Reservist Again.

Reservist has officially begun and I spend the morning pretty much waiting for things to happen.

The official reporting time was 8.00 am and without fail, every single time, there are bound to be people who come in an hour to two hours late, so the briefing only really started at 9.30 am when a majority of us actually arrived.

I was there by about 8.15am, this being my 6th cycle, I know better now than to arrive earlier than the reporting time, I used to report 15 to 30 minutes earlier during my earlier cycles, all also ended up starting really late, so it's just pointless to even make an effort to be early.

Just before I left this morning, I made an effort to inform all my contractors of the issues sly fox had with his place, told them I will be going back for my reservist, so just pass whatever I have told them down to their workers and as much as possible, don't contact me during this period.

Calls were still coming in this morning from various contractors, asking me what had to be done, what was the gate number, tried to double confirm the address with me and thankfully, it wasn't anything particularly urgent, so I didn't have a panic attack while I was sitting through the morning briefing.

Nothing much really happened this morning, in a bid of kill time, we were made to watch a 30 minute video of some chemical warfare thing, no one was actually watching the video though, everyone was just on their phone doing their own thing and I was just seated where I was, hoping my phone won't ring because I really do not want to deal with any of sly fox's renovation problems at all while I am actually in camp.

After the video, we broke for lunch and I have to admit,the fried chicken wasn't too bad, the other items on the other hand weren't great. Finished lunch, decided to get a new pair of shoes at the eMart and soon, everyone was back at the briefing room.

We did some familiarisation class on how to handle the weapons and by 4.30pm, everyone was allowed to go back home.

Since I live 90 minutes away from camp, I decided not to go back home and instead, stay back in camp, thankfully I had another friend who also wanted to stay in, so we both did and about a few hours later, I realised that by staying in camp today, I will essentially be staying in camp for the next 5 days because my duty starts tomorrow evening and will last all the way till Monday.

Just the thought of being stuck here over the weekend is giving me anxiety, not because I am homesick but because the weekends are when my clients will drop by their homes to take a look at the progress.

Sly fox is definitely going to be disturbing me over the weekends and I have a feeling that another one will also be messaging me over the weekend.

I am not looking forward to the Saturday at all. FML. I can't serve my reservist in peace.

Mother Effer

Reservist will officially be starting tomorrow, projects are still ongoing, I can foresee a very difficult 2 weeks ahead for myself.

And just as I was typing out this box, I get a barrage of text messages from Sly Fox bringing up new issues he has with the house, I really can't catch a fucking break with him at all.

The last time we spoke and we discussed the initial issues he had, he was all...

"Actually once all the issues I brought up to you just now gets fixed, we can pretty much be completed with the renovation and you can finish this project."

.... and then today, new issues suddenly gets brought up. None of my contractors have gone up to fix the other issues yet and now he is telling me there are more problems. 

Are you kidding me?

Are you fucking kidding me?

Because if you aren't, then would you kindly Fuck Off and give me a fucking break! 

It's so fucking EXHAUSTING! 

I am so fucking exhausted.

He told me if the issues he had found the last time he dropped by and spotted were fixed, then we can complete the project! So why the fuck are there new issues coming up now ? 

If you are going to be spotting new issues every time you go to your house, we will never EVER BE FUCKING DONE!!

Fuck, I am so bloody tired of this fucker and his goddamn fucking project. 

The reason why I am so fucking pissed off right now is because I was about to go to sleep so I can wake up early the next day to report to camp, but I don't think I will be able to have a proper sleep after this. 

It's 10.30 pm and I get bombarded with work related issues I have to deal with, mother fucking sly fox and his fucking goddamn project.

I really wish I can just text my manager and ask him to handle all this shit for me, have him deal with it for me so I can have some peace of mind when I have to serve the country for the next 2 weeks. I don't want to get any messages from sly fox, I don't want to have to reply to any of his messages, I just don't want to deal with any of his shit.

