ID Firm Update Again

So I went to the dentist to get my molar crowned today and the original $850 price tag went up to $1350 because the dentist managed to convince me that getting a Zirconium crown would be better than getting an amalgam one.

I would choose to pay more for a sturdier crown than pay less now and then suffer the consequences later, so it is an extra $500 that needs to be spend, but it is so painful for my wallet to shell out so much money.

I don't earn enough to be able to afford this and I still have $3000 to pay for my insurance at the end of the month, so fuck my life, the pinch is fucking real. I am only earning an average of $1000 per month, and it has been a year since I got my last commission. I am trying to tabulate all my projects and close them together, so I can get a huge cheque which I was planning to get by the end of the year, but then a few sites had delays with some of their built in items, so that has affected my plans to roll around in moolah and that would actually also mean I actually earned $0 for the year of 2020, aside from the army reservist pay and a few little commissions here and there from my suppliers. 

Speaking of jobs, I have applied for 2 new openings with 2 different companies, one is an ID firm and the other is a Gov agency, I am not really sure my chances of getting hired by both are that high, but I will see how it goes. The ID Firm that I applied for is actually the ID Firm that I thought I had been interviewed for previously because the names are quite similar and speaking of that ID Firm I interviewed for, well, the boss called me up again this evening.

This time I knew I was no longer interested in the position, so I expressed my disinterest and we were able to end things a properly this time round, but he was really persistent to meet me again to discuss further and I had to tell him that I really wasn't interested to do sales anymore. He was really nice about it, but then he started telling me if I didn't want to do interior sales, he had other options available which included being a Realtor or Financial Advisor because he also dabbles in those, he then list a bunch of other companies he has and asked me if any of those piqued my interest...

... I honestly appreciate his gesture, but it was so odd because none of the jobs he was offering me were related to what I was looking for. 

It's like me going to KOI to get a cup of bubble tea, get torn about which flavor to get, and then have the cashier tell me that if I can't decide which flavor to get, that they also have a sneaker shop nearby where I can buy a new pair of shoe.

I told him I will think about it, thanked him for his time and I think this is the last time we will speak to each other again. Or he might call me again a few weeks later to check on me, who knows, it's weird.

Current Concerns

The design firm that I turned down but was then persuaded to reconsider my decision again has finally reached out to me last Wednesday to try and schedule another date to drop by the office to confirm my employment. 

The boss literally had 3 days to update me on whether he can do Tuesday or not and he only reaches out on Wednesday to tell me he had been sick the day before so he couldn't meet me. If he had responded earlier and told me he can do Tuesday, but then informed me on Tuesday that he was sick and had to postpone the meeting, I would have believed that he was actually sick. It's the lack of any reply to the days leading up to the meeting that really rubbed me the wrong way.

So I didn't bother replying to set up a new meeting.

Personally I do not feel comfortable leaving things the way I did, by not responding to his request to meet again, but at this point, too much time has passed for me to make any excuses about why I didn't reply him other than the fact that it was done out of pure pettiness, so things shall be left the way they are and I shall be remembered by him and his company as the "unprofessional interviewee".

Moving on from that mess of a job interview where everyone's time got wasted, my current concern is with my ongoing project that is already completed, but I have yet to collect the final payment from.

When the clients for that project moved into their place, I told them I will give them some time to settle down first before I meet up with them again, I ended up giving them close to 3 weeks to settle down before reaching out a few days back.

Initially, the wife joked and said that she thought I was going to waive off the final payment as goodwill, but then told me that we could meet this week to settle everything.

Shortly after, the husband messages back and tells me there is an electrical switch issue that he would like me to fix for them. 3 whole weeks for them to settle in and they didn't bring this issue up, now that I am requesting to meet to collect the final payment and this gets brought up.

I told them that I can get my electrician down, but I will need to know their availability, they gave me dates that were too early for my electricians to drop by, so I told them we needed more time in advance, they don't reply.

My electrician told me earliest he could go down is Thursday and so I am a little concerned that if they don't confirm the date with me soon, it will end up delaying the trip to fix their switch.

I drop them a text earlier this morning asking them to confirm with me if Thursday is good for them because I have already told them I need to tell my electrician a few days in advance. 

Doesn't reply.

For Fuck Sake! I'm trying to help you, so help me help you! 

It is so fucking frustrating when clients take their own sweet fucking time to confirm a date with me, and then when they finally confirm it and I can no longer schedule the timing because they replied too fucking slow, suddenly it is my fault for not pushing them hard enough.

I will likely have to drop another text in at night to really rush them if they still don't respond at the end of the day. Both the husband and wife read the text early in the morning when I send the text and BOTH of them just left me on read. 

Or I can just leave them to their faulty electrical switch and wait till they get back to me. 

Pretty Shitty Day

The boss of the interior design firm I turned down actually called me again a few days back and tried to persuade me to reconsider my decision. 

The call lasted about 30 minutes and it worked, I was persuaded, so we had agreed to meet again and this time, it was to hash out any concerns and sign the contract, he told me to give him a good timing for us to meet again and I told him Monday would work for me.  A few days before we were suppose to meet, he messages me again to confirm the timing and I realize that I couldn't do Monday because I had showroom duty that day, so I requested to meet on Tuesday instead. I ask him what time he was available so I could meet him at his preferred timing instead of mine, but there was not response on his end after that. 

He didn't get back to me about the timing, it is already Tuesday night as I am typing this out, so I guess the contract offer has be rescinded. He must have gotten annoyed at my request to meet a day later so he just completely ignored the text message, which is "super" professional.

But everything worked out in the end I suppose because after I had my call with him, I instantly started to regret my decision to agree to meet again, he is quite persuasive but ultimately, I still don't feel 100% sure about leaving my current company to join his, and after seeing how he has chosen to respond, or the lack of it, to my legitimate request to meet a day later...

... that being said, I would pick getting ignored than getting an angry text or call about leading him on about my interest in the position.

-----

Anyways, now that is is closing towards the end of the year, almost all my current projects on hand are completed, but I do have this final one that is getting a little frustrating to deal with, not because the client is unpleasant, but because the client is a little bit dense.

There is this blur-ness in him that was endearing at first, but has started to get a little bit annoying to deal with recently. I have found myself having to constantly repeat things I have said multiple times before, one of which being the light installation, I told him multiple times over the course of the renovation that it will only be installed after the carpentry is up, but it's like every week for 3 weeks before the carpentry is up, he will ask me...

"So the electricians are coming next week?"

"Your guys are installing the light this week?"

“Let me know if you electrician can come in earlier?"

...  every single time I tell him it is only after carpentry installation is done, he will, without fail, ask me the stupid question again a few days later.

But other than that blur-ness, he has generally been quite pleasant, although I did run into a bit of a carpentry fuck up today.

