Blogger deleted the long post.

I just wrote a long blog post about my work experience thus far and blogger actually went to delete the entire fucking post.


Good fucking job Blogger! Here's a short version instead.




 My CNY break is about to come to an end, work will officially begin on Thursday and the office will once again be filled with even more employees who will be returning from their hometown in China and Malaysia, employees I have yet to meet, not really looking forward to seeing even more new faces because up to now, I have barely gotten to know those I have actually met.





Work so far has been alright, I have been given my first two customer leads but they aren't exactly the customer leads I need at this moment.





The first one is a freeloader who only wrote in to get the free quotation. He wanted to explore several renovation options, so I ended up preparing two separate ones for him, 2 quotations I spend a week working on and he doesn't even bother meeting me at the showroom when I informed him I had completed his quotation, just a simple...

"Can you email me the quotation instead?"

... biggest waste of my motherfucking time. Doesn't even have the basic courtesy of dropping by the showroom so we can meet face to face and have a chat. I spend a whole week not only preparing the quotation, but coming with a space planning proposal, false ceiling proposal as well as lighting proposal and all that just went to waste, he did not even bother asking for those, not that I would have given him because fuck him, but it just shows how insincere he was as a customer.




If a person comes to us and is actually getting the quotation to consider which Interior Designer to hire, then fine, at least that customer is still in the midst of deciding which one of us he wants to hire for our services, but what I abhor about some customers is the fact that they have zero intention of ever hiring us from the start, they only want a quotation from us so they can use it to compare with an Interior Designer they are already planning to hire, to make sure that chosen Interior Designer did not over quote them on certain works.



Wonder why some interior designers don't ever get back to you when you send your requirements to them? It's because we fucking know you are not a serious customer, we know you are only here for the free quotation, you fucking free loaders, still have the audacity to write on public forums talking about the Interior Designer's lack of sincerity, fucking hypocrites.




If you are not sincere about even considering to hire us for our services, why the fuck should we put in the time and effort with your request?





My second lead isn't too bad, except for the fact that she won't be getting her keys till 9 months later, that's long enough to form a baby, needless to say, any meet up I do with her now will be pointless because it's still too long for her to confirm anything with regards to the Interior Design of her yet to be built home. I have reached out to her and invited her to come down to the showroom so we can have a chat, but I highly doubt she will, which is fine since it will be quite a waste of time on both our parts anyway.




I will have to ask for more leads on Thursday, hopefully be given the chance to actually serve some walk-in customers as well.

Potential Customer Woes

Ever since work started, the company has been playing CNY music all day and when it does eventually come to an end, either the boss or a senior designer will walk up to the audio player and play the tracks all over again, now I find myself humming to those CNY music unknowingly at home or in the train.




Today would mark my second week at work and I have not yet been fired, so that is great, I would need to last for another week before I can consider this my longest Interior Design job I've held since 2013 after I ORD from the army.




I still don't really consider myself as an Interior Designer because I haven't really spoken to any of my own clients yet, I did manage to speak to a few customers during the company event over the weekends and I think I am quite lucky to have been able to interact with the friendlier ones.




But I do find a lot of customers are really quite clueless when it comes to how this job actually works, they have no idea how the designers actually get paid and how much profit they actually get from a project. I have worked out the numbers and I can say that on average, if a project cost $10,000, the designers will probably only get $1000 from it, with experienced designers being able to get probably twice that amount,  they would have to manage a site for 6-8 weeks on average for a single project and all they will get from that 1 to 2 months worth of work would be a measly $1000.





It's even more ridiculous when a customer informs the designer they want to hire their own contractors to handle their project and still expects the designer to actually manage the site for that 1 to 2 months.





I actually saw one such moron leaving a 1 star review on the company's Facebook page because he wanted to use his own contractors and no one in the company was interested to handle his project for him.





Fuck You! Almost all Interior Design project's profit margin comes from the Interior Designer's list of sub-contractors, if you come up to a designer and tell them you want to use your own contractors, that is as good as telling the Interior Designer to work for you for free, of course no one is going to give you the time of day. Fucking Dumbass, he even has the audacity to say...

