*The following is the story of my experience with a New Orleans "green building" company that promised competitive pay and stock options in exchange for volunteer service. They promised compensation never happened so be wary of this employment scam*
From February 15 to May 12th I worked nine to twelve hour days as a project manager for NOLA Rising Construction Services, LLC. Christophor Faust, a smooth talking Texas contractor had recently setup this company and needed assistance getting things started. Before encountering NOLA Rising Construction Services I was already a firm believer in business efficiency and productivity, so I was easily converted over to their sustainable, or green housing dream for a rebuilt New Orleans. I was also lead to believe that the company was aggressively committed to rebuilding the city's post-Katrina housing stocks and would (hopefully) utilize these new sustainable technologies in the process.
This was a new and exciting job at first, but things worked out just a little different than I had expected. First, we ended up only renovating two houses—a wealthy couple's house in Kenner and the NOLA Rising Construction flop-house/office/commune where the craigslist acquired workers, like illegal immigrants, slept on cheap air mattresses or the floor (I spent my own resources on a few real mattresses because the Texas contractor refused to do so). I should also add that both of these renovating jobs had nothing to do with green or sustainable building technologies and the aforementioned office/commune was in such a bad neighborhood that three employees were actually mugged at various times only a few blocks away from the usually unlocked front door!
Second, Nola Rising Construction was never licensed with the Louisiana Contracting Board for residential or commercial work and none of the worksites ever had any of the required permits. Also, Nola Rising Construction paid everyone (who got paid) under the table with no deductions taken out or unemployment taxes paid. I found all of these facts highly disturbing along with the fact that there was actually no real business plan, no budget, and no effort was being made to properly account for expenditures.
All along, Christophor Faust, being a smooth talking Texas contractor said he would address and correct all of these issues, but in the end this never happened and things continued to deteriorate as new work contracts failed to be obtained, existing contracts were incomplete and working funds became virtually non-existent. Things actually got so bad that the paid employees were required to work overtime for free and those that didn't fled the company—sometimes leaving the commune in the middle of the night through the back window!
Third, I was promised numerous "competitive pay" schemes including various (back) pay rates, profit sharing, and 10% company ownership but none of this ever happened because the firm's unbudgeted funds were not managed or accounted for properly. Thus I ended up working 498 hours and getting only a $1,000 for my efforts—and I had to beg like a starving dog for that. After you break it all down my compensation worked out to $2.001 an hour—this is $3.149 less than The Dept. Of Labors Minimum Wage! I ended up having a major disagreement over this miserable company's disastrous financial state—not to mention my inability to keep quiet about the situation which this out of state contractor had a major problem with. After this Christophor Faust attempted to silence my complaints about his questionable and unsustainable business practices and I ended up resigning because I could no longer see myself working for this oppressive and financially mismanaged organization that was only taking advantage of myself and others.
Now I firmly believe that others should hear of my experiences with this company. I was hired as a "volunteer employee" and promised "competitive pay" in 30 days. Myself and others basically worked for hundreds of hours for almost nothing believing that this was needed so the company would have more resources on future green projects, but in the end no sustainable work was ever performed and all of the company's promises proved vacant and totally lacking in reality. NOLA Rising Construction simply strung us along on broken promisies to have a cheap source of labor on non-green, non-sustainable renovation projects. To think I was lucky enough to have survived both Katrina and Rita with no damage only to get completely taken advantage of by this Post Katrina Carpetbagger and his unlicensed construction company. I think I will need therapy for the next few years to recover from my period of slavery with this abusive, unprofessional and dysfunctional organization.
What have others said?
I am not the only former associate of NOLA Rising Construction to have issues with them. Other volunteers and employees were recruited to assist NOLA Rising Construction in it's for profit activities. Once a volunteer from New Orleans was encouraged to leave because her appearance was not wanted to "represent the company" in it's community outreach. Shortly after she left this message appeared in the New Orleans' craigslist volunteer listings:
Sustainable Development Firm SCAM!!!
Reply to: see below
No contact info listed below? Let them know.
Date: 03-22,10:18PM CST
Yeah you volunteer while Christopher Big Head makes the money. He's not even building anything GREEN... Yet if ever. It's only two places he's working both aren't Green projects. What he does is get good people to work for free or next to nothing while he gets paid. The "Sustainable" homes are just his plan to fill the walls with concrete.
Christophor takes advantage of his workers making them work 7 days a week sometimes up to 16 hrs for next to nothing and even some people get nothing. There is no contract so his promises to give you a part of his company is bull.
Christophor is an insult to the people of New Orleans and the environmently movement. He is taking advantage of good people with good intentions. Christophor is disrespectful to most people he meets and is getting people to work for free or extremely low pay using a guise of teaching you green construction when he just teaching you to line his pockets.
* no — it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
I must of been one of those "good people" she was referring too. At the very least she was lucky, she didn't stick around and get completely taken advantage of like someone else I know...
The NOLA Rising Construction Response:
This email from NOLA Rising Construction was recently received:
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 09:41: 23 -0700 (PDT)
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