I was at his site today, taking a few pictures of the place to show him the current state of the apartment, which is move-in ready, I even walked him through the space via a video and everything was great, he thanked me for the video and after that, I decided to head to another place, which was all the way at the other end of Singapore. Taking the train felt like it would take forever because the train actually makes a huge loop and I really wasn't feeling it, so I decided to rent an electric car.

It feels nice to be able to drive again, but I was quite nervous to be on the road with a foreign car after taking such a long break from driving, so I was feeling quite stressful when I was driving, thankfully, my blur client  was able to take my mind off the road when he dropped me a message, telling me that the carpentry looked wrong because the colour of one particular laminate was darker than he had thought.

It was like my stress from driving just went away and the stress from work took over and fucked my mood up in a different way.

I knew exactly what he was talking about because I had actually realize the laminate was wrong when I went to the site during the installation earlier last week, but I didn't bother bringing it up because it looked really similar to the original one we had chosen and I thought it looked fine the way it is, plus the original laminate was chosen by me after him and his wife sort of gave up trying to choose ones that they liked, you could say that they settled for it, so I thought if it was something they settled for, then they probably wouldn't mind if we ended up using another similar looking one.

The mentality I had was extremely unprofessional, but anyways, I shared my predicament with my colleagues and all of them thought the two laminates looked similar, that only if placed side by side can the difference be spotted, and that I could potentially get away with it. 

Unfortunately, my client could see from the pictures I send that it was a different shade, and this is why I hate sending photos to my clients, because then they can scrutinize every single detail and catch errors that could have potentially been overlooked .

I didn't reply to the message until after I had successfully reached the carpark to park the electric car, because road safety and all, and I immediately called my carpenter to ask if he can re-laminate before I reached out to my client, it is doable, but this error is going to cost my project $200, so fuck my life, made such careless mistake indicating the wrong laminate code to my carpenter.

I offered to redo the lamination for my client and he was a little worried that it will affect the workmanship, so the agreement to re-laminate took a bit of coaxing and persuading, it's like trying to coddle a toddler and telling him everything is going to be fine after he accidentally broke his favorite toy or something. He eventually agreed to it and my carpenter pulled through and managed to find a guy who can replace it for me by this week.

If I had been upfront and brought this issue up from the start, I might have been able to convince them to stick with the wrong laminate seeing how the color is very similar, but unfortunately, because it was my client who brought the issue up, if I tried to convince him to stick with the wrong laminate, it would look like I was trying to shirk responsibility after getting called out for it,.

I am literally paying for my mistake. $200 to be exact and I guess my client's trust in my capabilities by that little bit, the latter always very shitty to experience. 

---

After that whole fisaco was dealt with, I had to take a bus and then walk to the new site, which is a landed property and landed properties are always a pain to get to because there aren't any direct buses, if you can afford a landed property, you can afford a car, so why would the government bother planting bus stops nearby. 

I really did not want to entertain this site visit because of how far it was and because I know I am never going to touch landed properties, too many things can go wrong and I do not want to deal with the stress of having to work on a single project for a year.

But this was a referral so I really had no choice.

For this site visit, I actually had to postpone the visit by a day, it was a bit last minute but thankfully, the client agreed , so much more gracious than the Interior Design firm's boss.

The client is a nice lady and at the start, it was quite simple, all she wanted to do was renovate her toilet and kitchen cabinet, but then as the consultation carried on, it just became more and more extensive, she started requesting to hack off her existing window at her bedroom to create a balcony and to move the plant outside her house to another location, in my head, I was trying very hard to think of ways to tell her this was not within my scope, especially the replanting of a tree part, albeit it was a small one, but still, that is not within my scope AT ALL. 

But I didn't because I felt like there wasn't a need to clarify anything with a client I wasn't really keen on working with, I will just quote whatever I can and then state that whatever is not quoted isn't within my scope via text message. I also don't think she understands how intrusive everything will be, especially because her whole family will still be staying in the apartment during the renovation.

I was in the apartment for like an hour and I wasn't offered any drinks, would be nice to have some water seeing how I had to walk quite a distant, I saw her taking a cup and cleaning it when we first stepped into the kitchen to discuss what she wanted to do and I had thought that she was going to offer me a cup of water, but she poured herself a cup, drank it, clean the cup and then put it away without offering.

You don't have to, but I just think that it should be common courtesy to at least offer your guest a cup of water, especially when you are grabbing one for yourself. 

So yeah, it was a waste of time. 

The whole of today just felt like shit, the only upside is being able to drive again and my carpenter pulling through and being able to help me settle my issue by this week, but everything else that happened today work wise...

... a pretty shitty day.

Turning down an offer...

A few days back, I went for a job interview and it was for a position I did not apply for. The company actually called me up a few days prior and told me they wanted to invite me down to their showroom for a chat, I usually don't bother entertaining such meetings because most of the time, the companies that reach out are the small ones that aren't impressive enough, in terms of portfolio and industry presence, for me to even consider leaving my current company for.

This company is one I have heard of before and honestly speaking, I can't say I was very impress with their portfolio, but one thing that piqued my interest during the initial call was how the person told me that their company caters to the market with a higher renovation budget and are more "design centric", the latter I don't really think so from what I have seen from their portfolio, but the former is something that appealed to me, so I agreed and dropped by on Thursday afternoon to listen to what they had to offer.

I met the boss and he is a nice guy, he is only 2 years older than me, and the realization that he already owns his own company at such a young age really made me question what the hell I was actually doing with my life. We had a good chat, he got one of his senior designer to sit in during the interview and because I am coming in as an experienced Interior Designer, I was feeling quite confident about what I can offer, it didn't feel like I was trying to sell myself to get them to hire me, it felt more like they were telling me what they could offer me if I join their company.

During the interview with the senior designer present, I was asked if I knew how to prepare quotations, if I knew carpentry prices and it just felt so weird that the senior designer would think I wouldn't know the basics and ask me all those irrelevant questions, because I do have almost 4 years worth of experience, it's like asking a 4 year old kid if they know how to crawl.

After that, the senior designer talked about my online portfolio and because on my website, I have a tab that was dedicated to renovation budgeting, something I decided to write on a whim one day after getting tired to being given so many customer leads with unrealistic budget, he told me he was very worried when he saw the prices because apparently they were too low, and I can only give a dry laugh. I mean if he thinks those are low now, one day if he actually joins my company in the future for some reason, he is going to be in for a huge shock at the customer leads we get.

Not long after my portfolio was scanned through by them both, they decided that they would like to test me on my presentation skills, we started to do a bit of roleplaying where the boss and his senior designer acted as my clients and I had to do a presentation to them on the spot, they gave me some pictures and told me to just present it to them, honestly speaking, my design talk has always been quite bad so I would always rely on my 3D drawings for my proposals, I stuttered a lot and it was pretty clear the presentation did not went well, so I was ushered out of his office for them to have a quick discussion after that mess. 

