That new client of mine has decided that they want to postpone their appointment with me today and meet at a later date.
I smell a potential project cancellation is imminent.
For a couple who has emphasis to me that they are rushing to start the renovation soon, it doesn't make sense for them to want to postpone the design meetings, if anything, they should be requesting to meet earlier and more frequently. The wife told me she will arrange for another date and let me know again, I have a feeling that she won't actually be reaching out again.
I have done the 3D Renderings for their place and I do quite like the overall theme they are looking at, so those completed renderings would be a great addition to my online 3D rendering portfolio. I will see how it goes next week, if there is still no updates from the wife next week, I will drop a courtesy text to essentially have her confirm that she is no longer interested, inform my admin that the project has been dropped and proceed with my job hunt again. I will also only add the renderings up on my portfolio maybe a month or two from now, when they have started their renovation journey with someone else, just so when I do put it up, it will be too late for them to steal the design and ask their own contractor to replicate.
Ultimately I also think it is for the best for them to engage someone else, I do feel an extra level of stress knowing that they chose me despite me being the most expensive option, it feels like I have to prove myself to them that they have made the right choice even though my price isn't actually "high", the other 2 companies they have shortlisted I believe are baiting them with a low price and will either scrimp on the materials used or charge them a bunch of compulsory additional items later on to earn back the money.
Also met the Antoinette today and we were able to settle a few of the issues that were brought up, they were actually legit issues so my bad for assuming they were trying to be difficult, the husband has also agreed to pay up a portion of the outstanding amount, I gave them some goodwill discount so hopefully I can get that project settled as well.
I guess this means I am pretty much almost done with any project related commitments, now it's a matter of not taking on anymore new projects for a while, I am planning to stop taking any customer leads from my company for maybe the next 2 months to really give myself a chance to look for a new job, this will also grant me a decent notice period should I get an interview and get asked about it. There is still one more client who might be reaching out to me soon, they were planning to engage me a few months back, but then their key collection date got delayed, so their plans to engage me has also been delayed, I am hoping to maybe get a few interviews in before they contact me again, just so I can have a better gauge of my resignation possibility and maybe direct them to my colleague instead.
It would be quite ironic if I actually do end up quitting my current line of work and start a new job within this Covid period because this is a time when people are losing their jobs. Fingers crossed I suppose.
Saturday 27 June 2020
Wednesday 24 June 2020
Pay Up!
My new bed frame from Hip Van has arrived, so has the little runner rug I added into the purchase to enjoy "free delivery". Bed frame cost $249 and the free delivery was for orders above $250.
It's a nice addition to the room, but the space still feels a little bare, I am tempted to actually get some picture frames to put on the wall to fill up the empty space, might do that soon once I get a chance to maybe visit IKEA or something, but furniture wise I think the space is pretty much filled.
My company has also reopened, so I am now going back to reporting for Showroom duties once every 3 days, doing the same thing, just watching Youtube videos when I am not meeting clients, which at this point is 90% of the time. I have also gotten a new project, not so sure how I feel about that to be honest, the clients expressed interest last month, we finally met on Saturday and they verbally confirmed with me, but nothing has been signed yet, the deposit hasn't been paid yet, so it is technically not "official" at this point.
The wife actually reached out 2 days back, telling me she wasn't comfortable paying so much before the start of the renovation and I won't lie, a part of me was hoping that her discomfort would lead to the cancellation of the project, I didn't even try to negotiate allowing her to pay less, I just spit out facts and told her there was nothing I could do, explained to her that we needed to collect that much to ensure that we have enough money to purchase the material and labour for the renovation to start, she accepted that reason and I really didn't care, I mean it's great that you understand the reason, but if you decide to cancel on me, I honestly could not care less.
Anyway, I am suppose to meet her and her husband again on Saturday to run through the 3D and get them to sign the contract as well as pay up the deposit, once again, a part of me is wishing the wife will just drop me a text within the next 2 day expressing her disinterest and then cancelling the meeting. I do not want to handle any projects during this period because the manpower is so insanely low at this point, it is extremely difficult to arrange works.
I am stuck in the cycle again, getting this project means I am now stuck in the company until the project ends, and I have no idea how long that will take, this means I can't continue my job hunt until the project is successfully completed. It means that even if I were to get job interviews, chances are they won't be successful because my notice period is going to be too long, so I have actually restarted the cycle by accepting this new project.
