Applying for a job as an Interior Designer again, and after going to forums about Interior Designs in Singapore, it's like all the memories of working in the previous firm started flooding back into my mind and it didn't feel good at all , well it's not so much memories, just a really unpleasant feeling. I'm not sure if it's because of the job scope or just because I had a bad experience working at that particular firm, but now I'm actually second guessing myself whether to actually go back to Interior Design.
Back in the day when I had to wake up early to go to the EXPO just so I could stand around and pull in potential clients at the Interior Design roadshows for hours on end.... first week of the job and my very first weekend got burnt. I'm hoping the new firm doesn't have to go to the roadshow to actually get clients because if I actually got the job, that's the last thing I want to do.....
First of all, it looks fucking desperate, it's like the guy at the Control Station who's desperately trying to give out all his flyers so he could knock off form work early but no one is really interested in " Getting your kid the right Tutor at Tutor My Todd" or the free massage you get at the massage parlor if you bring your entire family along, that's how I felt when I was standing outside the booth trying to pull in customers.
Secondly, more than half of the people who are there are just going around testing out the waters and going into every Interior Design firm's booth, so essentially what you are giving to them is a free consultation., and then they will walk out and go into the next booth to get another free consultation.... and it didn't help that the firm I was working in was obviously charging a much higher rate than everyone else... the excuse being that we "pay attention to small details"... which essentially just means that we go to Pinterest, look for a closet design, rip that design right off, pass if off as our own, get the carpenter to build it and charge you $6000 for it.... plus a lot more stuff like the cabinet design we ripped off from Dezeen and not to mention the shoe rack design we ripped off from IKEA. And then we point the small details like the recessed handles and try to use that to justify the insane $6000 price tag and the customers eat that shit up.
"Oh recessed handles ? I have never seen that before, here's $36000, I'll have 6!"
That was what the 4 month old designer tried to tell me to explain to me that our design firm was different from the other firms, that we pay extra attention to details. Like seriously...
"You see this orange lines on our cupboard design, and all this small little ridges at the side of our beds, we are the only design firm that do all these minor details for the customers."
I think that's called accenting and the fact that she thinks they are the only company that does that shows how much of a greenhorn she is, then again, none of the "designers" there are actually design trained except for the lady boss. And they also lie about their work experience, the 4 month old worker tells clients she has been in the field for 2 years, there's even longer the the most senior designer there. So much for work ethics, and when asked how old the 2 year old company was, they tell us to say it's 4 years old. SO MUCH INTEGRITY! And then they try to make it sound believable by telling the clients that the lady boss has been in the field for over a decade which is the only truth in that string of lies.
Oh, and when one of the client decided not to use our services because we were charging them 150% of their intended budget , no surprise there, one of the senior designer whom I was working with on that project started to bitch and whine about how our time has been wasted and what not after the clients have left, which I thought was unnecessary because despite their cancellation of our services, the client and his wife were actually really nice and pleasant people who even recommended his friends to us. If she was bitching and whining about such nice couples for making the decision to not use our services, I wonder what she actually does to actual tough customers, probably go make a voodoo doll out of them and poke needles into them when she has the time.
I mean getting your design work done at the design firm I was working in during the roadshow is equivalent to getting a $3.00 macaron from some blogshop run by a self taught baker when Bakerzin is just around the corner selling one for $1.80... Macarons made by trained Pastry Chefs who have been in the business for years. It's just not a very smart deal at all.
So much negative thoughts just thinking about that old design firm. I did not have a good time there at all.... and it doesn't help that one of the few people there whom I thought was a friend actually started to unfollow me on Instagram. It's not that it's because I have less followers, it's the fact that he actually made the effort to go look me up on his list of "followings" and hit the unfollow button that annoys me. The only times I unfollow someone on Instagram is if they are flooding my page with horrible blurry and foggy shots of them in a club drinking booze and looking flushed red in pictures or when people like that "friend" of mine actually making the effort to go to my profile to unfollow me. I just find it very odd that he would do that, so I follow suit and unfollowed him.