I will admit, I was quite intrigued by the company and a part of me was picturing myself being part of the company, I was walking around the front area of their office, just imagining myself meeting future customers here, looking at the material library and just soaking in the much nicer and modern looking office environment. About 5 minutes later, the senior designer comes out and invites me back to talk to the boss 1 on 1.

We had a longer chat this time round, not so much about the position but about the industry in general, sharing our experiences, and  I could sense that the boss likes me as a person, so I knew that if I wanted, I could have gotten the job, but of course, I didn't really know what I want, so the boss tells me to take the next few days to think about it and he will prepare an offer and reach out to me again once it is ready.

He called me up on Saturday and started to share with me his offer and it was an enticing one because he was offering me a pretty generous basic, but it was a basic that had to be earned by hitting a monthly sales target that will steadily increase for the next 3 months. We spoke for about half an hour on the phone and after that call, he kept trying to tell me I was not young anymore, that I should take this opportunity to grow, it didn't feel like he was forcing me, it felt more like he was sharing his advice. After the call,  he messages me to thank me for giving him, which I realize is really rare, for a founder of a company to actually call a potential employee to thank them for their time. I told him I will give him a decision by Sunday, which is today and honestly speaking, it is not enough time to think it over.

It just so happens that I have showroom duty today as well, so I shared the job offer with my colleagues to hear what they had to say and the general consensus is that it is ultimately my decision because there are good and bad to joining the company.

It was quite hard to make a decision, but the fact that I am being so indecisive about this position just made me veer more towards turning down to offer, simply because I am not sure and I do not want to say yes while being unsure, the last thing I want happen is to join the company, regret my decision and then quit a few weeks later, or worst, a few days later, and then be left jobless and unable to return back to my current company.

As great as the company is in terms of what it has to offer me from a monetary aspect, I am ultimately still not very impress with their portfolio, I just feel like if a company is marketing themselves as a "boutique" firm, their portfolio should reflect that boutique status, but sadly, the projects they have are only slightly better, if not, almost on par with the projects my company churns out.

One thing that I felt was odd was when the senior designer shared about how the designers in their company must prepare a mood board to present to the customers, that that it is their company's standard and after he said that and showed me an example, it just made me wonder what is the point of doing all that, because you put in all that effort to find such great photos for the mood board, but the final renovated projects looks like something my company churns out, and as far as I am aware, a lot of my colleagues from my own branch don't really bother doing mood boards, we usually just wing it, and if winging it can produce the same results, then something is really wrong

Ultimately, I decided that the new company was not really worth leaving my current company for, and also because the timing isn't great at the moment.

Before I join a new company, I want to make sure I tie up all the loose end at my current company, make sure I have completed all my projects, collected all my commission before I move on, so I do not have to return to the old company again later as an ex-employee to collect anything, and also, with the CNY break that will be happening in February, joining now just feels a bit pointless, I would rather join after the break, just so if I do end up getting a project, which could potentially be maybe 2 months after I join the new company, I won't have to fight for the sub-contractors time with my other colleagues, who would have already established a solid working relationship with them and will have their projects prioritized.  There is a lot of string pulling that happens during the busy period.

I wrote a message thanking the boss for giving me the opportunity, turn down the offer and then wrote at the end that when the timing is right and another opportunity arises, that I hope to be able to work with him then. He didn't reply back so there's that. I was actually expecting him to reply back with something like...

"Sorry to hear that, I wish you all the best"

... or something, because of how the conversation we had during the interview and the phone call felt more like friends talking to each other rather than a boss talking to an employee, but oh well.

He can't shut up...

 Before today, I was feeling great in general, all my projects were close to completion, I was looking forward to getting 5 project worth of commissions before the end of the year and was even thinking about the idea of working on even more projects in the future.

Then the Antoinette reached out to me about an issue that was brought up by their own electrician and my mood just plummeted. The problem has been "resolved" and I say "resolved" in quotes because they will be getting their own electrician to fix the issue and I will be paying for the repair out of my own pocket, which is about $150. I am not sure if I can actually claim that amount, so I guess a part of why I am feeling a bit dejected now is because of that, and another reason why I am feeling a bit apprehensive right now is because this electrican they found is a tattletale. He was engaged by the Antoinettes parents to help them reinstall a few ceiling lights, but then afterwards, decides to inspect the house I suppose and start spotting a bunch of issues with the existing electrical work my electrician has done. 

Why? Like what is the fucking point? Do what you were paid to do and leave! There was no need to take a shit and drag my electrician's work. 

He was telling the Antoinette's things like ...

"...this is against building regulations"

"... it could cause electrocution"

... like why the fuck are you talking so much? Shut the fuck up!

Fucking detestable, I had to talk to both the Antoinette over a call to understand the situation and discuss what we can do moving forward separately, and what they did was get their electrician to fix the problem because now, their electrician has managed to poison their impression of my own electrician to the point that their parents are now urging them not to use my electrician anymore, so that fucker has now gotten a $150 job from them at my expense. 

I am just very tired of projects that have been completed and handed over, suddenly coming back again with issues, it is so mentally exhausting, and in this case, it is even worst because they have their own guy who is pretty much sabotaging me by telling them how things are being installed against building regulations.

My electrician essentially installed a power outlet next to the toilet bowl for the Antoinette's as per their request because the husband wanted to install an electric bidet seat, but because this is a toilet, we couldn't just install the outlet on it's own, we needed a waterproof cover as well, so we installed it...

... it protects the outlet from external moisture because this is a waterproof cover, it is literally meant to proof your outlet from water as per the name suggest, but for some reason, their own electrician didn't think this was enough and told them that my electrician should have installed the outdoor weatherproof cover instead, which is this...

... this is a weatherproof cover, it is commonly found in outdoor areas like balcony or outside building apartments that are exposed to to elements, I have literally never seen any project where this cover was actually used indoor, it is fucking overkill, but their electrician has managed to find reasons to scare them into believing this is the one that should have been installed and when I think about it, it just pisses me off.

Getting that installed in the toilet to protect the outlet from moisture is like a parent telling his or her kid that they should not be wearing a cotton sweater to keep themselves warm in an aircon room because the material isn't think enough, and that that they should be wearing a parka instead. And then go another step further and give them this unlikely scenario about how wearing a sweater could get them killed by a wild wolf because the wolf will think they are some furry animal sheep and try to pounce on them from the bushes. Well, that was a stupid analogy because a parka is more furry than a regular cotton jacket.

Just shut the fuck up.

Now my concern is this motherfucker is going start looking for even more "problems" and bring them up to the Antoinette so he can get more job. 

Last minute Assumptions

A few days ago, Mr Antoinette reached out to me and shared with me that a portion of his wall had chipped off, he attached a picture of the issue and asked if I could do anything about it. It was an easy fix, so I told him I could get my guys down to do a repair of that problem area and get them to bring along some paint for the patch up since he has already thrown the extra bottles of paint away. 

The date was scheduled to his preference, I dropped my painter a reminder to bring the extra paint and everything was proceeding as per scheduled, until the evening before the painter is scheduled to go down, Mr Antoinette messages me at 8pm, an hour after my painter has knocked off from work, asking me...