I have 3 other projects that are running right now and I have a feeling when those 3 reach their final phase , I will also get the same problem and I truly believe that the potential cumulative shit storm from those 3 projects will be more than enough to finally make me quit.

I could deal with this shit to a certain extent in the beginning but right now, I am honestly so fucking done and I think it has to do with the fact that I actually plan to quit soon, so now that I already have one foot out the door, my patience is really starting to thin and I just get even more irritated than I normally would in the past.

Back then, it was all about making the job work and accepting that all this is part and parcel of the job, but now that I am actually feeling just so done with this career, fuck the part and parcel part, the clients are just straight up annoying the fucking shit out of me at this point.

"Hi Tim. This are the issues I found today...."

*spams pictures of problem areas*

... fuck you and the fucking issues.

It's late, I have to report to camp early tomorrow, bad fucking timing to be raining this on me damn sly fox.

And to think in the beginning, him and his wife were telling me how easy they would be to work with yada yada yada....

... you guys are a fucking pain to deal with, so don't credit yourself as being a dream customer cause I am hardly earning shit from your project and you guys are a fucking pain in the ass to deal with.

Exhausting

Right now, I am getting a client who is interested to sign a contract with me, but the feeling between us isn't mutual.



After dealing with the issues I had to deal with yesterday, I finally had a bit of time to run through the requirements of my client from my appointment yesterday. During the consultation with the husband, as friendly as he was, I was just extremely disinterested in his project because the wife, who was not present during our meeting yesterday, had a lot of requirements that were just really hard to work with.




They want to renovate their kitchen walls and replace all the tiles, in order to actually remove the tiles, we would first have to remove the existing carpentry that are in the way and anything else that is obstructing the tiles, I had originally told the wife that by removing all the items, it would be easier for my contractors to do their job and that if they were not removed, there will be a high chance of those carpentry getting damaged, she understood what I was saying and agreed to it, but suddenly changed her tune weeks later and requested for some of the existing carpentry to be left alone because they were still in a good condition, her goal was to redo as little items as possible in an attempt to save cost.




It just doesn't make any sense to me because since you are already forking out so much money to renovate the kitchen, why are you trying to scrimp all of a sudden and make things unnecessarily difficult for my contractors, and it's not just the carpentry she wants to be left on the wall for my contractors to work around, there is a sliding glass door that she doesn't want us to touch as well. The glass door is literally blocking a portion of the wall when it is slide to on side, and she wants it to be left untouched when we hack the kitchen walls....




Firstly, it is going to be a huge hindrance and secondly, it's a sliding door that is made of glass, there is going to be an extremely high chance the it will shatter when the hacking begins. Just completely unnecessary, I told them the husband we can dismantle it and install it after the work is completed, but the wife didn't want to dismantle it because she is afraid it will get damage if we dismantle it.

The husband was really receptive to my suggestion to dismantle everything during the renovation and he kept asking me to give him a valid reason on why it would be best to dismantle, so he can also convince his wife to do the same, so I just kept reiterating that there is a huge risk the existing items will get damaged if we don't dismantle them, and since they are already renovating, just go all the way and change everything instead of doing it half-fuck, he kept giving me the thumbs up but I honestly doubt he will be able to convince his wife.




This project sounds like a pain to deal with, it is located way too far from my place and the combination of those 2 factors is enough to kill inkling of interest I may have had for the project, which was already pretty minuscule to begin with.




I have gotten projects that I weren't interested in getting before and I always regret saying "Yes" to them because they are never ever smooth sailing, not to say my other projects are a dream to run, but those that I just do not have any sort of positive feeling towards from the start always end up becoming a nightmare to deal with when it starts.



At least with the last project that I unwillingly got my hands on, the location was within a walking distance from my home, so if there were any issues, and there were quite a few, I could just walk over in 15 minutes to deal with it, but this new project is a 90 minute ride away from where I stay, I can't be popping by everyday to check up on it's progress, I will grow to hate the project and that will in turn make me hate the clients, and they are a nice couple so I really do not want to grow to dislike them during the course of the renovation.