"This gives me the feeling that this reno firm only cares about the total figures."

... no shit Sherlock, this is a job, people are working here to earn a living, this is not a fucking soup kitchen, of course the amount of profit they get at the end of the day is going to determine if you are worth the time and effort.





Just yesterday, the company's Facebook page received 2 new 1 Star reviews from 2 unsatisfied customers, they are a couple so it's not 2 separate cases, and the review was directed towards a 3 month old designer in the company who had missed an appointment with the couple due to some miscommunication, which is really unnerving for me as a newcomer, at least the husband had the decency to keep the designer's identity anonymous, but the wife just didn't give a fuck, she actually went to name the designer in a composition length review, talking about her unpleasant experience with the company, sullying the designer's reputation because of an honest mistake, and now thanks to her scathing review, the designer will probably have a very hard time looking for new customers in the future.


I'm actually going to be given customer leads on Wednesday and I'm really hoping I don't end up getting this kinds of customer as my first case because really, I don't need that kind of demoralization, but it's kind of exciting that I will be getting my first leads, it means I can finally slowly start removing my training boots.




Update : I just found out the reason why the designer "missed" the appointment, it's because the clients didn't confirm with her at all when she scheduled the appointment with them. You don't get the right to come on Facebook and start ranting about the designer's lack of professionalism when you and your husband don't even the basic common sense to confirm the appointment in the first place, come over unannounced and then get pissed off when the designer isn't there to serve you.

No Shit Sherlock!

I have no idea how to describe my working life so far, I'm still in my training boots so I haven't really spoken to any customers yet.

There was a company event today and I was able to interact with some of the customers, it is nice to know that I was able to put what I've learned from ID3 to good use during today's event, such as talking about the different types of material, their pros and their cons, and just giving out completely wrong information at one point.

The customers came in 2 waves, 45 during lunch time and another 45 at 3.30 pm, I sat in with one of the senior designer to listen and learn how to speak to a customer and it really wasn't anything new to me since I do have past experience working as Sales Designer, this isn't exactly my first foray into this field, I've sat in with senior designers multiple times before in ID1 and ID3.

When the event came to an end and everyone was about to knock off from work, one senior designer decided to come up to me and strike up a conversation, I've never really spoken to him before so I was more than happy to talk to him and get to know him better, and he begins the conversation with...

"So what did you learn today? You sat in with a senior just now right?"

.. I thought he meant for the conversation to be a lighthearted exchange between 2 colleagues, so I just gave a patronizing laugh, which is my way to saying I have no comment, so please change the topic, but instead of giving me advice like...

"Learn and try to absorb so you can serve customers and start making money."

or

"This job isn't easy, but just persevere." 

... and then either walk away or change the topic, he just looks at me, completely serious, and goes...

"So? ......What did you learn today?"

... I had nothing to say because I really didn't learn anything today, It was more of an experience of knowing what it would be like to actually talk to a customer and not so much to learn anything from the designer, when he realize I wasn't giving him an answer, he goes.....

"Wow, so you did not learn anything today, that's not a good sign. Tell me what did you learn today?"

....I was just at a complete loss for words, so I kept going Ummm...., thinking he would maybe get that I did not have anything to say and move on, but he was so insistent at trying to draw an answer out of me, he just kept asking and asking, it was so exasperating, I had to make shit up as I went along, and every time I manage to pull some bullshit out of my ass, he would go...

"Uh huh, and? Uh huh, and? And what else? Uh huh, and?"

.... Oh My Fucking Gawd. I hate it when people pull that fucking bullshit, when they ask you a question and are looking for a specific answer, but instead of trying to end your misery by actually telling you what they want, they just prolong the torture by going "and? and? and? and? and?".

He did eventually stop the irritating "and? and? and?" and just told me straight what he was looking for, which was...

"The customer needs to be comfortable talking to you."