"Your guys will be bringing the paint for my other room as well right?"

... HUH?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? SIMI LAN JIAO?!

I was fucking confused because the exchanges we had CLEARLY indicated that I will only be touching up the area he had brought up, nowhere in the message did he request for the other areas to be touched up as well.

His other room is painted in a different color, so it is not just a matter of bringing a little more paint, it's a matter of bringing another bottle of color entirely.

Why the fuck would I get my painter to bring down the paint colour for the other rooms when you have only requested to have the chipped wall touched up? Do I look that fucking extra to you that I would actually do that? 

So when someone request for you to help them get a McSpicy from McDonalds....

Do you also get them a Double Cheeseburger? No! 

Do you also get them a McChicken? Obviously Not!

Do you also get them a Fillet-o-Fish? For Fuck?

No! you get them just the McSpicy because that it what they requested! 

It's like that someone coming up to you and asking you....

"You also ordered an extra McChicken for me right?

 ... right after you have ordered and made payment. Fucking irritating, couldn't you have told me when I was fucking queueing up, or when you made the request for the McSpicy? 

I am just really irritated at the way he worded his request because it is insinuating that I should have gotten the paint for the extra room as well and that if I didn't, it is my fault, the way he writes "right?" at the end of his message makes me want to give him a very very hard high five to his face! 

He could not have picked a worst timing by sending me that stupid question literally an hour AFTER my sub-con has knocked off from work.  I hope the sub-con will somehow be able to read the message tomorrow morning and prepare the extra paint in time because I am seriously feeling so irritated by that braininess assumption.

I really hope this is like a one time occurrence and he won't message me again for any future touch ups, maybe do me a massive favor and learn how to do the touch up yourself because it really isn't that difficult of a fix. He has a hardware shop that sells paint that is literally a 2 minutes drive away from the apartment, I really hope he won't be the type that reaches out to me every time he needs to do a simple touch up, because those little bitches can be so fucking annoying. 

A little mark on the wall that can be wiped away with a wet towel. Call the Interior Designer to send someone down to rectify

A small piece of tape that is still stuck on the windowsill by the window supplier. Call the Interior Designer to send someone down to rectify.

The condom can't fit their dick because they bought XL size and they only have a micro-penis, Let me call your fucking mother and father and have them explain to you why you have a pencil dick! 

Inefficient Day

 I did a site visit to one of my clients new place today and this site visit was meant to be a defect inspection.

The original plan was to meet at 2pm, so I left the house at about 12.30pm because it was located all the way towards the Punggol area, the apartment was located a fair distant away from the nearest LRT and it was just not a convenient location.  

I managed to reach the place at about 1.45pm and my goal then was to head to the apartment, do maybe an hour of defect inspection, and then leave for a late lunch at about 3pm because it was a weekend and I figured 3pm is an odd enough timing for the lunch crowd to dissipate, all I had before that was leftover bag of caramel corn puffs for breakfast and a cup of milk coffee, so I wasn't exactly full.

As I entered the carpark and was heading towards the apartment, my client messages me and tells me he will be there soon, that we can go up together, and he arrives like 5 minutes later at the lift lobby and I notice he wasn't with his wife, so I asked him where she was and if she was going to come later, to which he said she was still stuck at work but will head over soon. My assumption at that point was that she was probably going to be late for maybe 30 minutes, that she was already done with work and was on her way over, that I can still leave at 3pm and actually have my lunch.

So we took the lift together and reach the apartment, my client invites me into the place, he goes and turns on the aircon, ask me if I had anything else for the afternoon, I told him I was free the entire day and we start walking around the entire space to observe the space, as I was busy measuring the areas where the carpentry would be at, he was busy measuring the rooms and then coming over and asking me for advice on how big of a bed he can buy, how much space he has left if he gets this furniture, how much space he needs to leave if he gets that furniture, and we ended up talking for quite a bit, occasional we would actually look for defects here and there but we did eventually spend most of the time just discussing about the space planning for his loose items.

I hadn't realized how much time had passed until I finally looked at my phone and it was already almost 4pm, so I asked him if his wife was coming anytime soon, to which he told me she will be reaching a bit later, at this point I was already feeling a bit hungry and thirsty, so as I was talking to him, I was also packing my bag to sort of give him the hint that I wanted to leave soon, but he didn't really get it and kept pulling me to other areas of the apartment and talked about more space planning stuff, at one point, I started to realize that he didn't really want me to go because he didn't want to wait alone, he wanted someone to accompany him, so I begrudgingly agreed and just entertained him until his wife came.  

The wife came at 5pm. 

I had been talking to the husband for 3 hours before the wife finally came with her parents and THANKFULLY, they brought bottles of water up and a puff pastry for me.

Initially I was a bit hesitant to take the pastry because it didn't look like it was bought for me and they were only offering the food to me to be nice, like how sometimes I offer to help my colleague buy lunch out of courtesy and hope they would say No, but then they say "Oh, I don't mind" and then I just feel burdened with the task. Same with the puff pastry, so when the wife initially offered me one, I told her I was alright even though I was fucking starving.

We did a walkthrough of the space with the wife and her parents, had more discussion about the space planning, their Dad offered his own take on how the space should be planned and I like the Dad, he is super easy going with all the defects that I had spotted earlier and told my clients that those areas they can just leave it because the issues aren't major, if all my clients were as easygoing as the Dad, my job would be so much easier, but anyways the Dad offered his own advice and we ended up removing a few of the carpentry pieces, much to my dismay because that means less profit for me, he offered some valid advice, but there were some that were also a bit iffy that I didn't really want to go against because I didn't want him to think I was disagreeing with everything he was saying, after that was done, both the husband and wife urges me to take one puff pastry, so I finally took the puff pastry and wolfed it down like a starving African child.

At this point, both of them tells me that if I had to go, I could leave because technically my job was already done, but I stayed until I finished my puff pastry and FINALLY left the place at 5.45pm! I spend 3 hours and 45 minutes at the place and only maybe 1.5 hours doing any actual work related stuff, the rest of the time I was pretty much entertaining the husband until the wife arrived. 

I was still feeling peckish after the puff pastry, so I had my dinner after that at the nearby shopping center and thankfully, Mos Burger was relatively empty, so I had my dinner and headed home and by the time I came out from the MRT Station, it was already dark and when I think of how early I had left home today and how late I am reaching home, it just felt like my time was so horribly spend because it's not like I had visited multiple sites today, I only visited one and it took up my entire day, like the level of productivity today just felt like shit.

 Anyways, after I got home, the husband send me a text thanking me for dropping by and apologizing for making me stay so long, which was a nice gesture. I can appreciate a customer who actually respects and feels bad when they know have have taken up too much of my time. 

Good news is I am pretty free tomorrow, so hopefully my day off won't be interrupted by any work related messages from my clients and sub-cons. A short mental break would be nice.