A part of me also doesn't want to get any new projects anymore because I am just feeling really exhausted from managing projects at this point. I still like Interior Design, I just don't like the project management aspect of it because I don't like dealing with the clients, especially with how difficult sly fox ended up turning out to be, getting new clients at this point feels like I am punishing my future self.



I am trying to find a new job right now, I just can't find a suitable one at the moment.

Another day....

I haven't been reporting to work for the past week during the days I am supposed to because traveling to my 4 ongoing sites for daily inspection takes up my entire day.



I would leave the house at 10.30 am in the morning and only be done with my last site at 6.00 pm in the evening, the office closes at 8.30 pm, so when I actually travel back to the office from my last site, I will most likely reach at around 7.00 pm, a little pointless for me to report to the office, just to stay there for 90 minutes, an hour of which will probably be spend eating my dinner slowly, so for the past week, I just didn't bother prepping myself to go to the office, I will only bring my project files and leave my laptop at home because that thing weighs too much.



Well today was a little different, I thought today was the day I would report to the office after my first appointment in the afternoon, I wasn't planning to drop by any of my site today because I already did the day before, there isn't anything happening that I haven't already seen, so I decided to bring along my laptop when I left the house this morning.



Like I have shared in my previous post, today was the day sly fox would be dropping by his site to take a look at the defects, and I was anticipating a bunch of text messages from him, I would have loved to be at the site with him and his wife for the inspection, but alas, I had an appointment in the afternoon and I didn't feel like there was any point for me to drop by the site after, so I settled for anticipating his text messages during my appointment.



I will say, the clients for the appointment I had today are a nice couple, but I am really really not interested in their project because of how far it is from my home, it took me 90 minutes to reach there today and the project brief is quite dull, it is more repairing work than actual designing work and I honestly hate projects like this, the end product normally ends up looking very underwhelming and there isn't any sense of accomplishment when projects like this are completed because the transformation isn't huge, that fugly living room from the stone age that the clients didn't want to renovate is still there, the horrible tiles from the early 18th century that line the walls of the toilet is still there when you enter, no matter how amazing you may have renovated the kitchen and the bedrooms, it will get bogged down by the fugliness of the existing areas that were left untouched.



But they wanted to meet with me, so I accede to their request and went to their place.


I feel very confident talking to them because I have done a similar project in the past before, I am equipped with the knowledge to answer a majority of their questions, and they are just nice people so talking to them is really easy. The first hour went by really well, the husband asked me a lot of questions and I was able to answer all of them rather confidently, he shared his concerns with me and I tried my best to assure him that although most of his concerns are valid, they are not anything to be too worried about, blah blah blah.... and then my phone started buzzing with text messages.



It wasn't sly fox but my other client, he was at his site to retrieve some deliveries and he noticed there were some issues with the ongoing works, I ignored the text at first, but then the messages kept coming in and from the notification bar, the last text I saw was...

"???"

....which got me a little worried, to spam ??? after a barrage of text, something must be wrong and and he is trying to relay the urgency of the situation to me, so I grabbed my phone while the appointment was going on and take a look at the text, it wasn't really an emergency, so I quickly replied back, to assure him that the issues he spotted will be fixed, but because I was in the middle of an appointment as I was texting him, the messages might have come off as a little nonchalant, and he wrote back, telling me...

"The point is that your contractors should be careful and not damage our place, there was hardly any work done in this portion of the apartment and the condition is so bad."

... I really couldn't reply back to his message because it was just not professional to be doing that in the middle of a consultation with another client. His regular style of messaging is normally very courteous and friendly, so I could definitely sense that he was a little bit upset.



And as his messages were coming in, sly fox also started to sent me a bunch of photos, and sly fox has already gone past the point of coming across as friendly over the Whatsapp chat when he is pointing out an issue he has with his place, in the past, when there is an issue, he is very passive about it, and really friendly, but nowadays, zero fucks is give, if something isn't done well, he makes sure to let me know via text message, there isn't any semblance of friendliness in them, they are just straight to the point and comes across as demanding almost all the time...

