It's not just the first electrician...

After the horrible experience I had with my first electrician, I decided that I was no longer going to use his services and instead, look for the electrician that majority of my colleague in my company uses. They had good things to say about him, so I was optimistic that it will be a much more pleasant experience then my first.

At the start, the experience was great, the workers he send down on the very first day were competent and they were able to get all the electrical works done within a day, I was with my client that day and even he complimented at how experienced they were, things were optimistic and I was really happy that I was finally rid of the first electrician.

A few days passes by and the flow of the project was going well, I had some hiccups with the uplifting of goods and the masonry works, but they were all quickly rectified by the contractors the very following day after I brought up my concerns with them. 

Today, I get woken up by a phone call from my tiler, and when I get such a call early in the morning, it can't be anything good. So he calls me up and told me that the electricity in the unit had been cut off, that there was no way for his workers to continue work without their electrical equipment, I quickly contacted the electrician right after to send some of his men down to help me rectify what was causing the issue, since I had just gotten up, I was mumbling quite a bit and that irritated the electrician quite a bit, which was fucking ironic because he himself is also guilty of mumbling, but anyways, after rudely going "huh?" at me a few times, he understood my request and went...

"Okay okay. Text me the address."

... as I have stated, he mumbles, so I kept asking nicely for him to repeat himself, which really irritated him, but once I finally understood what he was mumbling, I did as he requested and send the address to him via Whatsapp, he doesn't tell me what time his worker will actually go down to my site, so I called him again to check exactly what time he will bring his workers there, and he goes...

"Around 12.00 pm to 1.00 pm."

... I was assured that he would go down at the time he had told me, so I relayed that information to my tiler and decided that I should probably also drop by the site to see the progress of the work.




I reach the site at around 11.30 am and only one worker was present, sitting on the floor having his lunch, not really able to do much due to the lack of any electricity, he tells me that the other workers have been relocated to other job site around the area while he waited for the electrician to come and fix the electricity. So I spoke with him a bit, told him the electrician will arrive shortly, and waited a little while, hoping the electrician would show up soon so I can at least be on site to explain to them what needed to be done and actually see for myself that the issue was fixed.

12.30 pm passes and at this point, I was ready to leave, I have already taken all the pictures I needed to show my clients, I have already seen what I needed to see, measured what I needed to measure, so I told the tiler I was going to leave first and left for my other site. I was very skeptical whether or not the electrician would be there but I remain relatively hopeful that he would show up, thinking that if he didn't show up, my tiler would call me up before 2.00 pm and actually inform me about it so I can double check with the electrician if he is coming over. 

So the period from 1.00 pm to 2.00 pm, I was nervously anticipating a call from my tiler, thinking that if he doesn't call after 2.00 pm, that would mean the electrician has dropped by and rectified the issue. I mean it doesn't make sense for the worker to just sit around and doing nothing for the entire day without asking his boss why the electrician isn't here yet when the designer has personally dropped by to let him know that the electrician will be arriving by 1.00 pm.

Well, for a short period after the 2.00pm mark, I wasn't really thinking too much about the electrician, in fact, I was a little surprised that he delivered as promised, because I have heard from my other colleagues before that despite this electrician being a lot better than the first one I worked with, he still had his own issues, such as being a complete no-show sometimes. The possibility of him doing that to me ran through my head a few times, but I kept thinking, if something was amiss, my tiler will let me know about it, and since it has already been an hour pass the stipulated timing, everything must be going smoothly for my phone to remain so quiet.

And then I finally receive a call at 4.10 pm from my tiler....

"Your electrician hasn't come yet? Is he going to be coming today? We are going to knock off soon, my worker has been waiting for the past few hours, unable to do any work. If the electrician can't make it, then he should have just said that right from the start instead agreeing to come and then not showing up at all, he just completely wasted my worker's time."

.... somehow, I am not surprised, my tiler was angry, but his anger wasn't directed at me, I didn't really feel angry, just felt really sian, that what could have been an entire day of progress, has been reduced to the workers either waiting around doing nothing, or getting send to another site to work on other projects.




Just the idea that the progress those workers were able to make at the other site could've been done at my site is what really grinds my gear. The amount of work that could have been accomplished today, completely gone because the fucking electricity decided to give in.

When I called the electrician to tell him about his absence, I literally told him...

"You didn't come down today"

....he doesn't even sound remorseful for not showing up, he just carries on the conversation like he did nothing wrong, and then tells me he will send his guys down tomorrow, which was not even convincing at all, I was the one who said...