Worst Korean Cold Noodles Ever

After settling some final paperwork for a friend's renovation project, I had to drop by another old project to do a favor for the client.

Right after that, I dropped by West Coast Plaza for my dinner because it was just around the corner, I wasn't very hungry because I had eaten quite a late lunch, but decided since I was already in the shopping mall, might as well have something light and settle my dinner. 

Initially, I didn't really know what I wanted to eat, so I walked around and then came across this Korean Restaurant that was selling affordable Korean food, I had tried their items before when I was working on that old project and everything was just painfully average, it isn't real Korean food so my expectations really weren't that high.

I looked at the menu and was contemplating getting either my default Korean food order, which is Kimchi Soup or maybe Ramen, but then my ulcer didn't really think it was a good idea so I ordered their Cold Noodles.

I had this store's Cold Noodles once and from my memory, it wasn't good, but I thought it must have been at least edible, I also ordered a coke and then started sipping on that as I waited for my food to come.

It arrives and then I remembered how bad it was.

Korean Cold Noodles usually looks like this....

I love Korean Cold Noodles, the broth is lightly coloured and flavorful, it is usually served with some iced broth to keep the dish cold for longer, there are cucumber and pear slices thrown in for freshness and an egg and the noodles are nice and chewy.

I wasn't expecting that for this Korean restaurant though, I knew it wasn't good, but when I was presented with the dish, it was even worst than I had imagined it would be.

For starters, the dish itself is not super cold, it is the type of cold you would get when you leave your cold can of coke on the kitchen counter for maybe 10 minutes on a very hot day, the bowl itself was not cold as well because the broth wasn't cold.

The broth colour is completely off, I have no idea why it is so dark but it is and it is actually tasteless until it is swallowed, and you then get this vinegar sourness as an aftertaste, it would be like drinking a can of Vinegar flavored LaCroix that is not cold enough, not carbonated.

The beef is extremely stringy and tough I was worried that it would actually get stuck between my teeth, so I didn't eat too much of it.

The noodles were chewy and tough but they looked like they were cooked for too long and expanded way too much.

The egg, cucumber and carrot slices are probably the most edible part of the dish, and they are the garnish.

To date, this is probably the most disappointing dish I have eaten, my expectations were already low but boy did this dish grab a shovel and dig even lower, the noodles were tasteless, the soup is tasteless, the beef is tough and stringy, like how the fuck did the cooks in the kitchen even think this was up to standard to actually serve to paying customers, it blows my mind how little effort was put into preparing this dish, and they charge $5.50 for this garbage. 

There is absolutely no flavor other than the vinegary aftertaste. It is so bad, the picture above is how much was left of the dish when I decided I could no longer eat it anymore, I remember looking at the table across of me of this lady eating a plate of kimchi fried rice and just feeling jealous that she was at least served something edible. 

Damn Tooth Again!

I had to pay a visit to the dentist a few days back because the fillings for my molar dropped off while I was enjoying a box of Pocky the night before.

This is the same tooth that gave me a lot of discomfort about a year back during my company trip that cost me about $400 to "repair", well, the repair didn't last very long. Back then, the dentist told me the damage to the molar was pretty severe and that I may require a root canal during to how deep the decay has gone, thankfully we didn't need to resort to a root canal then and the dentist simply drilled the decay out and then patched it back up with composite filling.

I have since learn that composite filling does not last long and I should have gone for an amalgam filling instead, especially for my molars because I use that to chew food, so composite being non-metal like amalgam, it started to wear off pretty fast, which eventually led to the filling falling off.

When I actually visited the dentist a few days back, I had to go to a different one and this dentist essentially told me that my molar was very close to cracking because of how much damage it has been through and how little tooth I actually have left, according to him, about 70% of my tooth is just filling, so if I actually needed a root canal and did said root canal, there is a very high chance the tooth might just break and I might end up needing to extract it, and then doing an implant.

That means I will potentially be needing 2 fucking implants! One for my front tooth and one for the molar, total damage to have those 2 implants is $8000! Fuck My Life!

But then during the visit, the dentist recommended for me to crown the tooth first to hopefully delay the extraction as long as possible, according to my research, it could potentially delay the ordeal by a decade, so that should be enough to save for the implant because I am currently already stressing out about the fact that I might potentially have to do the implant for my front tooth next year when it eventually breaks.

So much fucking money because I did not brush my teeth when I was young, my laziness really knows no bound, and when I think about how my insurance agent had essentially made me sign a new savings plan late last year, I just want to pull my fucking hair out because that would be another $3000 taken out from my savings account, granted I will eventually get them back so I should just see it as me investing in my molar implant 10 years down the road. 

Anyway, the crowning will be done in about 2 weeks time, that shit is gonna cost me $850, for someone who is not really earning much every month, I am not a huge fan of spending such a large amount so suddenly.

If these isn't a sign that I need a job with a stable income, then I don't know what is. I can either find a new job with a stable income or I can try to make this current one work, but with my personality, I honestly find trying to make this current one work to be a little bit difficult because that would mean not being picky with the customers I choose to work with anymore.

I just cannot not be picky, it is extremely difficult, the signs that a difficult customer shows during the first meeting is sometimes very hard to ignore

If a potential customer is a piece of shit before they officially engage me for my services, chances are they will evolve into the personification of a full blown explosive diarrhea once the renovation actually starts.

If I see a piece of shit, I want to avoid the piece of shit, I do not want to step on the piece of shit, and then proceed to smear what I had stepped on all over my body, I do not believe in the concept of...

"Sign the contract first, deal with the problem later" 

... the logic is so stupid and it was what was practiced by a few of my colleagues in the past, the problem ended becoming a 2 to 4 months long constant headache. 

"Oscar The Grouch"

 After having made this personal decision to try and make this job work and finally finding a way to possibly make this job less stressful, I get thrown 2 new customer leads that make me want to take back that decision.

It is not so much that the leads are bad, it's that I do not want to work on those 2 particular projects. I got both leads yesterday, one during a roadshow event and another from my brother.

Thing about the roadshow event is, I didn't actually want to attend the event but was pressured into attending because almost nobody from my company wanted to go. I will admit, after being forced to attend and prior to actually attending that event, I was secretly looking forward to it because I have heard from my colleagues that the type of customers from the event tend to be of  a higher quality, that they are sincerely looking for renovation companies and they usually have a realistic budget, so my only wish was that I didn't want to get any landed property project lead. I even said this to my colleagues who attended the event, that I didn't want landed and then joked with one of them saying that if I got a landed property project leads, I will pass it on to her.

20 minutes into the event and my first customer comes up to my table, introduces themselves to me and the moment I saw the floorplan that was presented to me, it was like this instant "sian" feeling just rushed over me because it was exactly what I didn't want, an old double storey landed property.

