Not in the CNY Mood.

My company is officially closed for CNY and don't feel all that relaxed about it because...



1. My current $90,000 is reaching it's end soon and I am anticipating a lot of "defects" to pop up, and by that I mean my clients sending me a dozen text messages within a span of a few hour, depending on how stringent they are, reporting their findings to me.



2. My reservist starts right after the CNY Break is over, which is horrible because of the above reason, I will essentially be stuck in camp during the defect check, which means any issues that gets brought up, I can't deal with in person immediately because I will be stuck in camp.





When a client brings up an issue they have with the ongoing renovation, I will always want to be there in person to actually assess the problem because a lot of times, these defects aren't really defects but minor imperfections. It would be like getting a dozen cupcakes from a bakery and then pointing out that the liners used for the cupcakes are peeling off at the edges a little or that one of the cupcake has a slightly different looking swirl that the others... these are considered imperfections, defect would be finding a surprise Lizard in the center of the cupcake or a less dramatic example would be the cupcakes getting all smashed up when it gets delivered to your place.






It's generally quite a pain when I get messages about imperfections and not actual defects because it can get really difficult to explain to a client why I am not going to send someone down to rectify that small little smudge at the corner of the wall that they can literally take a paint brush and paint over on their own in a matter of minutes. A lot of times they will assume I am not doing what I am not doing because I am trying to shirk responsibility, but the truth is, I do not want to waste my sub-contractor's time because it will affect my working relationship with them if I keep asking them to do such minor touch up whenever a client complains about the smallest issue, they won't want to work with me if working with me would bring them such a great deal of inconvenience.




So anyways, the $90,000 project apartment has officially gone through it's final round of cleaning , I can now walk into the apartment with my shoes off, which feels nice,  also dropped by the place earlier to stick stickers on the "defect" areas that needs touching up, my client will be returning back from his work trip tomorrow and he will be visiting the place with his wife, so FML, and all these to happen on my CNY break.




The wife has already dropped by earlier this evening to take a look and she spotted some minor fixable issues that would require a bit of arm grease power from me, like removing a bunch of paint stains on railings and what not, I mean they are easy fixes but getting these kinds of messages are just mood killers no matter how small the issues are, at best I would get distracted by them for a while, at worst, I completely lose my appetite and skip dinner despite feeling extremely hungry earlier.





I am already affected by a solo defect hunt done by the wife, once the husband enters the picture and they start doing the hunt together, that is when I am going to not have any appetite for anything.






When I first got my hands on this couple's renovation project, even before I clinched their project, I had already anticipated this day to come, just the sheer scope of the work that was done to the place, it is inevitable that they would have a lot of imperfections and defects to bring up to me and request for me to fix, but the stress that comes from this is something I can never mentally prepare myself for, it is always a very stressful process and I have been pretty lucky that for my last few projects, the clients were either on site everyday to monitor and able to immediately get the contractors to rectify those issues on the spot, or they were in a rush to move in so they couldn't spend a lot of time doing the defect checks, especially because once all the furniture comes in, it becomes harder to spot the blemishes on the walls or the slight dent in the cabinet door, it's like the defects suddenly become the needle in a haystack of furniture.





This project has really delayed for almost 2 months now, previously the client's parents was expecting me to complete the project within 2 months, so around end November, which was an impossible request, so I told them it was impossible and was about to give up on the project if they insisted on that timeline, but I was luckily able to talk some sense into them and then estimated for it to end at the end of December before Christmas, but then the clients requested to do a lot more work, so that date was pushed back to mid January, then my carpenter fucked up and the clients also messed up and ordered a light that had a 3 weeks delivery timing, so that date was pushed to end January, then of course my carpenter screws me over again and delays his work, add the CNY break into the mix and I can only officially have every single item in the project delivered by early February. I will be going for my reservist in February, so everything else I will likely only be able to co-ordinate from camp and can only officially officially hand over the project to my clients at the end of February.






I am so stressed out my face is just free real estate for pimples right now, it is times like this when I just want to quit and get a different and much more stable and predictable job, always at this stage I will tell myself that I don't want to re-live this level of stress again, and then the project ends, I get happy to get paid and the cycle repeats itself.




When I have no projects to run, I crave for them, but when I have projects to run, I abhor them.
What the actual fuck.