I was hired as a brand ambassador for event pro staffing and they book events for companies and clients for promotions/distributions etc. I went for the 2 hour training, which was paid.
The next day, the promo work began. You were supposed to wear khakis for the work, which was done outside, but the morning of work, I couldn't find my khakis or they were lost and had to wear jeans for the one day. When I went to work, I asked them if this was ok and they said it was.
I'm very sensitive to chemcials and unfortunately that morning as we were standing there near the bushes, a man came and sprayed a pesticide around us. I informed the people immediately, and tried to leave in order to not get sick, but it was too late, as I had been exposed to the pesticide and felt very sick. I could've asked to go home, but decided to stay and do the job.
The job consisted of handing flyers out to people downtown for a promotion, and I was doing the job, despite not feeling well. The criteria for the job did not state that you had to 'run around handing out flyers or be 'energetic' as others were not running around or displaying extreme amounts of energy, though a couple were. Regardless, they switched me out, to another area after about 10 minutes claiming that I wasn't wearing the 'khakis' that were requested and was wearing jeans.
Then after another 30 minutes, they talked about my situation asking if I felt well or not, knowing that yes I did not feel great due to the previous situation, but I was handling it ok and doing ok.
Regardless, I was called in by the recruiter and told that my health was more important than some promotion, and told to go home and that she'd call me later. I was called later and told to not go back to the promotion, and that they were upset i wasn't 'energetic' despite knowing what had just happened to me and my health... Which to me was ridiculous. They also refused to pay me for the 4 hours I was there doing the work, which is unallowed, unethical and not right.
After writing to the recruiter, she wrote me back claiming that I broke/breached the policies by wearing jeans, and on top of that, she lied claiming I was late, when two other girls came in after me, and that I wasn't energetic enough. If wearing jeans was in breach of their policy, they should've let me go the moment I walked in with jeans, and the moment I walked in late, not allowed me to work then refused me pay. But it isn't— they used these as false excuses to justify letting me go and refusing me pay for the time I worked.
This is a very dishonest unethical company, and im just warning people beforehand if they are interested in doing promo work to stay away from this one, due to the manner in which they conduct things, hire people, and then let people go without pay for their work and time with false excuses and lies.
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