"Hello, where did the light bulb  for the lights go? Never keep all throw away is it???"

"Why my hood cannot turn on? Your side throw away the manual, how am I suppose to know how to use the hood then?"

"This touch up not done properly, get your guy to come down and do again!"

...  as compared to in the past, when he would instead write them in a friendlier and calmer way...

"Hi Tim, do you know what happen to the bulbs, we can't seem to find them, did your guys accidentally throw them away?"

"The hood doesn't seem to be working as well, and the manual is missing. is there an issue with it?"

"I think might have to trouble your contractors to come down and do some touching up again."

... there is a very clear difference in the way he responds to me via text messages nowadays, that is why instead of replying every single one of his issues via text message and potentially getting sassed by him, I would just give him a call and speak to him directly.



Of course, since the influx of messages were happening during my appointment, they were pretty much ignored for the duration of my appointment, and I honestly couldn't focus on the fucking appointment because my biggest concern was to reply to the multitude of messages I was receiving from my other clients.




It was so distracting, I wanted the appointment to end as soon as possible, so every time the client ask me...

"So do you have anything that you need to clarify with me?"

... it's just a straight nope, even if there is and I am sure there are aplenty, I can't think straight right now, so no, because I don't want to clarify anything with you, I want to clarify things with my 2 other clients who are just dinging my phone all day long with their text messages.



When the appointment finally ended, I felt like I could finally breath again, and the first thing I did
was to message the first client who distracted me during my appointment, the final message he had send me was "Thanks". The message before that, that he send, was most likely marked as "read" because I had left the chat open during the appointment, so to him, it might have seemed like I had read his text and chose not to reply to it.




I quickly apologize for not responding sooner, explained my situation and also apologized for how my previous message may have came across as nonchalant, he was quick to brush it off and just told me it was fine, as long as I could fix the problem he brought up, everything was fine.




When it came to sly fox, I read his text, but I chose not to reply straightaway because he is such an exhausting problem to deal with,  I really don't give a shit if he sees that I have read his messages but never replied to them, if you are going to sound so demanding via the text messages, then I will also not feel obligated to want to offer you a better service, simple as that.



I eventually did give him a call and the tone he used when he was talking to me was completely different from the way he texted, he was really calm, we had a good 10 minute chat and ran through all the issues he brought up in the chat, I explained to him what happened with some of his items and he was quick to tell me it was alright, that they weren't an issue blah blah blah and honestly,  the chat went really well, he put me on loudspeaker and I also spoke to the wife, we had a really friendly conversation and we ended the call on a good note, the text messages he send after were also a lot friendlier and calmer as well.



It's like some Jekyll and Hyde shit going on and it is quite unsettling because who knows, next week he might send me an angry text again, demanding me to send my contractor down because something was done very badly.




This is one of the many aspects of the job that I do not enjoy, the unpredictability of a client. I may get a client who is a dream to work with this month, but who knows, 3 months from now, I might get a client who is the personification of evil. Every client is different, never have I met a client who reminds me of another, they always come with their own set of issues and I really don't like being presented with a new set of problems to deal with every time. I mean it is a great learning experience, but holy fucking shit is it exhausting to deal with every single time.




Oh, and I didn't go to the office again today because surprise surprise, I ended up going to sly fox site to take a look at the situation, wasn't able to have my lunch until 4.30 pm as well because of the afternoon appointment , haven't had lunch at a proper time since the start of the week because of all the sites I have to visit.



I brought my bloody laptop out with me today thinking I would be going to the office but I just ended up lugging around that additional 2 kg of dead weight in my bag for shit, my shoulders were killing me when I was standing in the train, throw in the bloody heat from the afternoon Sun as I walked to his site, I was lucky I wasn't wearing my black polo tee because I would have smelled like a dirty gym sock and polluted the air around me.

Pointless

All the projects I have on hand right now have officially started and life isn't really feeling super great right now.