In my head, my reaction went from this....

to this....

Because really? That's the answer you are expecting from me? I mean for fuck sake, isn't that fucking common sense? 

What a useless fucking conversation, that's like asking a new Mum what she learned after watching a breastfeeding video and expecting the answer to be something along the line of...

"I learn that my baby drinks milk using his/her mouth."

Get the fuck outta here!

Notice Me!

Turns out after I left the company dinner yesterday, a shit load of people got really drunk and started vomiting all over the floors of the hotels' toilet, that's what happens when a person drinks half a bottle of red wine each.




Just the process of them getting glammed up in the afternoon, wearing their best dress, literally caking their face with make up products and getting ready for the event, only to end up on the toilet floor soaked in their own vomit hours later is really quite sad and comical at the same time.




Work has been alright lately, I like the working hours and I like the office, but what I don't like are my colleagues, not everyone of them are horrible, there are a few nice ones, but those are few are far between. For example, and I'm talking about one of them shitty ones, there is this one guy who just doesn't give a single fuck, I was looking at him right in his fucking face, smiling and saying goodbye to him when I was knocking off from work today and he just looked elsewhere and ignored me completely.

Dafaq?

NOTICE ME! You Fuck!

I have work on Sunday as well, not really looking forward to having to interact with them. It sucks that the ones I do talk to, the ones who actually invites me to join them for lunch, aren't scheduled to work on the same days as me, I do still see them in the morning until the late afternoon, but they always tend to leave before dinner and what I need right now are dinner buddies.

As awkward as I had imagined....

The Company Dinner this evening went pretty much how I imagine it would.


The mingling session from 6.30 pm to 7.30 pm was so uncomfortable I just wanted to dig a hole and hide. For the first 5 minutes or so, I was just wandering around the foyer, sipping my cup of sprite as I waited for the doors to the banquet hall to open, the foyer was quite crowded but I knew no one there, I hardly spoke to anyone during my first 2 days of work, and being the reserved person that I am, I didn't want to go up to someone in the foyer and go...

"Hey. Talk to me."

... I was waiting for someone to notice me and come talk to me, that did not happen until about 15 minutes later, when one of my colleague came up and introduced her friend to me, that "chat" lasted for about 2 minutes before it just became awkward silence.




As I was standing at the table with my colleague and her friend, wondering in my mind what topic I should talk about to make the quiet go away, I notice a shit tonne of the girls were busy taking selfies, they were all dress to the nines to suit the party's theme "The Great Gatsby" and it was insane how many selfies they were taking, I've never seen so many girls in one place all taking selfies before, so it was really quite shocking to see girls just posing and looking pretty for the camera everywhere I turn, when they see a colleague walk past them, they will pull them into the picture.





The girls were all wearing dresses and the guys were all wearing suits, almost everyone was taking the theme very seriously, and then there I was, standing awkward on my own, sipping my third cup of sprite, wearing my best "I don't give a fuck about the theme" shirt and jeans, carrying my bag pack and looking completely out of place. I kinda felt like I was insulting the people who were dress so glamorously, the amount the time they must have taken to do their make up,  to pair their dress with matching accessories, the research they must have done to style themselves according to the fashion standards of the 1920s and then there is me, spending less than 10 minutes deciding what to wear and then putting it on in the bathroom.




Some of the girls looked good in their make up, others just went a little overboard, there were many girls who were many shades lighter than how they usually looked,  there was that one girl who did not blend her contouring properly I could literally see the brown lines that were suppose to make her nose look smaller on her nose, when contouring is done right, it's suppose to end up looking like a shadow, hers look like some kid had taken a brown marker that was low on ink and drew it over her nose multiple times.




Finally, the banquet doors open after an hour and the employees were first invited to step into the hall to take a group photo, we took a total of 3 photos, the first one was a formal one, the second one was a photo of everyone giving 2 thumbs up *cough* so tacky *cough*, and the last one was a freestyle picture, I'm sure I'm going to look terrible in everyone one of them.



