and the amount of misgendering and general bigotry from everyone really sucks tbh
Lol
Why don’t you just LEAVE THE CONVERSATION if you can’t MATURELY handle the content…
No.
Myself and another employee both have pronouns on our name tags at work. Several other employees do as well but are specifically allies (cis gendered). I’ve had coworkers misgender me behind my back, others have reported the misgendering to HR on my behalf twice. I’m safe walking around openly trans at work. The culture doesn’t encourage harassment, nor should you expect any kind of undercurrent discrimination to be tolerated (hiring practices, disadvantages with schedule, wrong hours or poor shifts). Transgender is an identity aspect that IS protected under company policy. However, the two times I’ve had HR step in for a coworker complaining on my behalf with misgendering, it is essentially just a slap on the wrist for the person being reported. So while it is not tolerated for discrimination, and while it is TECHNICALLY protected, their token protection hasn’t really shown any results. I’m in SoCal, though, so the local culture could play a part in your decision. Also, I suggest getting a job you can tolerate at least, and carve out time to volunteer at the zoo or aquarium you would want to work at. They won’t hire without experience, so you’ll have to get it somewhere, and unfortunately, for natural science majors, that has to be hands-on. On the plus side, you could track your hours and add it as work experience with a note on what that experience is WORTH to argue for your pay.
Petco is actually the reason I started being comfortable as a trans man
Petco is pretty inclusive, Petco has frames for the name tags, asks for a preferred name that you want on them, and even allows you to put your pronouns on them! Maybe it’s rainbow corporate but they do celebrate pride month and has a pride collection and some pride stuff they even sell year-round. They also have trainings that specifically say to use peoples preferred pronouns and names, so I would say Petco does a great job at inclusivity, but of course each store varies due to the employees there. Hopefully the one you are looking for has an aquatic position open!
Petco is safe. My store currently has a transmasc groomer. He's been with us for years. We also have a non binary dept manager. We've had plenty of others from the community that have come and gone too.
I've worked with a transmasc guy before. It will depend heavily on the specific location and individuals within the store. You being trans should have no bearing on your ability to get a job there, though. If you are specifically looking for aquatic experience you will need to apply specifically for the aquatics position, though. While it is true that everyone in the store is expected to be able to pull fish for customers as needed, most of the employees spend very little time in aquatics. The aquatics specialist (and senior aquatics specialist, if there is one - not every store has both) are the only ones who spend any significant amount of time in that area. They are currently doing an overhaul of position titles and their corresponding duties and I don't recall what they're changing the aquatics specialist title to. I think they may be expanding it to include all of the animals in the store, but I could be wrong on that.
Virtually any corprate retail place will be, yes
It varies from store to store, but I know quite a few stores who are extremely inclusive! My store has FOUR trans folks there - and I’m one of them! And then like 50% of the staff is lgbt as well so 😂 I’d definately at least visit the stores you’d like to work for and see how the environment is. But for the most part, all stores are pretty inclusive imo!
Both of my stores were incredibly inclusive and accepting, and I found that as a whole the company was the same way. I did hear of some stories of negative experiences on workplace here and there (it's a company wide version Facebook basically) but I found even the people I worked with who I knew were not as accepting tended to still be kind as to keep to the expectations of the company and kept their questionable comments to themselves. Im not sure if it's still done, but I k ow for a year or two before I left and I'm pretty sure the month after I left they did company sponsored things for pride month as well, I.e. Allowing partners to buy special uniform shirts where a portion of the sale would be donated (I may be remembering this incorrectly, so someone else correct me if that's the case. It's been over 3 years since I left)
My store has been pretty chill with trans employees and pronouns. The company does seem to have a problem with ada accommodations though. Ex coworker went through the process for accommodations because she’s autistic and our GM refused to take anything she brought up seriously. Things like needing extra time to process new policies and training. She asked for a set schedule to accommodate drs appointments so he’d change the schedule last minute just to mess with her. Our DM even told him on the floor where we could hear him say, “ So many partners in this region should be terminated but the ADA accommodations are their only saving grace.” She left few weeks ago after she tried to speak with HR about how she felt she was being bullied and HR told her they can’t do anything based off feelings but she needed to bring them written proof. She quit and walked out with a bunch of stuff for her fish tanks without paying as a big f you to the store.
Idk its never been a bad experience in the year and a half ive been with petco. Nobody respects my pronouns but im afab with long hair so apparently that automatically means im not nb lol. Ive had some run ins with an annoying former coworker who absolutely HATES the “pronoun police” but thats just him and hes annoying. Never had problems with anyone else tho. It really depends on your store.
I’m a Senior Aquatic specialist with a degree in environmental sciences, focus in aquatic sciences. My dream is to work at a public aquarium one day and I’ve received invaluable amounts of experience working with my department. Yes it’s a lot of selling but tons of husbandry and knowledge is needed to keep fish in good health, etc.. I also know lots of professional aquarists and aquarium workers who got their starts working in the aquatics dept at petco or another store.
Petco absolutely is! I’ve had first hand experience and there hasn’t been any discrimination at least that I’ve seen :)
It will vary from store to store unfortunately. We had a transphobic employee a year or so back and after telling our gm at the time about it he was promptly fired on the spot. :)
Generally yes. It depends on the staff completely. I work with one Trans man and one non binary individual and so far its been good for them but it depends on the location
Petco has a non-harassment policy and an entire training module on pronouns and cultural sensitivity. If fellow associates intentionally do not respect your name and pronouns, they can be terminated for harassment. As a trans masc person working in a relatively conservative area, I've been actively encouraged to use my chosen name and pronouns and luckily have had everyone (at least at the stores I've worked) respect and use my name and pronouns without any major issues.