I had a nice chat with the customer nonetheless and I find out the wife, who I shall refer to as Nancy, was actually working for the company that was hosting the event because the laptop she had brought with her had the company sticker on it, initially I thought she had borrowed the laptop from one of the organizer's employee, but she told me very candidly that she was working for the company, it was double the stress because if she was working for the company, that means she is also very up to date with the latest design trends and suppliers, so she was requesting for a lot of rattan, a lot of archways design and the whole time, I just felt like she was wasting her breath sharing all these ideas she had with me because I was just not interested in the project at all.

The couple were friendly but I don't think we really click much because landed property projects are projects I wouldn't want to touch with a ten foot pole, from a technical perspective, there was a lot that I didn't know and I really didn't want to learn on the job using their house as my test run, if I were to only handle the design and just the design, than that would have been great, but alas, my role also includes being the project manager and I do not have the mental capability to handle such a big project without feeling an immense amount of stress from overthinking about things potentially going wrong.

The roadshow ends after 4 hours, I only managed to meet that one couple because I was honestly fucking lazy and not in the mood to take anymore, plus there really weren't a lot of homeowners who came that day, so I left and headed to Lau Pat Sat for dinner alone. I was really hungry and the market was relatively empty due to a severe lack of tourist, so eating alone there wasn't too bad, plus I really had to because I actually felt weak and would probably faint if I headed straight home without filling my stomach.

Ordered a bowl of Pork Knife Cut Noodles, very generous serving and obviously couldn't finish it, but it was pretty nice.

But before that dinner as I was walking towards Lau Pat Sat, I actually got a Telegram message from my brother's friend who was essentially requesting for a quote for his renovation works, I honestly wasn't interested because I didn't want to work with my brothers friend, but decided to just entertain him for the sake of my brother.

He sends me his floorplan and his requirements and they were pretty basic stuff I knew how to calculate, unlike that landed property, but I did ask him a few question and pointed out a few issues with some of his request, mainly his request to polish his tiles.

The tiles has to be of a specific material in order for polishing to work, so I asked him if he knew what his tile material was and he sends me a picture of the floor and expected me to know what it is from looking at it.

This would be like me sending a Barista a picture of a latte and asking them if they know the coffee in the picture is using Soy Milk or Regular Milk. 

So I told him I can't tell and that he should probably check with his seller, but I would just calculate the quote for him as per his request and assume the tiles can be polished just so he can get an accurate figure of what he is requesting. 

No respond.

I completed the quote today and send it to him, told him there were more issues with his request, that his request for a full steel kitchen cabinet would require him to liase directly with the supplier because my company does not have contacts there, I even gave him the supplier information for him to check out on his own.

No respond.

Infuriating much, its fuckers like this that do not have the common courtesy to reply to my messages that pisses me off. He is essentially treating me like a free renovation quotation generator, only messages me when he needs something but doesn't drop a word of thanks when I present to him what he has requested, like what I have provided for him is his god given right as a non-paying customer.

I appreciate customers referring their friends to me, but when I get shit referrals like that who don't have the sincerity to meet me in person, who is only in for the free quotation, it is extremely grating because what I am being given is just a load of extra unpaid work to do for these insincere fucks. Probably won't be entertaining him any further if he request for more amendments.

If he had bothered to respond, I would have asked him about his decision to reduce his toilet in half, literally have no fucking clue what he wants to do by knocking down half the wall of the common toilet that faces the bloody living room and erecting the glass wall up, that is some next level kinky shit, I would understand if a couple did it for their master toilet, but to make your family and friends take a piss or shit in a toilet that is in full view from the living room is really really really weird.

Today, I also pass that landed property lead to my colleague and I attempted to update Nancy about the change in designer, I had a feeling she was no longer interested to continue any discussion with me but decided to just update her anyway.

When I texted her earlier, it wasn't just to update her about the change in designer, I also requested to get her budget because I hadn't asked about it during our meeting and my colleague wanted to know if it was realistic , so the message I send was one that needed her response and well, she didn't respond.

So I was right, she wasn't interested but it was still annoying to be left hanging.

I told my colleague not to bother calculating the quote until Nancy responded because landed property quotes do take a while to prepare and I didn't want her wasting time on someone who was no longer interested, but she insisted on calculating on the off chance that Nancy actually replies back much later. 

Nancy hasn't replied yet and it is already 12.30 midnight. I send her the message at 4pm.

UPDATE:

Nancy finally replied me late this morning asking me why I was passing her project to another designer she hasn't met before, after explaining to her that my colleague had more experience and that her project would be in better hands, she accepted the transfer and requested for my colleagues email so she can liase with her directly, so that's that. 

Missed Meeting and more Unrealistic Budget Buggers

I was suppose to attend a company lunch today at my company's showroom, but hadn't realize that the timing was brought forward by an hour, so I guess I am not gonna bother heading down now.



My problem with the change in timing is that it was never reiterated again after it was brought up once, the flow of the message went like this....

Random Topic A 

Random Topic A

Random Topic A

Change in Meeting Time Update 

(It was a reply message to an earlier message but I thought it was a reply to Random Topic A, so I skipped it)

Random Topic B

Attendance Check for who will be attending the Lunch after the meeting. 

(The change in timing was not reiterated in the attendance check message)

Attendance Check 

Attendance Check

.

.

.

.

.

.

Attendance Check 

... and then fast forward to today, I just notice that the timing got changed to 1pm after my colleague posted in the group chat that the meeting/lunch was starting soon at 12 noon. 

Since I am probably the only one who seemed to have missed out the timing, it is my fault for not keeping a close eye on the chat, but the way the change in timing was so casually brought up and never reiterated again also really threw me off, and the lack of any reminders to reiterate the change in timing a day before the meeting date really did not help. 

Anyways, my boss is actually at the showroom today to conduct the meeting, so I am probably gonna be blacklisted for not showing up, I wouldn't mind getting blacklisted from customer leads for a while, I could really use a short break from having to deal with shitty leads.

I got one a few days back that had an unrealistic budget, nice lady, we chatted on the phone, but her budget for her renovation can only stretch so far and it barely covers 40% of what she wanted to do, so I emailed her the quote and then my boss calls me up and tells me to follow up with the client a bit more tightly because this lady had a lot of potential as she was my boss's family friend.



Honestly thought it was a bit pointless to follow up too closely.

1. She is my boss's family friend, not mine, so I am not gonna give her any family friend discount because, well, she isn't my family friend and I don't know her personally.

2. I am not paid a monthly salary by my boss, so I am not obligated to give her any sort of huge discount, my earning is fully reliant on commission, if I feel like the commission I will end up getting is not worth my time and effort, then I am going to drop her as a client. 

3. There would literally be no commission because as I have stated, her budget can't even cover half of the renovation works, if I took on the project, it will be as good as me paying for her renovation, which brings me back to point number 1, she ain't my family friend, so why should I ? 

I told my boss that her budget is way too low and unrealistic, but he kept pushing for me to follow up closely, to offer her suggestions on what she can remove from her requirements to reduce the cost, to give her an overall discount at the end to make the contract amount more appealing and then to just call her "right now" and speak to her.