My office finance department girl has also been messaging me daily asking me if the client has paid the deposit, if they have signed the contract, it's actually quite irritating because I told her I will update her when they have done it, but she keeps texting me EVERYDAY in the morning without fail.
FML.
A recruitment agency actually reached out recently and offered to send my profile to one of their clients for a 3D Visualizer position, it sounds interesting because it is focused on designing community based exhibition and small scale museum spaces, this means I am not technically working for a client, the client will be the company because it one of those charity organisation that "aims to educate the public" kind of company so I am hoping to be shortlisted and get an interview with the company, which is also why I am hoping the new clients will cancel.
Another huge headache I have to deal with right now is the Antoinette, I am now being pressured by my company to obtain the outstanding payment as soon as possible because the outstanding payment is HUGE, so much in fact that their project is currently labelled as "red", which means the project is currently at a loss, it is quite bad and honestly the first time my project has gotten to this point.
I reached out to the Antoinette over the weekend to request for a meeting, the wife doesn't give me a date but instead request for me to resend the quote so they can take a look at their outstanding amount, I send the quote to them, she responds that she has received it and then request for me to send more workers down to do more touch up, this is 2 months after the project has been completed, before the Circruit Breaker, we were already done with all the touch ups, everything was suppose to be completed and in a handover state, they were already getting their items shifted in, the only thing left for us was signing the final paperwork and settling the final payment, that was it, but then of course the Covid problem happened and everyone had to be quarantined so I was unable to reach out and when I reach out again, suddenly they need more guys to be send down to do touch up.
The touch up portion never ends with them.
Anyways, I arranged for the worker, updated them and then my manager calls me the next day, expressing his concern that the Antoinette's Project still has a large outstanding amount that needed to be settled. It didn't hit me how urgent the matter was until my own manager called me to check, so I reached out to the Antoinette again and this time gave them a date and a rough time and am now waiting for them to confirm with me. Whether they confirm or not, I am very likely going to drop by that timing anyway since I know they will be on site waiting for my workers to do the touch up for them.
Let's hope I can settle a majority of my work related issues on Saturday so my Sunday can be as relaxing as possible. All this stress is making me miss the Circuit Breaker Lockdown period when all I had to be stressed out about was personally experiencing the death of a video game character.
It's a nice addition to the room, but the space still feels a little bare, I am tempted to actually get some picture frames to put on the wall to fill up the empty space, might do that soon once I get a chance to maybe visit IKEA or something, but furniture wise I think the space is pretty much filled.
My company has also reopened, so I am now going back to reporting for Showroom duties once every 3 days, doing the same thing, just watching Youtube videos when I am not meeting clients, which at this point is 90% of the time. I have also gotten a new project, not so sure how I feel about that to be honest, the clients expressed interest last month, we finally met on Saturday and they verbally confirmed with me, but nothing has been signed yet, the deposit hasn't been paid yet, so it is technically not "official" at this point.
The wife actually reached out 2 days back, telling me she wasn't comfortable paying so much before the start of the renovation and I won't lie, a part of me was hoping that her discomfort would lead to the cancellation of the project, I didn't even try to negotiate allowing her to pay less, I just spit out facts and told her there was nothing I could do, explained to her that we needed to collect that much to ensure that we have enough money to purchase the material and labour for the renovation to start, she accepted that reason and I really didn't care, I mean it's great that you understand the reason, but if you decide to cancel on me, I honestly could not care less.
Anyway, I am suppose to meet her and her husband again on Saturday to run through the 3D and get them to sign the contract as well as pay up the deposit, once again, a part of me is wishing the wife will just drop me a text within the next 2 day expressing her disinterest and then cancelling the meeting. I do not want to handle any projects during this period because the manpower is so insanely low at this point, it is extremely difficult to arrange works.
I am stuck in the cycle again, getting this project means I am now stuck in the company until the project ends, and I have no idea how long that will take, this means I can't continue my job hunt until the project is successfully completed. It means that even if I were to get job interviews, chances are they won't be successful because my notice period is going to be too long, so I have actually restarted the cycle by accepting this new project.
My office finance department girl has also been messaging me daily asking me if the client has paid the deposit, if they have signed the contract, it's actually quite irritating because I told her I will update her when they have done it, but she keeps texting me EVERYDAY in the morning without fail.
FML.
