Be careful of this company - Recensione dipendente - Dipendente anonimo presso The Live Group

Don’t have anything nice to say

I worked for this company on a short-term event job and was told by the boss that if I stayed for an additional hour after my shift, I would be given overtime pay. The person in charge and the client both approved the arrangement. After completing the extra hour, we were later told that we would not be paid for it because we came in an hour late the next day — even though other workers who also came late but didn’t do the extra hour still received full pay. We were also only informed halfway through the extra hour that we wouldn’t be paid, which felt very unfair and unprofessional. When I raised the issue politely with the lady boss, she shut down the discussion and said the case was closed. She even asked me to pay back my salary just because the outcome wasn’t according to her plan. This experience was extremely disappointing. I hope the company can treat its event staff more fairly and communicate payment terms clearly in future.

I will keep my review as honest as possible, and I’m gonna have to say none. Of course, the managing director was nice and polite at first, even bought me coffee during our meetings (despite my rejection) but it was merely superficial and all on the surface. Read below to find out why.

I worked as a freelance designer for FitnessFest 2019 organised by TLG Festivals, who shares the same managing director Tricia Sokolovitch at The Live Group, the parent company. I was tasked to design collaterals like posters and forms, generate social media content for several platforms, produce a few animations and video and in-charge of creating all event graphics like entrance design, schedule wall and programme panels you see at FitnessFest 2019. During that period, I was also juggling with final year submissions at LASALLE and on top of other freelance projects. Despite her knowledge of my assignments, she would text me in the middle of the night asking for design changes and works, but I didn’t complain about it because I felt that it was my job and responsibility no matter how exhausted I was. At that point of time, I worked to my hardest in ensuring that every work is up to her expectations. When the project was over, I sent over an invoice of the total project amounting to $2.8k, which she noted and acknowledged and accepted the amount she has to pay. Over a week later, I notified her on the payment again, in which she responded that she’s overseas and is unable to make the transfer because she doesn’t have the key with her (which is totally ridiculous because she could arrange for her colleague in finance to proceed with the salary, or write a cheque / paynow or paylah or find other ways to make payment on time. I was completely understanding and remained polite even though she took off to vacation the day she was supposed to pay me. Days passed and I contacted her again and again, in which she kept apologising and made up every excuse not to pay me. She even tried negotiating $495 off the deliverables when she agreed to all the costs previously (now we know it’s because she has no intention of paying at all) and out of goodwill, I gave her a discount. Again, I waited and waited with no payment made, and I finally charged her a 5% of the whole project and sent her a notice of late fee with the charges - which she later begged me to take it off and I said no. Eventually, she blocked my number on call and whatsapp after making a final promise that she would pay up. I sent her a final email listing out all the deliverables I’ve provided for FitnessFest 2019, breakdown of costs, additional late fee charges, attempts I’ve made to contact her etc and of course there was no reply. She was even posting pictures of herself on Instagram and I messaged her there only to be blocked there too, when I told her that I would proceed with legal actions against her should she still not meet the extended dateline for her. I’ve noticed that others have reviewed the company as an unethical environment poor in management and apparently it is not the first time that they don’t pay their employees or for a job done. I’m not sure that the others acted on it and got justice, but one thing I’m damn sure is that I won’t let this rest. I’ve already filed for a tribunal at the state courts with every evidence I have and served her a letter, but still there was no response. I could have been understanding if she first came clean to me about cash flow issues she may have and offer to pay by installments, but the fact that she lied and kept me like a fool thinking I would get my $2.8k for a project I worked so hard for, I won’t let it go.