Right Now = 1pm on a Monday afternoon. 

She is working "right now" and he wants me to just call her whilst she is in the middle of work, it was a bit weird, he wasn't offering me any realistic advice and it just sounded like he wanted me to do hard sell to clinch the project, which is not something I am good at or even want to attempt to do because hard selling will just make the clients feel like they have been pressured to sign the contract and this would just lead to a lot of problems later on during the renovation. 

If a client came back to me on their own, chances are they like me as a person and we have good chemistry, working with such clients is a lot better because they will be understanding when a problem arises, since they did not feel pressured to engage me, if something goes wrong, they won't think that I am trying to cheat them off their hard earned money and they will probably not nitpick as much. I am a socially awkward individual, if the other party and I don't click, then every meeting that we have will be awkward because I also won't feel comfortable starting a conversation with them.

If I had attended the meeting today, my boss would have probably asked me about this particular client, but alas, I see no point in heading down for the meeting and lunch now since the meeting is already over (as of me writing up to this stage of this post). The lunch was just something I would have partake in since I was already going to be there for the meeting, so I gotta Grab Food instead now I suppose.

I also got another lead a few days back with an even more unrealistic budget, so that is another waste of time I will have to deal with in the coming days when we meet in my office for a face to face consultation, this new client has yet to respond back to my message to double confirm the appointment, I really hope it is not gonna be another ingrate like Ros. I mean looking at the budget she has set aside, the meeting we will be having next week will very likely be the only one we ever have.



She has requested for a full renovation works - Estimated Cost should be anywhere between $40,000 to $50,000 for the basic stuff.


Her budget she has set aside is $15,000 - $20,000



Getting this kind once or twice, it's fine, but I have been getting leads like this for so many months now, it is irritating, do they not know how to do any sort of  research online before they set the budget? It is so far off the mark it's just ridiculous!


I believe these clients uses the website Qanvast to get connected with the interior designers, Qanvast has a shit ton of project with the renovation cost for them to look at....

Between $50,000 - $120,000

Between $68,000 - $150,000

....this is the renovation cost range for an apartment of that client's size, between $50,000 - $150,000, such a simple research that can be done within a matter of seconds and she puts her budget as $15,000 - $20,000.

And the annoying thing is it is not just this customer, almost all the leads I have been getting from my company have the same problem, just this blatant lack of research for their budget, they focus so much on what they want for their space but then don't double check if they actually have the money to afford all their wants.



I feel like the websites that provides all this leads should also adopt the responsibility of educating the owners on the correct budget they should be setting aside for their renovation because companies actually pay these renovation portals for the leads.


These leads are not cheap but they are garbage. 

New Project, New Pimples

I have been enjoying a relatively acne free face for the past 3 months, but it seems like that has come to an end because right now, there are quite a few popping up and I am not sure if it is because of the mask I have been wearing or just the stress that is coming from the start of a new project.



It feels like it has been such a long time since I did any project management and I am honestly really worried about how smooth the renovation will be, my clients for that new project lives only a few minutes away from their new apartment, so I might be getting a lot of text messages in the evenings when they actually do drop by to check up on the progress every now and then, and because I am not staying even remotely close to the project site, I might not drop by as often as I would like to.





I was suppose to drop by the site last Thursday to stick a few renovation permits, but the afternoon heat was way too much to handle and the one hour journey required to reach there from home was such a turn off that I kept on procrastinating until I finally went down on Saturday and it was mainly because I had to go to the office that day anyway so might as well take that detour.





The permits were pasted, spoke to a few neighbors as well to give them a bit of heads up and headed back to the office at around 12 noon, which was surprisingly early because I was expecting to reach the office much later.




Now my concern is whether or not my sub-con actually remembers that I have scheduled work with him for this Wednesday, I booked a slot with him about half a month back, so it has been a while and I am not sure if he actually puts the date down in his calendar or not or he just relies on memory, I did drop him a text to confirm a few days back but he hasn't responded, so I will probably text him again tomorrow just to double confirm.



My client also texted me earlier today telling me they wanted to open their "Electrical and Water Account", but deleted the message like less than a minute later, I was busy doing a No.2 in the toiler so I only manage to read the message through the notification bar before it updated itself and became "this message was deleted"




For the renovation to actually proceed, we will need electricity and of course water when the tiling comes in, so it is a bit disconcerting that the wife is telling me they are planning to open their "Electrical and Water Account" 2 days before the renovation is suppose to start. You really shouldn't be telling me that you are planning to open an account, it should have been done much earlier to ensure that there is water and electricity before the renovation starts.




This is just one of those things that I would have never thought would be necessary to inform a client before the start of the renovation because it should be common sense, it's like that time when I had to deal with my other client Emily who thought the carpentry renovation works I was going to do for her was going to be a quick and quiet affair , but upon realizing it was going to a renovation level installation, got angry, actually stopped my guys from working and then blame me for not telling her it was going to be a renovation, the level of common sense that she was lacking has not been beaten by any of my other clients I have worked with so far ,yet, and I am hoping it stays that way.





But with the current client, the fact that the message was deleted so quickly means that I was never really meant to read it, so I am going to assume that they got it settled already and when my guy goes up on Wendesday, I won't be having any issues with the electricity and water.

Fingers crossed everything goes well.



My last project that I did for my friend went super smoothly, so I am super worried that this one might not and might end up becoming a Sly Fox and Antoinette level kind of bothersome as the universe's way of balancing things out, fuck, I have become so superstitious after I stared working in this industry.



Please, I do not want to give this couple a nickname for the blog.

Low EQ

My new project will officially be starting next week and I don't know how mentally ready I am to go back into project management mode.

Ever since construction work could start again, the only projects I have been touching are the ones that are either already done and only needed minor touching up, or the project that I am helping my friend run. My friend is pretty chill with the renovation, so it has been extremely smooth sailing for me, for her it was a bit of a bitch because the pandemic delayed her project, which could have been completed within 4 weeks, for 3 months, luckily it is done and I assume she is generally quite satisfied with the renovation so thumbs up there.

Anyways, I have also been getting a steady stream of not so great leads lately, nothing new there, most of them clients do not have the habit of responding to messages, which is a bit annoying, I mean you are the one who requested for interior designers to reach out to you, at least have the decency to respond to our messages even if you are not interested. 

Ros has also responded and I really can't be bothered to be very friendly in the messages, she took a bloody long time to respond initially, the first exchange after my last chat with her about sending me her requirements, took her 2 days to reply and after I respond to that, she took another 3 days to follow up and she actually messaged me at 11.30pm out of the blue for that, which annoyed me, so I ended up muting her conversation for 8 hours because I did not want to deal with her buzzing my phone up. 