A recruitment agency actually reached out recently and offered to send my profile to one of their clients for a 3D Visualizer position, it sounds interesting because it is focused on designing community based exhibition and small scale museum spaces, this means I am not technically working for a client, the client will be the company because it one of those charity organisation that "aims to educate the public" kind of company so I am hoping to be shortlisted and get an interview with the company, which is also why I am hoping the new clients will cancel.
Another huge headache I have to deal with right now is the Antoinette, I am now being pressured by my company to obtain the outstanding payment as soon as possible because the outstanding payment is HUGE, so much in fact that their project is currently labelled as "red", which means the project is currently at a loss, it is quite bad and honestly the first time my project has gotten to this point.
I reached out to the Antoinette over the weekend to request for a meeting, the wife doesn't give me a date but instead request for me to resend the quote so they can take a look at their outstanding amount, I send the quote to them, she responds that she has received it and then request for me to send more workers down to do more touch up, this is 2 months after the project has been completed, before the Circruit Breaker, we were already done with all the touch ups, everything was suppose to be completed and in a handover state, they were already getting their items shifted in, the only thing left for us was signing the final paperwork and settling the final payment, that was it, but then of course the Covid problem happened and everyone had to be quarantined so I was unable to reach out and when I reach out again, suddenly they need more guys to be send down to do touch up.
The touch up portion never ends with them.
Anyways, I arranged for the worker, updated them and then my manager calls me the next day, expressing his concern that the Antoinette's Project still has a large outstanding amount that needed to be settled. It didn't hit me how urgent the matter was until my own manager called me to check, so I reached out to the Antoinette again and this time gave them a date and a rough time and am now waiting for them to confirm with me. Whether they confirm or not, I am very likely going to drop by that timing anyway since I know they will be on site waiting for my workers to do the touch up for them.
Problem right now is I also have to meet with the new clients on Saturday, might have to schedule for an afternoon timing with them though, if the wife is still interested.
The Antoinette now have the habit of not reading my text, I am sure they read them through the notification but they don't bother opening the group chat to have the message marked as read, the husband is also no longer responding, the wife is the one who is doing all the responding, not sure what is up with the sudden change in dynamics there.
Sunday 7 June 2020
Government Monies
In the month of June, I will be getting $600 from the government and another $200 award for achieving Marksman during my ICT Range back in February, it was one of those "redo until everyone gets Marksman" scenario, so everyone actually got the award, which was actually quite arduous because they split everyone into group detailing of 8 shooters and everyone's score will be averaged out, which meant if there was one guy who can't aim for shit, everyone's score will get dragged down.
Well, my group had one such guy who kept scoring really badly and during the third try, because we had to do the whole fucking exercise 3 times thanks to that guy, I was asked to switched places with him because the in-charges felt like the fox-hole I was in was easier for him, so we switched and we did ended up getting the Marksman, his aim was still shit and he scored the lowest out of all of us, but at least we were done, that being said, he was still literally being carried by all of us, but because that foxhole that he ended up taking was registered under my name, the "score", our scores were actually swapped and I actually had his shitty results reflected in my name.
Good thing is at the end of the day, because we are using the average score of the 8 of us in that detail, it didn't really affect us individually, but seeing the shit score against my name just made me feel very indignant about the whole thing.
Anyways, when we were told of the Marksman award, we were informed that the monetary award would be transferred to our bank accounts within 2 weeks, I think, but it didn't happen and it actually ended up taking 3 months, so pleasant surprise for me I suppose, I'm actually also a bit surprised that no one brought up the fact that their money hadn't come in yet during the final few days of my ICT on the third week.
That is $800 coming into my bank account for the month of June, which is very nice. Once my company finally officially opens again, I will be able to submit a few more completed projects to get my commission, so there is that for me to look forward to as well.
I haven't been getting any leads from my company at the moment as well because I told them I didn't want any during this period, I want to keep my options open for any job opportunities once the circuit breaker goes into Phase 2 or 3, which sounds like a dumb idea because people are currently losing their jobs and the economy is crashing so why would I think that that would be a good time to look for a job, I honestly do not know what my plans are, all I know is that during the last 2 months, I have had the best mental break I have ever had for a very long while since I started this job, existing clients are not reaching out to bring up renovation issues with me, sub-contractors are not sending me voice memos alerting me to problems they are facing, when my phone vibrates with a message, I don't get a mini panic attack, I am back to the same relaxing condition I was in when I was working for my Dad, except at that time, I was also getting paid a lot per month, which is something I am missing terribly.