"You didn't come down today, so my tiler has left, come down tomorrow morning instead."

... I made the mistake of making it come across as just a trivial mistake on his part, like..

"Oh, you didn't come today, well that's alright, no damage done, just make sure to pop by tomorrow."

....which was fucking stupid of me because it is not fine to be a complete no show, and the way I said it made it sound like I was a pushover, so he just went...

"I tomorrow morning send my guys down."

Doesn't ask me to text him the address and number lock, just saying it for the sake of getting the conversation over and done with, it's like I was talking to a fucking parrot who's just repeating the last few words I am saying.



I really should learn to emulate my senior colleagues or my boss when I speak to the contractors




All my other contractors are fine, they actually treat me like a client....

When my haulage guy forgot to uplift all the tiles and cement for me, which resulted in a few stolen items, he was so apologetic about it and kept apologizing to me profusely, going so far as to replace those stolen items for me.

When my tiler forgot to order the necessary materials for me for my first site project, he was very apologetic about it and got one of his own workers to personally deliver the materials up to my site.

When my carpenter couldn't show up for a site visit due to a family emergency and had to send his worker to replace him, he kept apologizing to me about it and he made it up with good service.

But when both the electricians that I have used so far does a no show for an agreed appointment, they just give zero fucks. Not apologetic at all whatsoever, doesn't care if they have wasted your time and energy, just completely fuck all and then sometimes complaint that the work I have given them is not even worth their time and effort, that I should be feeling honored that they are willing to accept my job

What really irks me about this whole situation was the fact that my electrician only read my text at 3.05pm, a text I had send to him at 10.00am.

That means by the time he read that message, he already knew he was 2 hours late, but for some reason, doesn't bother to call me to tell me he was going to be late or not going to make it, just decides...

"Well fuck it, since I am already 2 hours late, I might as well not go at all today."

... what the actual fuck? What kind of bullshit work ethic is this?

If you can't make it, say you can't fucking make it, don't just keep quiet. I did not call for shits and giggles.

I guess switching electrician isn't going to make the electrical work aspect of any of my renovation projects easy, my company has 4 electrician contacts, I have used 2 and so far, these 2 have been horrible pieces of shit, I heard the third one also has issues with punctuality and the inability to give a fuck about responding to text messages, so I guess for the third project, I am going to have to try using the fourth one, the brand new electrician that was only recently introduced into the company that hopefully won't be a stench filled experience.

End It Soon

My third renovation project has officially started on Monday, but it felt like it only truly began today when all the cement and tiles were brought up to the barren flat.




The problem with the tiles and cement being brought up today is the fact that it was supposed to be brought up yesterday, they were sitting on the first level, exposed to the elements but wrapped tightly in plastic wraps, so it wasn't exactly unprotected, but I can't help feeling a bit unease knowing that at least a thousand dollar worth of tiles and cement material was just sitting right in the open, ready for anyone to just come by and grab.



I only realized that the items were still on the first level when my tiler actually called me up and was rather impatiently questioning me where the tiles and cement were, telling me all his workers were already on site just waiting idly. Naturally, I got extremely flustered and proceed to call the person who was suppose to bring the material up for me, he was extremely apologetic for forgetting and quickly send his men to my site within 30 minutes, so I call up my tiler and inform him that the workers were arriving and the goods will be uplifted soon, to which he replied...

"Some of the items have been stolen."

... and that wasn't the end of it

"Some of the bags of cement have been soaked by the rain, don't think can be used anymore."

So someone actually decided that since he or she had ran out of or was lacking material, he or she would help himself to my pile by ripping the plastic protection sheet open, grabbing the materials he or she needed and leave my bags of cement exposed in the the rain.

Okay, stealing my shit is bad enough, but leaving the other items out in the rain, fully aware that they will get damage when they get wet? Just goes to show what a fucking huge cunt the thief is.

Thankfully, the bags of cement were used immediately once they were brought up to the flat, so nothing was wasted, but items were stolen, so they had to be replaced and thankfully, the contractor who was in-charge of bringing my goods up offered to bear the cost of the stolen items for me since he felt that this whole thing could have been avoided had he actually brought the items up when I told him to. I don't really blame him though, since it was an honest mistake and he was really apologetic.





Things so far are going alright with the site, I'm afraid I may be short of tiles though, so that is worrying, my client also paid a visit in the evening and pointed out a few errors he spotted to me, which was horrible because those mistakes are legit mistakes that had to be rectified and this is only the first week.




