Winston Staffing Services, a division of Winston Resources, LLC, was the worst employment agency I ever dealt with in New York City, and believe me, employment agencies in New York are notoriously unethical. Yet Winston was the worst of them all!
I went there while I was employed at a law firm and wanted to make a change to another field. An agent at Winston was recommended to me by a friend who just happened to have a sideline as a psychic.
The creepy agent, who turned out to be a client of the psychic, seized on the fact that I'd been recommended by a psychic immediately. "A powerful psychic sent you to me, " she intoned, as if this meant that God Almighty had sanctioned my walking into this agency. The agent had a strange look on her face - her eyes were too wide, her delivery was too melodramatic about everything, and already I felt like I'd made a mistake walking into Winston.
Then it got worse. Since I was acquainted with her psychic, the agent decided that meant I was automatically into all kinds of New Age garbage, like karma and reincarnation. She asked why I wanted to leave my current job. I said that I was not happy working at a law firm, that I was bored, and wanted to get into a different field. Then I mentioned that the lawyer I worked for was Black.
"Oh, " the agent of Winston Staffing Services said, "maybe it's your karma that's causing you to hate that job! Maybe you were a slave-owner in a past life, and you used to OWN your Black boss, and now, in THIS life, your Black boss is getting you back!"
"What?!!" I replied, incredulous. "That's ridiculous! I didn't own my boss in a past life! I just want to get a better job."
The agent tried to convince me that yes, I had owned my boss in a past life. She actually sat there, trying to get me to believe that I had purchased my boss at a slave auction during a past life. This was the craziest thing I'd ever heard, so I wanted to get out of the Winston offices, but then it got even worse.
Then the agent tried to convince me that I "wanted" to get a job at a different law firm - when I'd clearly stated that the whole reason I was looking for a job was to get into a different field other than law in the first place. She had several job openings at law firms. She became quite crazed when I said no, I do not wish to work in another law firm. She yelled. She screamed. She told me I wasn't open to new things. She did a whole number. The main point of her number was that she felt she could get a commission faster if she placed me in a law firm and so that's where she was bound and determined to place me. I already knew that the techniques she was using to try to "force" me to agree to apply for jobs I did not want was against the law, and that employment agencies are not legally allowed to do this to applicants. But this woman who was under Winston's employ was clearly out of control and probably had been for quite some time, so I was getting scared. The agent proceeded to introduce me to another Winston agent who worked with law firms. That other agent, to her credit, realized that there was something wrong with the first agent. She gave me a look that seemed to say, "Don't worry, we know she's a nut."
The first agent wanted me to come back that evening and take all kinds of typing and computer tests. I said I'd come back just to get out of there. I was getting heart palpitations from being near this screaming, wild-eyed agent. I was afraid she was a step away from getting violent and I would have said just about anything in order to get out of that office in one piece.
When I got back to my office, I called the agent, fortunately got her answering machine, so I didn't have to talk with her, and said that due to the way she was yelling at me, screaming at me, and trying to force me to apply for a job I didn't want, which was against the laws governing employment agencies in the State of New York, I refused to deal with her further, and would not be stopping by later for the typing and computer tests.
The agent proceeded to call me back at my office - four or five times. I let the calls go to voicemail, so then she called my friend the psychic, three times in a row, trying to convince HER to get me to agree to apply for a job I did not want! The psychic finally hung up on her on the third phone call, and later told me about it. At 10:30 at night, the agent had the nerve to call me up at home and started in on me AGAIN, trying to bully me into being her client and going for jobs I did not want!
Who in their right mind would work with an irrational employment agent who was trying to convince them that they once owned their Black boss in a past life?
And who hired that agent in the first place? WINSTON RESOURCES, LLC, that's who! The standards of the people who make the hiring decisions about who gets accepted as an agent at Winston must be the sleaziest in town, if that agent was any indication of the caliber of employees they hire.
By all means avoid dealing with the sub-standard agents of Winston Resources, LLC, and all their affiliates - Winston Personnel, Winston Staffing Services, and more that are listed on their website - as if they are a strain of The Plague! Come to think of it, maybe they are.
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