Don't Trust Johnathan Andrews

In 2016, Jonathan Andrews attempted to recruit me for an internship. His company was constantly posting positions available on job employment sites in an attempt to gain employees who will not only work for free but will pay the employer a large amount of money every month in order to work. They accept probably almost every applicant without question for an interview, the interviewer hardly asked any questions of prospective employee but instead tries to sell the company as being a legit and working for big names in the industry. The more you pay, the higher the position in the company you will get, rather than basing it on your merit or your s****s. Since they do not actually have the facilities to accommodate anyone, every employee needs to buy and bring their own computer and when I asked about whether they provide the software needed, I got a vague “Oh, we will find a way to sort that out”. This “internship” is aimed at recent graduates, who have no job experience but have worked hard and paid a lot of money to get their degrees. Struggling without job experience, I had almost considered it, especially as he promises he might employ you in 6 months to a year, and eventually you would earn your money back. The cost was too high so fortunately, I declined their “offer”. A few months later, they called me an offered me a paid internship. The African Global S****s Academy (AGSA) would be paying a very small amount of money that would trickle down to Jonathans already “employed” interns and the new dupes that he manages to bring in. Having still no job and no experience, I thought it wouldn’t hurt.

So begins my new job as an animator and designer at Jonathan Andrews Studio. I went out and bought a laptop and their solution to their current and new employees not owning the expensive software was to pirate it, luckily for them I had already paid for the software. No matter, I was so excited to work on projects for the big names they had mentioned in the previous sales pitch - I mean interview. The illusion was quickly shattered after chatting to those who had been working there for a long time as interns. They had never done any substantial work for those corporations. In fact, they hardly had any work to do at all, none outside creating adverts for more of Jonathan Andrews exploits. There were hardly any full time employees, almost everyone there was some kind of intern. Imagine if I had paid for the internship, I would have been paying Jonathan in order to create adverts for him. The AGSA payments which Jonathan was meant to pay us almost never came through to us on time and one of my colleagues was not paid at all even though he had approved leave due to him. The longer I worked as an intern, the more I realised I was just helping Jonathan spin himself a stickier web. After a few months of waiting for things to become what Jonathan’s company had promised, I gracefully resigned as an intern. Afterward, he offered me a position as a lecturer. He would pay me pennies but the hours were part time so I could try make ends meet another way. After I taught the first course, Jonathan moved out of his office in Greenstone Ridge to an empty warehouse in Germiston. I wish I had acknowledged the warning signs sooner and without the posh Greenstone premises, the facade really began to fall away. Promise after promise, I was never paid for the second course I lectured in 2017 and spent my time and money on someone who just exploits others in order put himself and his name on top.