Once the photos were taken, all the other invited guest were ushered into the banquet hall, that includes all the sub-contractors, the material suppliers and even some interior design website representatives. I specifically chose to sit right beside my college who had introduced me to her friend earlier and on my other side is another colleague of mine I had spoken to on my first day during lucnh, I was trying to surround myself with people I felt comfortable turning to and have a conversation with, but then suddenly, one girl who was sitting right across from me goes...

"Let's change seats, so it's all girls on one side of the table and all guys on the other!"

... I have never spoken to anyone on her side of the table, so my instant thought was just "Well, fuck!". I barely spoke to anyone during the banquet itself.




 A host soon takes the stage and starts welcoming everyone to the event, she introduces herself and invites the boss on stage to give a speech, I clapped and smiled when he made jokes and everyone laughed to make myself feel involved, when he finishes his speech, the host returns and goes...

"Let's enjoy the Belly Dancing performance!"

... now that was some funny shit, I had heard the boss talking about a belly dancing performance during the company meeting yesterday, but I thought he was just making a joke, I was totally not expecting there to actually be belly dancers at such a formal event, but there they were, 3 women, making their way to the stage, wearing their belly dancing garb, tits out, midriffs showing, their butts were popping to the beat of the music. I sat there in a moment of disbelief as the belly dancers started their belly dancing routine, when I regained my composure, I just kept averting my eyes away from them, I felt like I was seeing something I wasn't suppose to see, it was so weird.




Midway through one of the belly dancer's solo dance, for some reason, one table decides to give a toast, and they start going...

"YUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMM"

... , just getting louder and louder, the belly dancer continues dancing but notices the commotion...

"SENG!"

Talk about being the worst audience ever, let's drown out the music with our Yum Seng so the belly dancer will lose her rhythm. She didn't though, she just kept dancing, I'm not actually sure if she lost her rhythm or not because at that point, I was still averting my eyes from the performance out of pure awkwardness.

When the performance was over, it was time for the first half of the company lucky draw, according to the boss, it was a sure win draw for all the employees, I wasn't really sure if I would be included in the draw, seeing how I had only started 2 days ago, so I wasn't hopeful.

After a few names were drawn and announced, the host decided that she wanted to let people in the audience draw the lots, to make things more fun and let the audience feel more involved, she walks around the room, asks for some people to draw for her and finally arrives at the table I was seated at and goes...

"Here, let's let this handsome guy draw the lot."

.. I was looking away so I didn't know she was talking about me, until she repeated herself and had the bowl right in my face, and then she asks me that question I knew she was going to ask...

"Why are you so quiet?"

... I hate it when people ask me this question, I'm shy, that's why I'm so quiet, I have no friends here, that's why I'm so quiet, the place is loud, that's why I'm so quiet.

So I told her...

"I'm new here." 

... and her response to that was....

"If you are new here, shouldn't you be more open and talk to more people to make more friends?"

Sarcasm

Yeah, I would if it was actually that simple for me, but it's not, so stop offering me stupid advice.

Anyways, before I stuck my hand into the bowl to draw the lots, the host starts asking the crowd..

"Do you wish for Timothy to draw his own name?"

... she had asked this question when other people were helping her draw the lots as well and every time, everyone else will scream "Yes!", because the point of this lucky draw is to not get picked until much later on, when the prizes start getting better, and people obviously want the better prizes for themselves, unfortunately for me, no one in the company really cared if I drew my own name, the crowd's reaction to the host question was just silence, it was so fucking awkward I was cringing until eventually, someone from my table just shouted "Yes!" to save me from that awkwardness.

That is why I don't want to go for this company event only after being with the company for 2 days, because of situations like this.As if being in a completely new and foreign environment isn't bad enough, let's throw in the lack of enthusiasm from your colleagues to make you feel even more out of place and unwelcome.

