Slow Responders

Reservist is finally over and I am back at work. Getting more customers that are slowly but surely wasting my time.



Sincere customers are few and far, but time wasters are always in abundance. The very first customer lead I received from my company after my reservist was one such time waster...

"Will be busy over the next few weeks so I won't be able to come to the showroom for any consultation appointments."

... Oh really? So why did you bother sending in a renovation enquiry when you are going to be too busy over the next few weeks to meet up with any designers.

I had another customer, whom I first met in March, recently contacting me again.



Back then, he had requested to view a completed project, but since I didn't have any at hand, I told him it will be a while before I could grant his request, he didn't really seem too bothered by it because he wouldn't be getting the keys to his flat until the end of the year, so I also didn't really bother to keep in touch with him, I assumed he was also going to forget about me and start a brand new hunt for an Interior Designer once he got his keys.




I was honestly quite pleasantly surprise by his email for an updated quote, so I updated the quote and send it his way, and he once again requested for a site visit. Well, I have a site now, so I was more than happy to oblige, I drop him a text asking him if he was available, but we had a bit of trouble finding a time that would be convenient for the both of us, so he tells me he will discuss with his wife on their availability and then get back to me shortly.



He never did.



So the very next day, fortunately for him, another customer of mine decided to reschedule an appointment with me, and that opened up my schedule for him, so I dropped him a text, telling him I would be available for the time he had initially requested and asked if he would be interested for the site visit.



No response.

He has responded positively to my request, like 36 hours later. Not very sure if I would actually want to run his project for him, just base on how responsive he is. I really do not like to be left hanging when it comes to confirming an appointment.







Also had another customer who texted me, asking if I could send her the space planning proposal via email because she had forgotten what was discussed. Obviously, I wasn't going to give my space planning proposal to a non-paying customer, so I asked her if it was alright for me to just send her the quotation instead so she can look through it and kinda roughly remember what was discussed, to which she just replied with...

"Hmmm."

... I waited for a proper reply after that because what am I suppose to derive from that vague response. We were suppose to meet this coming weekend, a date has been confirmed, but no timing has been set, and after the last exchange, I really wasn't expecting to hear from her anymore, but then here she was, asking me to send her the proposal, and once again, ending the conversation by not really ending it.



So I waited for a while and then decided, fuck it, I will just send her the quotation, hoping she will actually respond once she has gotten something from me.




No response after that.

She did request for the quotation like a few weeks ago, mere days after our first appointment, and seeing how I had actually wanted to run her renovation project at that time, I denied her request and instead urged her to come down for a second appointment so we can actually discuss the details again in person, and because the quotation had exceeded her budget, giving her a copy of the quotation would be the equivalent of scaring her away permanently, so I kept it to myself and was planning to use that as a motivation to get her to come back, and she went silent for a while until she contacted me again...and blah blah blah, I have talked about this in another post so I am just gonna skip that part.




Well, now that she has finally seen the quotation, I was right into believing that the figures were going to scare her away because she is no longer responding to my messages.



I have tried to confirm our appointment this weekend but she isn't replying, leaving me hanging to let me know she is no longer interested. Awesome! Gotta love customers like this. They can go fuck themselves. 

Joys of a Talkative partner

Reservist has officially begun and I have started doing my guard duties on Monday.



Prior to the start of my guard duties, I was already hearing horror stories of how the ICTs are being mistreated by the active soldiers, such as throwing horrible emplacements for them to cover, getting threatened with charges for the smallest mistakes and in general just being a prick to the all the reservist personnel, which has never been an issue when I was still an active solider, so a lot of shit has changed since the last time I went back.



Thankfully, my reservist commanders were nice enough to help us speak to the active commanders and that really helped us a lot in terms of the emplacements we were assigned to guard.



Originally, I wasn't really too bumped about being place in this particular guard house to do my sentry duties because the last time I came back, all the active soldiers I was paired with were all friendly and open to conversation,  the 6 hour shift was a pain to go through, but the active soldiers made it very bearable, well, that was last year, this year, I had the unfortunate privilege of doing my very first sentry duties with the most disinterested active I have ever fucking met.




Every time I tried to initiate a conversation, he would reply without attempting to carry on the conversation and every attempt of a joke I make gets responded with a dry laugh. His response are always very deadpan to the point where it just comes across as rude and after the first 5 minutes of doing my duty with him, I knew for sure the next 5 hours and 45 minutes was going to be hell.




I made no attempt at trying to converse with him after the first hour of trying because it was just pointless, it was like talking to a wall that I would like to punch every once in a while and after our duty was over, he just bid adieu to me really awkwardly and left. It was a really long and arduous 6 hours, but I made it through, I'm just really really really hoping I won't get paired with him anymore.





So far, my reservist hasn't really affected my work or at least not in a disruptive manner, during my down time, I was able to get my friend to drive me to my job site to overlook some work and then drive me back to camp right after, which was great. The project is almost coming to an end and I was really expecting to start getting my first commission by the end of the month, but my clients suddenly told me they were only able to get certain items delivered by the end of next month, so fuck my life.




Bad news is I won't be getting paid anytime soon, good news is that I will be able to use their flat as a showroom for all my potential clients for the next 2 months.




A few weeks ago, I was ranting about a customer who stopped responding to my text after I turned down her request to email her the quotation, well, she actually dropped me a text a few days ago asking me when we were going to meet for the 2nd appointment.

Luckily I did not delete her sketch up files off my laptop, but then she did that thing again where she stops responding, which is really confusing.

Her : So have we set a time yet.

Me: We have only decided on the date so far.

Her : I see...

Me : Maybe we can confirm the timing again a week before the appointment?

No response after that.

It wasn't my intention for the last question to be rhetorical, and that "..." at the end of her last message is really quite confusing, it makes her message come across as an expression of disappointment.

If she had just written "I see" without the "..." then it would have come across to me as

"Oh, I see, so we will schedule a time then!"

But because she added that "..." in her reply, it just came across to me as....

"I see... so you couldn't even be bothered to confirm a timing with us."

... and it really is coming across strongly as the latter because of how she chose to completely ignore my last question, that "?" I left at the end of the sentence is my way of asking you to confirm something with me, not to leave me hanging so I can assume you might or might not be interested.

I do have a few more potential clients on hand, but honestly, with the next project starting soon and me realizing how much money I am going to get from that project, I just don't feel like this career would be taking me very far financially. 

For this current project, which was closed at $34,000, I am estimated to take in about $2,500, if I'm lucky and don't incur any additional cost.

For my next project, which was closed at $39,000, I am only estimated to take in about $2000, if I'm lucky and don't incur any additional cost. 

Those figures are extremely low, especially for the latter project because by right, I should be raking in $3,400 for the first project and $3,900 for the second project, those figures are healthy profit figures and right now, all my current projects are running at an unhealthy profit margin, which is quite dangerous for me financially. 

Right now, I can still sustain myself financially from my own savings, but I am now spending way more than I will be earning back and the constant decline in my savings account is starting to worry me. I had told myself in the beginning, should my savings drop to a certain number, then it is probably time to look for a job that offers a stable salary, well, now it is getting really close to that number, so I guess that time is coming soon.