The meeting with sly fox last weekend went alright, speaking to my clients in person will always feel less aggressive, but that doesn't make me dislike the project any less, it's still pretty shit to run. He will be going to the unit to do more spot checks tomorrow, he tells me he will update me via Whatsapp if there are anymore issues, no doubt there will be, so I have his text messages to look forward to.


The problem with defect checks is I have never actually had a client tell me..

"Yeah, the house is in perfect condition,"

... there will always be something for them to nitpick and rather than actually fixing all the issues for them, the final stage of the renovation is more about convincing the clients that there are some imperfections that just cannot be fixed no matter how many times we try to, sometimes, the more we tamper with it, the worst it will get.

Normally they are very small issues that are simply not noticeable unless heavily scrutinized, like the little drip of paint running down a wall or hairline scratches on the window panels, little things that won't matter in the long run.

It's like me getting a new phone, realizing that there is a very faint hairline scratch on the screen, making a big deal out of it at the store, and have them exchange for one that is in perfect condition, only to have the phone be scratched up again 2 days later because I always put it in my pocket with my keys and money.

It's Pointless!

So Sly Fox will most likely be the bane of my existence tomorrow, and I am really trying to be rid of complete his project before my reservist, but at the rate at which things are progressing, I am afraid I won't be able to have that luxury.






I also have another BTO project that started earlier this week and I will say, the renovation progress is actually happening quite fast, had a bit of hiccup a few days ago when the husband drop by the site and told me the contractor was peeing all over his toilet bowl, I apologize for their bad aim and assured them that the cleaners will make sure to clean the toilet bowl thoroughly, but the wife got really upset and demanded I get the contractors to clean the toilet there and then.



It's kinda stupid when I think about it. I mean really? Your whole house is currently undergoing renovation, there are packets of cement strewn around the house, dust is everywhere, the whole place is a mess and you are concern about the toilet bowl being covered in a little piss, it's not like they are missing on purpose...

 ....because my contractor will meet up and make it their job to marinate the toilet bowl in piss

 Sometimes I wish I can just deny the customer access to their own home during the messier part of the renovation, just so I don't get bombarded with request like these. I mean it is a valid request, but it just feels a little pointless to me.

Tired & Stressed

Woke up this morning feeling really really sick of my job.


Spend the night texting a client yesterday about what is the best fan to buy, which color would suit his house best and then discussed about the additional items he wanted to remove from his renovation.



His renovation cost about $20,000 and I spend an hour yesterday trying to update his quote because he wanted to remove the installation cost for a few additional lights at his rooms, 2 additional lights to be exact, which only amounts to $24.00, against a $20,000, that is not even 1% of the entire renovation cost. It was really confusing because instead of telling me he wanted to...

"Cancel the light installation for the 2 rooms."

... he used the phrase "terminate the light point" and I thought when he said terminate, he meant it in electrical terms, which is to essentially connect the point to a connector so he can install the lights himself. I had to update the quote 4 times and normally, I would apologize for the errors in the previous quotes, but last night, I just didn't want to apologize for it because he was the one who was confusing me, so I made it a point not to sound apologetic and he managed to save $24. I could have given it to him for free, but I wasn't feeling very generous last night.



Today, I will be dealing with the sly fox and his wife, have to leave home in about another 10 minutes so I will probably update the situation again when I get back. I don't even know if they remember we were suppose to meet today, I couldn't be fucked to actually remind them about it, but sly fox stays nearby, so I guess he can just walk over if he isn't out shopping.



I'm feeling really exhausted having to deal with all this projects right now, with my reservist coming up the next Thursday, I am really trying to rush all this projects so I can spend my time in camp not be bothered by any of my clients, they are aware I am in camp, so I hope they can also give me some space to breathe.



A few months ago, I thought I would only be running a single project while I am at my reservist, at that time, I was also feeling done with this career, after having to deal with a few pain in the ass of a client then, I just didn't feel like it was worth it, but look at me now, having 4 projects and one of them is a huge pain in the ass, the other are still quite docile right now, but if I have learned anything from dealing with the sly fox, it's that every client will have the possibility to become a huge pain in my fucking ass, from "best client in the world" to fucker who is making my skin break out from the stress of having to deal with him.

