After two years of trying, Lisa Picho finally got the call to work at the San Jose Animal Care Center. She was thrilled to start as an animal care attendant in March. But she quickly felt ill-equipped due to a lack of training.
She narrowly avoided a dog attack. She cleaned food and water dishes contaminated by ringworm without proper protection and witnessed experienced coworkers using harsh cleaning chemicals in kennels without proper dilution. Then one day she noticed two ringworm-infected kittens locked in a small area without food or water during a heat advisory. She told her managers, who she said brushed it off. She emailed them too, but didn’t hear back. When she returned for her next shift in June, management fired her for performance issues they’d never mentioned before, she said.
“They do not like to be questioned or made to look bad,” Picho told San José Spotlight. “When I brought up something that was very important to prevent deaths, they just fired me right away.”…