Speaking of rectification, I will soon be completing my very first renovation project, finally, after so many months, the final works will commence tomorrow, of course, with how extremely particular this couple are, I am foreseeing a very difficult period of rectification works for them before I can finally handover the project to them that is to their satisfaction.




Every single small imperfections is heavily scrutinized by the wife it's really quite an ordeal for me as their designer, the slightest chipping of paint gets labelled as a defect, the slighest scratches, defective, it's almost as if they are expecting my contractors to be robots, it is ridiculous, zero room for human error.

When I get a message of them with a picture of the so called defect, it doesn't look good, I will admit that much, but when I actually make my way down to take a look at the problem on site, it will be this small little patch at the corner that hardly anyone will notice, it is bloody insane.I sometimes feel almost jealous of the other interior designers that they have turn down, just the fact that they don't have to deal with the level of scrutiny  I have and will be going through soon.

Just a month back, I was having a back and forth with them about some issues with their switches. The switches works perfectly fine, but they do not like the colour because it isn't exactly the same colour as the one provided by HDB, which they find is an eyesore.

Once again, very small aesthetic issue, the color difference is slight, but because they are who they are, that just screamed defect to them, and so I explain to them that this isn't something my side can control, it just so happens that the manufacturers for the switches decided for some reason that they were no longer going to produce the original white color switches anymore, now that they are only selling the off white variants. The off white model and original white models are literally sold as the same model, so this is really a manufacturer issue that is completely out of my control...

"This isn't right, why are the color of the switches different? You have to change it for us."

... and they were so persistent it was bordering on straight up annoyance. I explain to them if they wanted the colors of the switches to match, they can change all the switches by HDB, since I could no longer get the original white ones anymore, they were okay with changing but they did not want to fork out any money for it because according to them, this is something that should have been provided from the start.

Ummmm, hold the fuck up, are you kidding me? Provided from the start? I provided you the switches and the labor to connect and install the switches, that's what I'm suppose to provide, how the fuck was I suppose to predict that the manufacturer would want to change the base colour of the switches, why the fuck should it be my responsibility to change the switches for you for free?  

You don't see me going to a Koi Bubble Tea shop and demanding them to give me free pearls because I wanted the original black color ones but they are now selling the golden ones without my consent.






Makes no fucking sense. White was the original base color, but now the new base color is off white, so get on with the program! I keep telling them this is not within my control, this is not my problem, but it just doesn't register in their heads and they keep insisting for me to change because...

"It is to be expected."

You want the switches to be of a different colour, then you fork out the bloody money to change the switches. I stupidly agreed to change 2 switches for them when they first brought this issue up because I got annoyed with their constant nitpicking, and since it was only 2 switches, I didn't think too much of it, but my electrician is charging me an exuberant price for it because he is another fucking issue to deal with, so obviously, I am not going to agree to change all the switches for them for free.

Now that the renovations are close to completion, they brought the issue up again, and this time, asking me to change all the switches for them for free, again,  the husband is telling me he will source for his own switches, that if he found the white ones supplied by HDB, I will install those for him for free and refund him for all the switches provided by my electrician, even ends the text with

"Sounds Good?"

No! It doesn't sound good? It sounds like a bloody pain in the fucking ass. My electrician won't be agreeable to the refund, so I will be the one who has to refund him from my own wallet, and I have no fucking clue when he will actually be able to source for the switches, a week from now? A month from now? A year from now? Then what? I'm suppose to just get my electrician down and fix the switches for him? This electrician charges me $100 per trip at least, add that to the ridiculous $200 refund... that's going to cost me a good $300 because the switches are of a different shade?

Now I'm worried that once I actually handover the flat to them, they will be coming back to me with all kinds of minor issues, using the warranty provided by my company as an excuse.

"Oh, the paint has chipped off, it's covered under the warranty so come and fix it."

"Oh, my shirt got ripped when I was cleaning it in the washing machine, I'm sure it has something to do with the plumbing, come and get me a new shirt."

"Oh, I burnt my tongue when I was drinking my cup of tea, the electricity must have been to blame for the kettle boiling my water above 100 degrees, come and pay my medical bills for me."

I was looking forward to ending the project and no longer viewing them as clients but friends, but with the recent events that has transpired and will transpire in the not too distant future, my disdain towards them is slowing just growing bigger and bigger.

Public Transport Annoyance

I am relatively lucky that work starts a little later than the regular 9 to 5, so there isn't always a huge crowd when I board the trains or buses, but there are still passengers and most of the time, when the train reaches my station, all the seats will either be taken up by passengers from the last few stations, or they will get bombarded by impatient aunties who are waiting for the train at the same station as me.