Sly Fox

My client for this ongoing project I am running is slowly but surely starting to become a real pain in the ass.

The change from "dream client" to the huge pain in my ass has been anything but subtle.



In the beginning, everything was going really well, any decisions that they couldn't make, they left it up to me, to them, as long as everything is done properly, that was all that mattered, the little nitty-gritty details didn't really matter to them.




And then the wife brought up an issue she had with a certain aspect of the renovation and that was when things went downhill, it was a small issue initially with the painting works, there were certain areas that weren't painted smoothly, so she requested for the areas to be smoothed out before getting painted over again, she didn't attach any pictures to explain what she meant, so I replied to her request with...

"If the affected area is small, then I will get my painter to plaster those areas smooth and paint over, but if it is an entire wall, then I will have to get a different contractor down as plastering a full wall will require a specialist."

.... because the original walls of the apartment isn't straight to begin with, so I wasn't going to be agreeable to get a contractor down to smooth out all the walls for them, and then not charge them for it because they will probably deem it as a "defect" that needed to be rectified.



For some reason, this got the husband riled up and he started bombarding the chat group with a ton of images of the "defect areas", and then stated that there were a lot of areas that were not done well, asking me why I didn't recommend  plastering their walls before the painting, why I just assumed that they would be okay with it.




So I explained to them that their case wasn't straightforward because their walls are inherently crooked, that is just the way old houses are,  if they wanted the walls to be smoothed out, they are the ones who have to bring it to me. I then gave them an example of a more straightforward case,  which would be a wall that used to be covered in wallpaper, but has since gotten the wallpaper removed and is covered in glue stain residue, that is a straightforward case and that will require the specialist to come in.



This exchange went back and forth for a while and finally, I just told them I will get the relevant contractors down to rectify the areas I can rectify. The wife quickly thank me for following up and I guess she was trying to mediate the whole situation because the husband has obviously gotten the bit upset and I think the last thing she wanted was for the exchange to end on an ugly note.



They are the customers, I am the one offering the services. I can't say shit, so the only thing I could do was suck it up, but this exchange has probably left the husband with a bad impression of the entire renovation, so now he is fucking anal with every single fucking thing.




Not too long ago, I had the plumbers down to install all the toilet accessories, I told him to indicate on the walls where he wanted the different accessories to be installed and he did, but not everything, he left the toilet paper holder and bidet spray out, so on the day of the installation when my plumber dropped by to do the installation, I just told him to install the unmarked items where he felt would be best. They have done this for my previous projects in the past before and the clients have always been satisfied with the locations in which the accessories were installed, so I didn't think I would have too much of an issue with it.



When I went back to the site after the installation was done, I have to admit, I was a little excited to see the toilet all done up and fully functional, everything looked great and I didn't think there was going to be any issue.



I was wrong.



This morning, as I was having my breakfast, I get a text message from the husband, who writes...

"Hi Tim. I am a little shocked at the placement of the toilet accessories. I need them to be reinstalled at different locations."

... and he attaches a few pictures of the toilet, and on the photos, he drew where he would like the toilet accessories ,that he did not indicate previously, shifted to, I was a little taken aback because reinstalling the toilet accessories isn't simply unscrewing them from the existing location and then screwing them back at another, when the accessories are removed, the tiles will be riddled with holes from where the accessory was screwed into, in a feeble attempt to try and defend myself and hopefully have him accept the current location of the accessories, I told him that the location of the accessories have been installed at areas where what my plumber has deemed to be the most comfortable location for the user, to which he replied...

"No way. I can't reach the toilet paper from my toilet seat without having to get up a little."

... if you are going to be such a fucking pain in the bloody ass about it, then you should have indicated it on the  fucking wall like I told you to, you fucking numb skull!I wanted to call him out for not indicating the installation points like I had told him to, that the current installed location is a result of that, but I can't because I also have a responsibility to double check before installing, I had gotten negligent because I didn't have this problem in the past, because all my other clients were always happy with my plumbers recommended installed locations.






