Fashion: A Tale of Caution and Karma
When I arrived in Toronto in December of 2006, I got a job doing PR for an independent designer. She’d never had someone to do her PR and didn’t really have the budget. She was paying me $10 a hour and would only hire me part time. Meanwhile, my rent was $600 a month so, well, you do the math. It was a struggle, but I was desperate.
It would’ve been nice if I actually got the chance to do some PR, but it turned out there were all these other things involved that were never in the job description, like being the main point of contact for the 80+ stores we supplied to across Canada and the States. And shipping clothes out. And doing quality control. And entering every single item of clothing into Quickbooks. And sometimes doing invoicing. And the whole time, I’m being paid $10 an hour. I can barely even afford to get to work.
While I’m there, the designer talks down to me and the other members of staff constantly. Actually, the way she spoke to anyone was shocking. I wanted to grab her, shake the crap out of her and say ‘Honey, you ain’t no Karl Lagerfeld. Dial the ego down about 10 notches.’ She was rude, obnoxious and completely up her own ass.
She eventually asked me why she hadn’t had any press coverage yet. ‘Well perhaps if I wasn’t your personal UPS service, I might actually be able to do my job,’ I said. I struggled on for the next few weeks, but the new collection had just come out and who better to ship it out to the stores than the person who’s meant to be doing PR? The designer went to trade shows in LA and New York – a perfect opportunity for me to do some PR and network with journalists – but she never invited me.
She got me to ship things to a PR agency in New York. A few days later she told me she was letting me go because that agency would be doing her PR from now on. She had made me send clothing samples to the people who were taking my job. I wasn’t mad. I was relieved actually. Though I did wonder how much a New York agency would be charging to do her PR when she was supposedly struggling to pay me $10 an hour.
She gave me two weeks notice and said I could work those two weeks or not. I opted to focus on finding a new job and didn’t go into the office. At the end of those two weeks, I called her for my pay cheque, she said she didn’t owe me anything. This, of course, was nonsense. She owed me for the two weeks notice. Going back and forth with emails was futile. I went to a workers rights group who calculated that she owed me over $700. Thankfully, they had a legal team who dealt with her on my behalf for no fee.
Meanwhile, I discovered she hadn’t been taking tax or insurance out of my pay so I wasn’t entitled to job seeker’s allowance. I was flat broke. I had to borrow $600 from a friend to pay my rent.
After much back and forth, I settled with the designer for less than I should have and by the time all the back tax was taken out, I think I actually only got $127.
I got my $127 a week before I had to leave to Toronto and move to Nova Scotia as I couldn’t find any work. In short, my dealings with that woman changed my whole life at the time quite dramatically.
Cut to a couple of weeks ago and I get an email from someone who is now doing the PR for this designer. They inform me that she is apparently in a competition being held by a major Canadian fashion magazine and they’d love for me to feature her on my blog. I laughed. A lot. Then I sent the following email:
Dear ——
I used to work with —– —— so am well aware of her and her work. I have no interest in either and will not be featuring her on my blog. I’m sure if you ask Ms —– about me, she would rather I didn’t feature her either.
Word to the wise, you might want to make sure you get paid before you do any more promotion for her.
Regards,
Bangs
Karma, my friends, is a bitch. Be careful how you treat people when they’re on the come up because some things, will almost certainly, come to bite you in the ass.
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