I guess if it was another customer I wouldn't so so annoyed, but because she was so inconsiderate during our first exchange, like not replying to my initial message to confirm the appointment and then bailing on our meeting last minute, I was and am a little more touchy with her, especially because I also don't really sense any sort of gratitude from her end during our exchanges, there isn't any thanks in the messages, she doesn't start new conversations with "Hi Tim", just always go straight to her request, it is little things like this that really makes the difference, so my impression of her isn't great, it always feels like she is giving me an order when I am talking to her.



I have since prepared a quote and send it to her, even drop her a text message to let her know I have emailed it to her and she doesn't bother to drop a simple "Thanks", she reads the message because I see it get blue ticked, and then a few hours later sends me a message asking me to resend the quote to the exact same email I had just send to hours prior, once again, no word of thanks, and when I have send it over and inform her via text, doesn't bother to respond.  No fucking clue why she requested for it to be resend unless she deleted it by accident, but even if she did, she should have been able to retrieve if from the bin so my guess is she probably got a few quotes from a few Interior Designers, saw mine, didn't want to bother with me and deleted it permanently, realize she should have kept mine so she can compare the prices, and then requested for a resend.



I highly doubt she will reach out again because I did charge her a bit higher than normal, like I would with clients I do not like, I was talking to my colleague about her and he just told me that people like Ros just have really low EQ, I personally think she is just an ingrate.





Speaking of things that are disgusting.



Whilst on 9Gag last night, I came across a post that had a list of numbers and next to those numbers were description that went....

"Legendary"

"Amazing"

"Burn in Hell, should not exist."

... I kinda had a feeling I knew what those numbers represent, so I went to the comment section and saw someone lisitng down one particular number and wrote...

" *number* wasn't so bad, it isn't fapping material but I thought the story was really good and shows the dark side of human nature"

... so I copied the number down out of sheer curiosity, open an incognito tab on my phone and slap those numbers in with the word hentai at the end. I mean I knew it was either hentai or Japanese porn, but what I had failed to realize was that that particular number in the original post had the words "Burn in Hell, should not exist" written beside it and when I actually ended up on the website, which popped up as the very first result on Google, I wished I had skipped that bloody post on 9 Gag.




I wrote the entire plot in this post but decided to delete it because it is fucking sick. The fact that someone could actually think of it as a plot line really shows how fucked up that person actually is, like it is actually so fucking disturbing I do not feel comfortable writing down the synopsis in this blog. 

Random Musings

I got myself a new project obtained a few weeks back!

The job hunt has once again ended in utter failure, IKEA emailed back a few days back telling me I did not get the position, this was many many months AFTER I applied for the position. I legitimately do not know what their requirements are because I feel like I do have the sales and interior design experience required for the job.

Anyways, IKEA was a bust and has always been every time I tried to apply for it.

The other jobs I have applied for, I guess I am too under qualified to even be considered, I might end up looking for an Interior Stylist position at a furniture job just so I can still be in the same industry but not have the same level of responsibility I have now, it's not fun to be at the beck and call of a client for months on end during a renovation project, an Interior Stylist work just feels a lot more simpler in terms of overall responsibility and have a shorter timeline, I introduce the furniture, the layout, we have those items delivered and placed accordingly and then I am done, any after sales service will be dealt with by the after sales team. I am actually considering applying for a company called BoConcept again, applied for it a few years back, went for the interview but screwed that up because I was an idiot, maybe once this new project is over, which will probably be till the end of the year, I will apply for more stylist positions again.



I have also just finished meeting a new client earlier and it was not good, from the start the husband already gave me a bad impression, he was generally quite unfriendly and not approachable, the wife was nicer but that is when I compare her next to her husband. The consultation itself was just a mess, one of my managerial level colleague actually requested for one of the newbie to sit in with me during, but luckily I did not agree to it because it would have been such a bad example of how a design consultation should go.




The clients wanted to do very little renovation works, only redoing the kitchen cabinets and honestly speaking, there isn't much to discuss when the work needed to be done is so simple and straightforward, I also didn't click with them so there wasn't any additional conversation happening in between to create a more friendly atmosphere between us, it was mostly just a lot of awkward silences, me waiting for them to ask me anything related to the renovation, if they were unsure of anything that needed clarification. It lasted less than 30 minutes and they were out of the door after that, didn't even bother to send them out, just had them walk out themselves.

I also came across this video on Facebook and thought it was quite refreshing to see. I definitely vibe more with the guy because he is a lot more real with his response, his is the kind of response I would share with my interior design colleagues whereas the girls' response is what I will share with my clients when I am feeling comfortable enough around them to be a bit more candid.

Reschedule is the new Cancel

A few days ago, my company gave me a new client lead and this particular client, who I shall call Ros, had made an appointment for 2pm today.



Yesterday afternoon, I decided to send Ros a reminder via text that she has an appointment with me today at 2pm, I have made it a habit to do this because most of the time, clients who arrange an appointment many days in advance have the tendency to not follow through with the meeting and actually cancel without even bothering to actually let my office or myself know, the few that I got within the past month, I would reach out and after reaching out to double confirm the appointment the day before, they would always cancel and say they are busy or have something else on so they cannot make it and then request to reschedule at a later date but don't actually give me a date.




Anyway, I texted Ros the reminder and she reads it but doesn't reply, so I wasn't sure whether she was actually coming or not because some clients don't bother responding once they have decided they weren't interested anymore, like actual pieces of shit who thinks their time is more important than ours actually exist.




I made the mental preparation that she wasn't going to come today but decided in the off chance that she does, I will just go to the office to wait, I will treat my visit to the office as a chit chat session with my colleagues who were there that day.



So I leave my house at 12 noon today and reach the interchange at Toa Payoh at about 12.45, walked around a bit to kill some time, got myself a bowl of glutinous rice ball from Mr Bean and as I started walking towards the interchange to wait for my bus, my phone buzzes and it's a message from Ros that reads...

"Sorry, I think I have to reschedule, my medical appointment got delayed. Maybe I can give you a call instead?"

... even though I was already mentally prepared for her to not show up, I can't help but feel just a little bit irritated by this kind of last minute cancellation.



I didn't really want to entertain her at this point so I took a while before replying back and was of course really cordial about it, I told her to just send me her floorplan as well as her requirements and I will try and work a quotation around those requirements, I didn't want to have a phone call with her because honestly speaking, not worth my saliva. She responds about 2 hours later that she has the floor plan on hand and will take a picture of it for me, I hate when a client takes a shitty photo of a floor plan for me.

An example of a shitty floor plan

The scale is off and the floor plan is skewed, trying to fix it in photoshop is gonna take a while and I just don't want to waste my fucking time putting so much effort on this client.



Ros has an unrealistic budget as well, so that is like the cherry on top of this steaming pile of shit, an overall waste of everybody's time, except Ros because she didn't even show up, didn't even bother to text me until an hour before our meeting time to cancel reschedule, (UPDATE) it is already the next day and she hasn't send over her floorplan yet, not that I am complaining about it because that means I don't have to give any fucks about it.