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.
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