Unless you are some big shot celebrity or actually post nice photos worth liking, I'm not going to follow you if you aren't following me because honestly, some people post really shit photos that I had no choice but to unfollow. My feed isn't going to miss those shit pictures you have taken of yourself in the club where I can hardly see your face because the person taking it is probably getting alcohol positioning from the copious amount of booze he just consumed.
Well this turned out to be an unpleasant post.
Japanese Strawberry Shortcake.... I think it's Japanese
So here's a picture of a Strawberry Spongecake I made yesterday. Hand whipped everything, and I mean everything.... eggs took me a good 10 minutes whip by hand until thick and pale and the whipped cream was probably a good 5 minutes. Followed the recipe and turned out it was only for a single layer so I ended up having to whip the eggs twice by hand. All that effort wasn't for nothing thought because the taste was prety good if I might say so myself, there's nothing a little rum cant' spruce up.
The importance of a good hand whisk. Got it when I went to Culinary School, apparently it is really expensive... definitely got my money's worth. Paying an extra $10000 for the designer to "pay attention to details"? Not so much.
I'm so glad I got the Rowenta oven over the Stand Mixer because the oven is currently my favorite thing. I can actually fit in trays that are bigger than an A4 paper and it's an electric smart oven. The best thing about it is that I didn't have to pay a single cent for it, it's my gift from my Mother as a Christmas Present.... sort of thing.
Well she was planning to help me get a new mixer but I just decided to let it be a Christmas gift rather than a "spur of the moment suddenly fork out $500 to get me a mixer" thing. That's one of the benefits of not actually asking my Mother for money to buy me miscellaneous things like clothes and shoes every few months, she offers to buy me a mixer when I just bring up the topic of wanting to get one out of my own pocket.
The mixer of course later became an oven that cost $650, I was actually procrastination with the purchase of the mixer because I didn't know which brand to buy and if I really needed a mixer. I knew I definitely wanted a bigger oven for sure to fit the new tray I had bought hoping it would fit but didn't. That hope is the same as hoping you would win the lottery but you know you never will.
The first thing I made was obviously Macarons, to test how good the new oven was, I had to make something that would be very finicky to prepare, and what better than something that took me months to perfect-ish.
Cookies and Cream Macaron.
None of the shells cracked at all in the oven, it was amazing. Although I did screw up during the sugar syrup part at the beginning process, nothing to do with the oven. And the ganache was actually firm and did not melt at all at room temperature. It was a very good macaron making day, except for the part where the sugar syrup actually burnt and cause the egg whites to cook prematurely during the meringue making process and I had to repeat it multiple times because like an idiot I kept overcooking the sugar mixture, but otherwise it was all good. People who don't make macarons probably won't understand the process.
White Chocolate Creme Brulee
This is one ugly shot but it was really good creme brulee if I may say so myself. I actually really like creme brulee now. And the top is burnt because I had to use a broiler as I didn't have a blowtorch.
Pavlova
Because of my obsession with making creme brulee, I had a lot of leftover egg whites to make pavlovas. Think I over baked this though, it wasn't very nice.
And here are some of the last baked items I made using the old oven. *cue sad music*
Red Velvet Brownies.
Those were my only successful batch of brownies, I have made a lot and they all always sucked but this one was actually good. It's like my oven knows it's going to be replaced soon so it's doing it's best to impress me buy baking this brownies to the perfect doneness.
Profiteroles.
This was my first time making Profiteroles, or Choux Pastry. Might have gone a bit overboard with the salt but it was still good, just can't seem to find a good vanilla custard recipe to go along with it. All those I have made so far either taste like flour or have a strong egg taste to it which is disgusting.
Actually my old oven is still in use, just not as much. Used it to heat up some fried rice yesterday night, which gave me a stomachache this morning. Hell hath no fury like an oven's scorn.
Just received a call from another company asking me to head down for an Interview. Nice to know now I might actually have a choice to decide where to work at.
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