1. I wanted a job that would allow me to focus on Design and Project Management.
2. I wanted a job that would allow me to become a freelance designer.
3. I wanted a job that would provide me with training from a qualified Interior Designer.
4. I wanted a job that will have more local than foreign talents.
Out of all 4 the things I've listed, my last job I got fired from only managed to tick off 2 of them from the checklist, them being Point 1 and Point 3.
Point 1.
The company didn't force me to use AutoCAD to do my space planning, they allowed me to use whatever software I wanted as long as it got the job done, the main reason being the fact that none of the senior designers knew how to use AutoCAD themselves, so it wouldn't be right to force the newer guys to do that, although all the younger designers uses AutoCAD.
Point 3.
I was assigned to a senior designer to train me and she wasn't just a senior designer with 14 years of experience, she was one of the 2 bosses of the company. She knew what she was talking about when she was teaching me stuff and I really wanted to learn from her on the rare occasions she was in the office and had time to teach me stuff.
After getting assigned to her, I just can't imagine why the last company I went to would assign an Interior Designer with just 2 years of experience to train me, it's just so fucking stupid because he honestly can't train for shit, instead of adjusting to teach me things at my pace, he teaches me stuff at his own pace, which was way too fast, he is after all, according to the boss, one of the fastest to learn the ropes out of all the designers in the office, so thanks for overloading me with information that I couldn't absorb at all. I honestly learned nothing from him, it was such a horrible experience, and I'm not even going to get into the first Interior Design firm I joined where I was assigned to a 4 month old designer, that was a fucking joke.
Point 2.
When I said I wanted a Freelance Job, what I meant was a job with a more flexible working hour, that means I wanted to have zero obligation to report to the office everyday from 10.00 am to 7.00 pm. I understand for the first few months, I will have to do that to receive training and learn from the other designers, to get leads etc, but I don't want to have to follow that schedule 2 to 3 years down the road.
I want to be able to plan when I want to come down to the office and when I want to work at home, I'm not going to get paid a basic salary so I shouldn't be obligated to follow a schedule set out by the company, especially one that demands such long working hours from their staff.
My trainer doesn't follow the schedule because she's half a boss, so I don't really see her often at work and she even tells me she doesn't come in on the weekends. She comes in at 12.00 pm after a site visit in the morning and leaves at 6.00 pm in the evening, sometimes she doesn't even come in at all. That's the kind of flexibility I want in a job.
When I had my 2 weekends off and came back to work on Monday, one of the junior designers asked me if I had both my weekends off, I told her I did and she got a bit offended.
"You got Sat and Sun off ? Why do you get to enjoy that privilege? Do you know that all of us here only get 1 weekend off every 2 weeks? If other people hear about this I think they will get really angry."
My biggest gripe with ID3 is definitely their working hours and that's one of the reasons why I felt a little relief when I was fired, just a tiny little bit, I was still mostly sad though.
Point 4
There were a shit tone of Malaysians, like 80% of them are Malaysians, 15% are from China and Indonesia and the remaining 5% are local.
But it really wasn't a big deal in the end because everyone there was really nice, so fuck xenophobia.
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I haven't given up on this Interior Design career yet.
2 weeks did not give me the proper "try" I was looking for. I actually managed to learn quite a fair bit from the trainer but was canned before I could even put the knowledge I had received to use. It's not that I didn't want to talk to the walk-in customers, but during that one occasion I wanted to, I was told by one of the designers in the showroom.....
"Don't worry about it, you just sit down and do your stuff"
....I wasn't given a proper chance because my trainer also didn't think I was ready to talk to the customers. I was told during my interview that the new guys are expected to be able to handle the walk-in clients in less than a month, I was fired before that month even ended, I did not realize that less than a month equates to half a month, what about that third week? if I could talk to customers by then wouldn't that make it less than a month as well?
I think I'm going through the 5 stages of grief right now and I'm in the stage of Anger. I was alright on the first day but now when I think back, I can't help but feel a bit angry.
Even though I had mixed feelings about the job, there were moments when I would think to myself...
"Wow, I actually think I could end up liking this job a lot."
... there were actually moments when I would actually think of how lucky I was to be in ID3, to be taught by an experienced designer and be surrounded by a group of actually nice colleagues. All that was why I didn't throw in the towel despite the horrible work schedule and the influx of information being thrown at me.
This was a good 2 weeks, but it isn't the final try I was looking for.
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