Yesterday was no exception, available seating was scarce but standing space was aplenty, so I decided to just stand at the corner right next to the MRT doors like I normally would and just remain at that position until I reach my stop.  

My personal space was pretty much respected as more and more commuters started entering the train, and since I was standing at the side of the train door that won't open for the entirety of my journey, it felt like a pretty good spot, that was until this one old man boarded.

When I first saw him enter, I didn't really pay much attention to him, there was still plenty of standing space around and seeing how feeble he looked, I assumed someone who give up their seat for him, but then as I was using my phone, I could see from my peripheral vision that he was coming closer to closer to my corner, he grabs the pole right beside where I was standing and then just stands right in my corner, with his back facing me. 

 Like this, one hand holding a walking stick and another hand grabbing the metal pole right beside me. 

There was plenty of standing space with handles to grab, I have no idea why he decided to stand where he stood, but it was extremely uncomfortable because it was so bloody close and because his back was facing me, he wasn't really aware how close he was to me, or he really just doesn't give a fuck, but I didn't want to ask him to fuck off, so I just accepted the fact that I was going to be trapped by him until I reach my destination.

As the train started to move, someone finally stands up and offers her seat to the old man, she gets up and slowly makes her way over to him, to usher him to her seat and normally, the one being offered the seat will move forward and head towards the seat, but for some reason, this old man decides to move backwards, as if trying to give way to the girl, which made the amount of space I had available even tighter than it already was.

At this point, the whole thing just got extremely uncomfortable and I was getting really annoyed by this old fart who wasn't moving towards the seat that was offered to him, so I used my phone and kinda nudged at his backpack, to kind of indicate to him that someone was standing behind him and he should really stop moving backwards unless he wanted to get shanked by my Samsung phone, he stops moving backward but he doesn't make any attempt to move forward to get out of my personal space.

The girl that had offered her seat was standing beside me at this point and right in front of me, well not really right in front of me because what was right in front of me was the back of this old fart, was this empty seat that was offered to the old man, but where was the old man? Still standing right in front of me and at this point, he was just way too close for comfort, so I slowly tried to inch my way out awkwardly, pushing his bag away from me so I could make a big enough space to leave the small maximum security prison cell he had created for me with his body, and as I was awkwardly standing midway out of the prison of his body, he finally inches forward and heads towards the seat, my hands were on his bag at this point, so I slowly pushed him away from me and got him out of my personal space, a small part of me wished I could have just pushed him and shouted "Get the fuck outta here!', but I'm not an asshole, so I didn't do that.

But nothing much happened really, I was just really irritated by the old man so I was in a mood when I finally reached my destination and as I was taking the escalator, I had to be standing behind two foreigners who were hold a big bag of stuff, their friends were a few meters in front of them and some were already at the top of the escalator waiting for them at the side.

Now this is pretty much common sense, but once you have gotten off the escalator, you either continue moving forward or you move to the side if you are planning to wait for someone, what you don't do is stop right where you got off and block the fucking traffic.

This 2 dumb fucks, the moment they reach the top, instead of moving to the side, they just stop right in front of the fucking escalator, I actually had to take a step back when I reached the top because they were blocking the way, but I quickly inched forward and pushed their bags away with the tip of my phone, making sure to make a very loud "Tsk!" sound as I moved past them and was cursing at them under my breath, needless to say, I got even more irritated after that, luckily I only had a bad morning, the rest of the day went by relatively smoothly, met some clients and had a very late lunch, just mundane work stuff.

Speaking of mundane work stuff, I will be starting my third project tomorrow. At this point, I still haven't receive any of my commission yet because the first project is currently on a standstill and I didn't realize that I actually had to inform the finance department of the projects I have completed. 2 weeks I waited, thinking the company was processing and calculating my commission, turns out I actually had to tell them about it.

I'm estimating a meager $1,200 commission from that project, that will be my first pay cheque since January 2017, really kind of insane how I have not been receiving any sort of income for the past 9 months, gosh, it's this kind of realization that really makes me question the viability of this career path in the long run.

I have been considering looking for a career that would offer me a much more stable salary once my all my project has been completed, which will tentatively be after Chinese New Year, because it really isn't a realistic option for me in the long run.

Roadshow Happenings

Just got back from a roadshow event that was rather happening, I was suppose to leave the event at 1 pm, but my boss kept asking me to "cover" for my colleagues, the ones who were going to stay the whole day, while they went for lunch, so I ended up leaving at 3.30 pm.