The prizes from the first half of the lucky draw were all vouchers, I didn't think they would be much, I was honestly expecting $20 vouchers but holy shit, they were all actually $100 Takashimaya Vouchers, a total of 16 people got the $100 Takashimaya Vouchers each, and that is supposedly the worst gift.

The second half of the lucky draw started about an hour later and amazingly enough, the company actually did throw my name into the bowl for the draw, I manage to get myself a voucher for a pretty expensive floor fan...

Fan Q by Stadler Form

... I was eyeing this fan in the past when I wanted to get a fan for my room, but never made the purchase because at $230.00, it was a bit too pricey for a floor fan, now I get to have it for free.

When my name was called and as I made my way to the stage, the host made a joke about me receiving a newcomer award, I thought it was funny, but at the same time, in my head, I kept imagining what the Hiring Manager must have been thinking when she passes me the voucher must be along the lines of....

"You were suppose to get the $100 Takashimaya Vouchers, you lucky fuck, only been here for 3 days and you get to go home with a $230 fan paid for by the company, "

... I felt undeserving of the prize because I haven't really contributed anything to the company yet, but it's a cool prize, I dig it. I have to collect it from the company's office where I work at, wish they would have just given me the fan there and then, so I don't have to go through the process of actually asking them for that undeserving prize.

As the night went on, wines starting flowing non-stop from the bottles to the glasses, everyone was going table to table, either carrying a glass of wine or the whole bottle of it,  toasting each other and drinking, pouring even more and drinking, my colleague whom I had wanted to sit next to got really drunk, she was laughing at everything and the girl who requested to switch seats with me was completely red in the face from ingesting all that alcohol, wines were being spilled all over the table and I could actually see the look of annoyance on the waitress when she had to come over to clean up the mess.



It was so awkward because at one point, everyone from my table had gone towards the other tables, toasting the other colleagues, so I was actually sitting alone at my table, I just felt like a fish out of water. There were some who came over my table to give a group toast and a lot of them cling my cups as well out of friendliness, which I appreciated.

But there was this one girl who came by my table that just wasn't interested in making me part of her toasts,she was dressed in a rather revealing dress, her tattoos were showing through all the cuts and she was holding a bottle of red wine in her hand, and honestly speaking, when I first saw her today at the foyer, the first word that came to my mind was "cheap", and now that she was a little tipsy and was actually holding a bottle of wine in one hand and a half full glass of wine in another, she literally looks like one of those bar hostesses in a sleazy bar that dirty old men patronize. She was standing right beside me as she offered to toast everyone else at the table, and I just sat there, a little unsure if I should participate, I got up and tried to cling my glass with her after she gave her speech, that I did not understood at all, in Chinese, but everytime I tried to connect our glasses, hers just went deeper and deeper towards the center of the table, so I just thought "Fucking New Year to you too" and sat back down, but my colleague who was sitting next to me , the one whom I was bitching about in my last post, noticed I hadn't taken part in that toast and actually clinged my glass and went "Cheers to you too" before sitting down. Now I just feel like an asshole for thinking she was a bitch.

Needless to say, by the time the event ended, everyone who was drinking had red wine stained teeth, some people were getting red in the face and some were just laughing at every single thing. The moment the event ended, I was just glad it was over and got the hell out of there, the whole night has been extremely awkward for me, I would never want to experience that again, that $230.00 fan is not worth that level of social anxiety I had to go through tonight. If I manage to stay in this company long enough until, maybe the next company event next year won't be as painful as tonight, that is if I manage to keep my job and don't get fired.

Another First Day of Work

It is my first day of work today, after a month and a half of being jobless, I should be looking forward to finally becoming a working adult again, but I really wasn't, in fact, I wasn't even sure if today was actually going to be my first day of work. The moment I woke up today, the first thought that came to my mind was...

"How am I going to tell the boss I am not interested in the position any more?"

Starting a brand new job with such thoughts running through my mind is surely the best way to usher in the new year. 

