Nona Black

After being unemployed for over a year, I found what I thought was a great job opportunity. However, it was for a job I don’t even remember applying to. Someone in HR called me, said they viewed my resume & I was a perfect candidate for an open position in their company. They gave me a VERY brief detail of what the job entailed & with that I was scheduled for an interview. The interview took place at an office not far from Times Square & even after being an hour late was STILL able to interview. My interview lasted no more than 15 mins after which I was told if a good candidate I’d be called for a 2nd interview. By the time I traveled back to my house in Queens, I had a voice mail asking to return for a 2nd round interview the next day. The next day I was sent out with a girl named Nona. I believe at the time she was an assistant manager in the company Polaris. She took me all the way out to Brooklyn to “”pitch”” an alternative energy supplier to businesses in a certain area. After walking from business to business for about thee hours we finally had lunch & she proceeded with what she called a lunch time break down. This is the part of the day when the job is explained in detail, compensation is discussed & any of my questions would be answered. I proceeded going though with the rest of the interview although I didn’t quite understand the job at hand. After a long day, I was sat down for another brief interview & offered the position. I ended up taking he position out of desperation & believed that even though the position was 100% commission I would make a hefty paycheck. How wrong was I? After two weeks, I was being trained to “”sell”” another product. This time getting people to sponsor a child from a non profit charity. I also didn’t get my first paycheck until the 5th week of working. Nona was now a CEO & opened her own office near Wall Street. She seemed to changed from the girl who took me out on my first day of training. Much to my surprise this company was the opposite of professional & set rules that no one abide by. We were taught to manipulate people into signing documents for sketchy services just to earn a buck. If you lacked a conscience, you made top dollars. This was such the case with Nona & her protege Sasha. You had managers using their position to take advantage of new people both physically & financially. Nona herself has slept with at least five men in the company which is probably how she got her title. Many times managers were having sex with co workers no matter their positions & people weren’t being paid for the accounts they closed. The managers seemed to be the only ones making money, traveling & enjoying the perks they described in the interview process. I worked on regular 9+ hours, six days a week. If you took a sick day you weren’t paid b/c they were no benefits. We all signed a 1099 so we had to have taxes taken out the end of the year & if fired which happened often you couldn’t file for unemployment. Most people myself included barely made rent yet lost all my free time. I quit after being on three different campaigns in six months & not making more than $400/wk. I’m writing this to say, if you see an advertisement for a marketing/sales position with the following companies DO NOT APPLY! Northstar Consulting Group- Nona Black ECM Acquisitions- Eric Martin EQ Headquarters- Elana Stein The Henry Group/ THG- Brenda Bernal Polaris- Antoine Bell New York Business Partners Mana Group/ Vendi Group- Bart Yates