Urgh

Went for my second interview yesterday, another company that was found through the institute and I have to admit, a few days prior, I was actually looking forward to this interview despite the location.



Working in the furniture industry as a designer doesn't sound so bad, honestly when I was still studying for my diploma, what I really wanted to do was furniture designing, that was the first thing that caught my attention when I was scanning through the list of career paths I could possibly take in the future as an interior designer in the poly's course booklet.



 So when I got a call from the company, naturally, I got very excited about it and my day that got ruined by the horrible interview I had earlier suddenly became less fucked up.




Fast forward to yesterday, left the house at around 11.30 am hoping to reach the location at 1 pm, the interview time, or maybe 10 minutes earlier,  Google Maps estimated the travel time to take roughly 50 minutes, but because public buses can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 45 minutes to arrive, and I have to switch buses en route which is always annoying.... I didn't trust that estimated travel timing shit.



The last time I went to the driving school, I decided to trust Google maps estimated travel timing, boarded the first bus 40 minutes before the lesson starts and when I finally arrived at the next bus stop and was waiting for the next bus to take, it was 12 minutes before the lesson was about to start and usually the travel time from that bus stop to the driving school will only take roughly 5 minutes because it's relatively close, so I took out my phone to check the timing and lo and behold, the next bus will only arrive 12 minutes later.



I ended up being 10 minutes late, so I just decided to skip the lesson altogether and went to update my PDL before leaving.  Reason why I hate to go to places that don't have a direct bus or an MRT Station nearby and also why I will never understand people who prefer to take the bus over the MRT.




I digress.


So anyways, I actually managed to reach the location as Google Maps had predicted, within 50 to 60 minutes, which meant that I was 20 minutes early for the interview. Decided to just head up to the office to wait since there wasn't any shopping mall around for me to walk for 20 minutes.



The first thing that struck me was how different the building in which this company is located in was compared to the other one I went to a week or so ago, this was a proper 7 storey building that didn't look like it would be infested with foreign workers on a Sunday night.




When I entered the lift area, the first thing I noticed was that entire first floor belonged the the company, when I saw that, it felt like I am a gold digger who has finally hit the jackpot and have found a guy who drives a Lamborghini and lives in a huge mansion atop a mountain facing the sea or something making a million dollar every hour. Compared to the previous company, this company just felt like a legit place to work at and to expand my career path, I suddenly became very nervous and was just hopping hard that I wouldn't screw up the interview.




Took the lift to the top floor, looked for the unit number, ringed the bell, removed my shoes, entered the office and was straight away ushered into the conference room to await my interview,during which I was given a form to fill up and when that was done, my portfolio was taken from me by a worker and passed to the boss along with the form. Now that's what workers are suppose to do during a candidates interview, hand the interviewee's information to the boss and other minor task, not fucking interview the interviewee in the boss stead. Another plus point to this company.




When I was still filling up the form, another candidate was actually also ushered into the conference room and I instantly felt screwed because size matters and her portfolio was in an A3 size Folder, whereas mine was in an A4 size Folder. After 20 minutes of awkward silence, she decided to start small talk and that was when I found out she was applying for the position of designer as well, which kinda got me worried because she was a lot more "fresh" compared to this old fart who has spend 3 years away from Interior Design. The only thing that kinda made me not so nervous was that she was applying for a full time position directly from a job ad online and not through a design program like myself, so she wasn't really competition.




All in all I waited about 40 minutes before the boss decided to see me, and right off the bat, he was a really nice guy, he was all smiles, very warm and most importantly he was genuinely interested in knowing more about his possible future employee, unlike the other dude form the design firm who couldn't give a shit at all. That guy can go shove the office printer up his butt and have all the colleagues print out the entire Twilight series ten times over.... if his anus doesn't get ruptured from the printer and he doesn't bleed to death from the paper cut... the horrible plot of the series will probably scar his butt hole forever.




So the conversation was going well with the boss, we discussed about my reasons for not wanting to continue further studies and also why I decided to go work in the F&B industry, like topics that would give him a greater understanding about me, and I thought  that with the amount of interest he was shown having in me, the designer position was mine to get, I wont let distance affect my decision, if he agrees to hire me as a designer, I am going to agree right on the spot..... And then he drops a bomb on me....

"So how do you feel about working in sales because I see your resume and you don't really have the experience to get hired as a designer?"

You have got to be fucking kidding me. I have actually told one of my friend before that becoming a sales designer was probably one of this worst positions you could get as a design student in a design firm, you as a qualified interior designer, because majority of the people working as "Sales Designer" have zero background in interior design prior to that job, so to me, asking a design student who has spend thousands of dollars and 3 years of studying to get diploma to apply for a position that can be filled by some random dude on the street that "decided it was time to stop spending their parents money and get a serious job" is just a slap in the face.




Of course when he offered me the position, I was instatnly turned off by it and kept asking about the designer position, but he was very persistent, saying I had no work experience (hello, no one is going to be able to get any "experience" if people like you keep turning us down, I'd understand the bakery's boss saying I have no experience in the field and offering me a pay lower than I had asked for because all I got is a certificate, but for fuck sake, I have spend 3 years studying to get a diploma, that alone should count for something, but NOOOOO~, he was only offering me the sales position.




At one point, I was actually contemplating about whether or not to accept the offer, because I was really desperate and needed to find work soon, then he threw in another shocker...

"By the way, we are working a 6 day work week and your weekends will be burnt, your off day will only be on a weekday."

It's like this job offer keeps getting worst and worst, normally before a job interview, I will try and picture the worst possible and plausible case scenario in my head to mentally prepare myself, this scenario did not play in my head at all, in fact it never crossed my mind that the institute would find me a company that would offer me a position as a sales person, and not even a designer but an actual sales person who has to go to the shop and recommend furniture to the customer. What the fuck am I? A middle age guy who decided education wasn't important during his Primary and Secondary School days and thus is now stuck working at a furniture mall as a low level sales person. Ridiculous... I am going through the institute's program to become a designer, not as a sales person, what the actual fuck?


The boss reason was that he wanted to get people with design background to do sales as well and he's trying to hire more people of my caliber to form a new sales group to do a job that people of my caliber are obviously overqualified for.

One of the reason why I left my job at the bakery was because of the six day work week, and now I am being offered a job that has the same work style, except its made so much worst by burning my weekends and on top of that, I have to work 10 hours everyday as opposed to the 8 hours at the bakery. At least at the bakery I get to choose whether I want to take a weekend or weekday off.... this boss was very adamant about working on the weekends.





At the end, he had no intention of offering my a position as designer, even when I asked if it was possible for me to work for him as one in the future, he kinda minced his words and said the chances were very very low. It was an extremely disappointing interview because the boss was so nice and it srarted off so well that I got my hopes so high up that when he pulled that hope back now, it was HARD... Like yanking me by the leg while I am up there so hard he tore a ligament and dislocated my ankle and send me crashing into a bed of rocks at the bottom.



This I have come to the conclusion that the institute is unreliable and inept at looking for decent companies or positions for their candidates, so from this point onward, I am no longer going to rely on them anymore. The first company they send me to just pissed me off and this one was just a colossal disappointment.



Horrible horrible experience, it's no wonder their Facebook page doesn't have that many LIKES. I fucking left my job at the bakery because of them and now I get presented with all this shit job offers, sure. I was happy when I finally found a valid reason to leave the bakery and end all the baking madness, but now that I am stuck at home and not earning any income, I feel like such a waste of space and it's a terrible feeling.