For days, I've been contemplating the best way to turn down the job offer, I didn't want to out-rightly tell them I no longer wanted the job, that was unprofessional, especially after I had called them to ask them about my application status 2 weeks ago, instead, what I wanted was for them to deem me unsuitable for the position and have them think that they are the ones who made that decision, but alas, I couldn't think of shit, so I ended up signing the contract.

What really caught my eye about the contract, because I actually read the entire contract, was that if I got fired or quit the company, I am not legally allowed to work for any Interior Design Company within a 5 km radius of ID4, that's the first time I have heard of a company issuing a restraining order.

When the deed was done and every page of the contract had my signature on it, the boss runs me though the list of things I am going to have to learn, what I have to do and proceeds to hand me a thick stack of paper filled with all the sub-contractors' contact information and price list, it was extremely overwhelming looking at all the product codes I didn't understand, there wasn't any pictures in the price list to show me what I was looking at, it was just product code and price,a vague explanation of a piece of wood and price, and then he instructs me to follow him out of his office so he could introduce me to my new colleagues. It really wasn't much of an introduction.

Back in ID3, when I was being introduced to the colleagues, I was being introduced to all the colleagues, even those working in the sister company, but in ID4, the boss skips all the in-house designers and goes straight to the sales designers, so out of the 8 or so people who were in the office today, I was only officially introduced to 2 people.

Once introductions were out of the way, I picked my seat in the gorgeous showroom, I was working in the kitchen section of the showroom today which was interesting, and was soon presented with 8 different floor plans to do space planning with, the aim was for the boss to gauge my skill, I have until next Tuesday to complete all 8 floor plans, that is 7 more floor plans than what ID3 had given me during my training period, so I'm going to have things to do for the entire week at work.

When I had settled down, as I was staring at the floor plans and price list , I have to admit, I wasn't very happy with what I had gotten myself into, the feeling I felt was very similar to my first day at ID2, just this strong urge to quit the job and go home, never to return again, just stay at home and play Planet Coasters, I felt very regretful signing that contract and not telling the hiring manager or the boss how I really felt, I was too chickenshit to call the Hiring Manager after my confirmation was because I had thought they were already in the midst of preparing the contract, turns out they didn't and the contract was prepared right on the spot today, I really should have known better that it would be so simple, I use to update contracts at my Dad's company before and they always take less than 10 minutes to complete and print.

Fortunately, as the day went by, that feeling of regret and that urge to quit slowly faded away, which brought me a sense of relief because it never went away when I worked at ID2, it only became worst there, purely due to the frustration of being "trained" by an individual who didn't know how to actually train a newcomer.

Right now, ID4 feels a bit like ID3, there are times when I would look at my new colleagues and just wish they were my old colleagues from ID3, despite only spending 2 weeks there, I felt welcomed by everyone and could actually see myself becoming friends with a lot of them, unfortunately, the colleagues in ID4 aren't as friendly as those in ID3, well, maybe it is only 1 particular person who rubbed me the wrong way. She came across as rude when I saw her during my second interview and meeting her for the second time today kinda cemented my distaste for her.

She was very distant and unwelcoming when I saw her walking into the office today, as she walked past me, I was looking at her and smiling, hoping she will notice me and at least exchange a smile to acknowledge the newcomer, but instead, all she does is glance at me for a split second without turning her head.....

... and then just walks away. Rude! And she looks so displease when she does it, like looking at me for that split second has been a major waste of her time. 

Anyways, I have gotten over that whole "regret signing the contract" phase for now, I'm hoping it won't return tomorrow, but one thing I do like about this company is how flexible the working schedule is.

For this month, it's a day of work followed by an off day, since I'm expected to report to work everyday, the days I'm supposed to be off will instead be days I can report to work and leave work anytime I want. Compared to the working hours at ID3, this flexibility sounds almost too good to be true, well, it isn't that fantastic because I'm not actually getting paid a basic salary, but still, I can get used to this.

There is going to be this Company Dinner on Thursday that I am not looking forward to at all, kinda wished I knew about this Company Dinner prior to the confirmation, then I could have changed my Date of Availability to after that Company Dinner