Complaint Review: Kevin Michael Reed Studio Inc

I was an employee of Kevin Reed's - I began as an intern and then worked as a production and studio manager. Kevin is a very nice, very likeable, and very charming human being, but does not follow good business practices, is not honest, and does not pay his employees.

He is an extremely talented photographer, one who I know many interns and assistants are keen on working with, but do not make the mistake that I did, and assume that he is simply a bit disorganized, and will eventually get around to paying you. He doesn't. My unpaid internship I have no complaints with - when I signed up, I knew it was unpaid, and I was okay with that.  What I take issue with is that, once I was signed on as an employee, I was not paid, I was not treated professionally, I was manipulated and lied to, and was told to lie to cover up poor business practices.  Examples include being told to stall assistants who were asking for payment, lie to them, and tell them that "their checks got lost in the mail", being told that I would be paid on the 15th of each month, and never receiving a check (not even once while I worked there), arriving to meetings only to have Kevin show up 1-2 hours late on a regular basis, etc etc.

Perhaps you wonder why I would have stayed on to work at a place like this.  Here's the ugly truth: if you work in a creative and competitive industry like fashion photography, there is always someone willing to take your spot, no matter what the working conditions are.  So I stayed.  I stayed because I thought he would be a good line item on my resume, because I thought his influence would matter, that his connections would help me, that he would introduce me to the right people, etc etc.  All of those thing are true.  He is definitely influential, his connections have helped me, he has introduced me to people I never would have met otherwise, etc.  All of that I am grateful for.  But none of that replaces the fact that, as an employee, I was not paid, I was lied to and told to lie, and I was treated unprofessionally.  That's why I'm writing this report.

MY ADVICE: Intern for him.  But if you intern for him and you do a good job (which, if you show up, you probably will), he will inevitably offer you a job.  Don't take it.