So I couldn't say anything else but agree to his fucking request. I am not looking forward to how this will affect my final commission, it is going to take a really huge hit because there is a shit ton of work that has to be done for the changes to take place and it is honestly pissing me off when I think about it.



And then after that, he brings up another problem, he tells me that he wants to adjust the height of the the toilet cabinet, and in the picture, he marks out where he wants the cabinet to be shifted to with his own tape, and then beside that tape was another tape left by my carpenter, and it was a tape my carpenter had stuck on the wall for my client to see during the site measurement



A little confused as to why my carpenter did not install the cabinet at the height indicated by the tape he had left on the wall, I send him a voice memo and he told me that the height they had installed was indeed what was discussed with the client earlier, this got me even more confused, so I went to look through my past site photos and realized that what my carpenter said was true, the tape was originally stuck at a higher height and the husband actually went to shift the fucking tape down.




He didn't tell me the cabinet was installed wrongly, but the fact that he adjusted the original location of the tape my carpenter left and did not bother to tell me about it, it was obvious he was trying to insinuate that my carpenter had installed it wrongly. He knew I knew he was upset about the toilet accessory problem, so he was using that to try and get me to fix the cabinet for him, thinking that since I am already getting leashed around by him for the previous "error", he could try his luck.




Well, I decided to call him out for it, so instead of texting back like I usually do, I just gave him a call and told him that I have taken a picture of where the tape originally was and that I was aware the original position of the tape has been tampered with, he then tells me...

"Yeah, I am not saying it is installed wrongly, I just want the cabinet to be lowered a little."

... Fuck You! Then maybe tell me that from the fucking start instead of leaving out the fact that you moved the bloody tape, maybe you should have asked me if it was possible to move the cabinet lower and not tell me to move the cabinet lower like it had been installed wrongly.



Well, the cabinet couldn't be moved due to legit reasons, so we left it as it is, as it was originally discussed with the carpenter while he was present. The fact that he marked out the new location with his own tape, and then moved the original tape without pointing it out to me, dude is a bloody sly fox.




We are back to talking cordially with one another again but that doesn't mean I like him, I did like him and his wife at one point, but after the exchange with the husband today, that has gone to shit. It is important to be nice and friendly for now because I want this renovation to end as smoothly as it possibly can, there is no point lashing out and then make the last few weeks miserable for everyone involved, but had this been my last project, or if for some reason I got fired from the company and I was given this bullshit to deal with, the exchange would have been extremely different, the hostility I would show towards him via the text messages would have been equivalent to the hostility towards him in this post.





This is the part of the job that I do not like, dealing with clients. Getting insufficient pay is one thing, but having to deal with clients on an almost daily basis can get really frustrating because there are times when I just want to cuss them out, just to let them know there is a limit to my patience. I have colleagues who actually gotten into arguments with their clients before and I can only imagine how satisfying it must feel to finally release all that build up angst.  The clients requested for a change in designer after, no shocker there, but I honestly don't think it is bad for the designer as well, the fact that the designer actually retaliated just goes to show how unreasonable the client must have been and being rid of such clients is always a weight off our shoulders, even if it means our commission gets reduced by half, knowing that you will no longer be disturbed by the client can sometimes be worth that reduction in commission.





If a company doesn't have any negative reviews online and you have a problem with the company, chances are you are the problem.

Lil Conflicted

I have been wanting to leave my current job for a while now and it isn't because I am sick and tired of the job, but simply because it is just not a very feasible long term career in terms of financial stability and my sanity.





A few of my colleagues have left for the same reason and when I recently spoke to my manager about me possibly leaving the company, he also shared with me his experience when he first started working as an Interior Designer.