I was able to get my hands on a few new customer leads and it's nice to get customers who are actually looking for an interior designer and not just emailing in looking for free quotations that being said, there was a couple who were pretty blatant about looking for a quotation, just right off the bat...

"Let's get to the point, we are planning to start work in 2 weeks so we are really looking for the an interior firm that will offer the best quotation at this stage."

... they weren't rude about it, in fact they were really friendly, but looking for an Interior Designer and expecting them to start work in 2 weeks, that's pretty much an impossibility, this stage should have been done at least a month ago, I mean they will probably only really confirm a designer next week, and that only gives them about a week to confirm the design, to shop for the tiles, to apply the necessary renovation permits and have those approved, there is no way in hell they will be able to start work in 2 weeks, even if they were to confirm a designer tomorrow, there is still no way they are going to start renovation work that soon. 

So they were pretty straightforward with a few of their cost related enquries and at this point, I just kinda lost any interest in running their project for them, I really wanted to get the conversation over and done with so I can move on, and since they were only really looking for cost figures, the conversation was pretty much them asking me...

"How much do you charge to hack a wall per foot run ?"

"How much will hacking the floors cost per square feet ?"

"How much will it cost to lay floor tiles on the walls and floors?"

... and I just gave them whatever information I knew, marking up the price slightly higher than I normally would sell to other customers, I did not give them figures that would be specific to their home measurements, instead, what I gave them was unit price and they just jotted everything down on this stack of paper with all the measurements written on it, it is really quite amazing to see the amount of effort they have put into their renovation, but alas, I just can't see them starting work in 2 weeks.

Whilst at the event, I also managed to catch a glimpse of my old customers speaking to other designers from the other design firms, well not very old, literally met them 2 weeks ago, not too sure if they saw me, but I saw them making their way towards the lower floor, didn't bother to go up to them and greet them, I wanted to, but decided against it, I don't think they would have been too excited to see me either because they stop responding to my emails.





I get that customers normally don't respond back when they are no longer interested because they are not comfortable at rejecting an Interior Designer, but I feel that not responding back is even ruder.

The first time I met them, I asked them if they had visited other Interior Design firms before, to which they replied I was the first one and they really didn't know what to expect from such a visit.

Since that was the first visit, I shared with them the services I will offer them for free at the early stages and told them I will email them the quotation when I was done, so they could take a look at the final figure and decide if my price was within their budget, we spoke for a little over an hour and then they left, I emailed them the quotation, thinking if they were interested, they would email me back to schedule a follow up appointment, and I wrote in the email that if the price is within their budget and they were still interested, we could schedule another meet up to discuss further....

Well, one of them emailed me back and asked...

"I noticed the carpentry dimensions aren't complete, there is only the length and height."

Really have no idea what she expected from the quotation to be honest, a fucking attachment of the custom carpentry blueprint maybe?

So I replied back that the purpose of the quotation was for her to get a rough idea of how much her renovation requirements would cost her, that getting more information is a benefit only paying customers will get (which isn't particularity true, but I just didn't really see a lot of potential in her to want to put in too much effort) ,to which she replied back...

"I can't decide based on the quotation, please advise on what I should do next?"

... I have already advised her on what she should do next in the first email, which is to schedule a follow up appointment with me if she was still interested, but I guess she must have missed that part, so I wrote back asking her more directly...

"Would you be free this weekend for a follow up appointment so we can discuss further?"

... that way, we can move past the quotation and roughly discuss the designs and overall theme she wanted for her home, well, no response after that, and then I see her and her friend at the event today. So I guess my advice that was emailed to her got translated into ...

"Stop disturbing me and look for other Interior Designers to entertain you."

Enough of that customer...

So I will be starting 2 new renovation projects soon, both of which are presenting their very own set of problems, which isn't great.  Really giving me quite a bit of headache to be honest, my first project hasn't even completed yet and I have recently signed 2 new projects to run, one of which belongs to a customer I was talking about in the previous post.



I am really not looking forward to working with that particular customer from the previous post, just because he takes so long to reply to my text messages, especially when it comes to scheduling an appointment, I always get inform last minute and I always feel bad because I always have to reschedule with him. For example, I would text him on Tuesday asking if he would like to schedule an appointment over the weekend so we can discuss his renovation requirements, and he will always write back...

"Will let you know later."

... and later isn't the end of the day, it's always the night before he wants to meet, it's horrible because on one hand, now that he is a paying customer, I have to prioritize my appointments with him, but on the other hand, I can't be leaving my weekends open just for him and ignore all my other appointments.