He didn't remain as an Interior Designer because he was passionate about his job or because he is earning a butt load of money from his sales figure, the real reason why he is still working as one after 10 years is because he is stuck. When he wanted to quit back when he first started due to the stress of running a project, his boss urged him to stay, to give the job a chance, so he did and he has been stuck at this job ever since. His sales figures aren't exactly amazing and from working with him for almost 2 years now, his hunger to sign new projects is about as strong as mine, which is pretty much non-existent.





The last few projects I have managed to get my hands on since the beginning of this year, they didn't sign a contract with me because I was constantly hounding them and asking them to meet up with me. I didn't do jack shit but they still came to me anyways because they are either too lazy to search for other interior designers or because the other interior designer they have met were so fucking horrible that it made me look like a saint, so I did not get my clients through hard work and dedication, I got them through sheer luck, and some of them are clients I didn't even want to work with, I just didn't know how to say No.





Over the past 2 to 3 months, I was actually quite hesistent to quit because I was experiencing the best part of the job for the past 2 to 3 months.


1. Flexible Working Hours.

2. Low stress because I wasn't really running any projects.

3. Received 3 projects worth of commission.



But all good things have to come to an end because now, all the other projects that have yet to begin are about to start, and they will be running concurrently with one another.





That means in the month of August, I will be juggling 4 different projects that are located relatively far away from one another, and with reservist around the corner, I will be forced to work in camp.






One of my 4 projects is currently running and for the past few weeks since it started, the clients have been really easy to work with, only dropping by their place every once in a while to check up on progress , hardly ever giving me any problems and when there are problems, they are always brought to my attention in a very polite manner filled with  "Thanks" and a lot of smiling and thumbs up emojis.






But recently, one issue popped up and when I tried to explain the issue to the wife, the husband got a bit riled up, I guess he thought I was trying to shirk responsibility and the way he responded got me a little bit pissed off. It really wasn't too big of a deal, I said what they wanted to hear and by the next day, he went back to his regular friendly manner of texting with emojis and what not, then I met his Mum purely by accident while I was at site a few days later and I honestly didn't have a good time talking to her. Let's just say if she had been a potential client who came to me for a consultation session, the first session is all she is going to ever get with me.






And this recent issue really reminded me why the job kinda sucks because homeowners are unpredictable and in general can sometimes be a pain to deal with, even the nicest ones I have met will eventually become loath worthy at some point during the renovation, but most of the time after the renovation is done, I will like them again, so I have yet to actually meet one that remains to be loathed.





I want to quit but at the same time, I also don't really want to, because all this knowledge I have gotten so far from working in this company will go to waste if I do switch careers and I don't want all that I have learned from working in the company for the past year and a half to be for naught.






I hate the uncertainty that comes with every client, As much as I try to vet through the clients I am given before a contract has been signed, it is still really difficult to predict if they will be a pain to deal with during the renovation or not.






A lot of the time, I will admit, the clients do have the right to message me if something is not done to their satisfaction, they are the paying customers and I am the one offering the services, but it still fucking sucks to receive a message in the middle of the night from them, telling me they are not happy with a certain aspect of the renovation, or while I am having a meet up with my friends on my off day, getting such texts honestly ruins my whole fucking mood.





It's like a regular working adult getting a call from their bosses on their off day, and then get told that they have made an error in a report they wrote and will have to rewrite the entire report when they return back to work again. Sure, the boss isn't asking you to go back to work on your off day, but having work related problems brought up during your off day fucking sucks.





I had originally planned to leave by the end of the year, but at this point, I am afraid that is going to be a little difficult because I still have no idea what I want to do next, I am looking for new job opportunities online but none of them feel like the right one.





In the mean time, I am following an Interior Designer on Youtube to keep myself motivated, it's nice to watch Interior Designers who are passionate in their craft, right now, in the sales industry that I am in, it is saturated with a lot of the individuals who are simply not passionate about Interior Design, to them, what matters most is sales, it's all about the numbers and it is quite sad because being surrounded by individuals who care more about quantity than quality really affects my passion for the craft. I have had to go back to my very first Interior Design Firm's Facebook page sometimes to get design inspiration because I was simply not getting any from my colleagues works.