Despite me not really trying to get any new projects during this period, I actually had an old lead reach out to me at the beginning of last month, confirming she wanted to engage me for my services, and after that short exchange, she told me she will collate the changes she wants to make in the quote and then update me again soon, which turns out to be 3 weeks later, so I took my time amending the quote once she send me the changes she wanted made, send the updated quote to her and I have not gotten any new updates since.
Not sure if she is still interested, personally I am have lost interest in it because I actually gave her a huge discount that has made the project honestly not worth my time anymore. I am low-key hoping she would just reach out and tell me she has decided to go with another Interior Designer because my price is too high, she has shown me the prices the other Interior Designers are charging and I am really quite surprise at how low so many of them are willing to go, I can only predict then when the project starts, they will start piling on a bunch of add-ons to make up for the low profit.
Anyways, I have also decided that since I will be getting $800 this month, it would be a good time to get a new bed frame. My current one, which is also my very first bed frame now that I think about it, has lasted me since Primary School and it is starting to fall apart, it is definitely high quality, the fact that it has lasted 2 decades is a testament to it, but it keeps squeaking every time I roll on my bed to find a comfortable sleeping position since a few years back, so it is definitely time to go.
Got one from HipVan, was written that the bed frame could be delivered on 9th June, so I decided to make the purchase and it was only when I had confirmed my order did I realize that all the delivery slots for the next 2 weeks were fully taken up and I could only get the frame on the 22nd. It is a decent bed frame but I am a bit bumped out that I have to wait so long.
Getting that new bed frame has also made me want to get more stuff to redecorate my room just because the only loose furniture in my bedroom right now that is making the whole place look so drab and dated is my current bed frame.
I really want to get full height mirrors, a new dresser table, some paintings to hang on the wall, a carpet, just so my room can look like the room of an Interior Designer, but all those items combined will cost quite a bit, so I will wait for the bed frame to come in first and then decide from there, I might end up getting the other items from IKEA, just because they have more options and it is a lot cheaper.
Well, my group had one such guy who kept scoring really badly and during the third try, because we had to do the whole fucking exercise 3 times thanks to that guy, I was asked to switched places with him because the in-charges felt like the fox-hole I was in was easier for him, so we switched and we did ended up getting the Marksman, his aim was still shit and he scored the lowest out of all of us, but at least we were done, that being said, he was still literally being carried by all of us, but because that foxhole that he ended up taking was registered under my name, the "score", our scores were actually swapped and I actually had his shitty results reflected in my name.
Good thing is at the end of the day, because we are using the average score of the 8 of us in that detail, it didn't really affect us individually, but seeing the shit score against my name just made me feel very indignant about the whole thing.
Anyways, when we were told of the Marksman award, we were informed that the monetary award would be transferred to our bank accounts within 2 weeks, I think, but it didn't happen and it actually ended up taking 3 months, so pleasant surprise for me I suppose, I'm actually also a bit surprised that no one brought up the fact that their money hadn't come in yet during the final few days of my ICT on the third week.
That is $800 coming into my bank account for the month of June, which is very nice. Once my company finally officially opens again, I will be able to submit a few more completed projects to get my commission, so there is that for me to look forward to as well.
I haven't been getting any leads from my company at the moment as well because I told them I didn't want any during this period, I want to keep my options open for any job opportunities once the circuit breaker goes into Phase 2 or 3, which sounds like a dumb idea because people are currently losing their jobs and the economy is crashing so why would I think that that would be a good time to look for a job, I honestly do not know what my plans are, all I know is that during the last 2 months, I have had the best mental break I have ever had for a very long while since I started this job, existing clients are not reaching out to bring up renovation issues with me, sub-contractors are not sending me voice memos alerting me to problems they are facing, when my phone vibrates with a message, I don't get a mini panic attack, I am back to the same relaxing condition I was in when I was working for my Dad, except at that time, I was also getting paid a lot per month, which is something I am missing terribly.
Despite me not really trying to get any new projects during this period, I actually had an old lead reach out to me at the beginning of last month, confirming she wanted to engage me for my services, and after that short exchange, she told me she will collate the changes she wants to make in the quote and then update me again soon, which turns out to be 3 weeks later, so I took my time amending the quote once she send me the changes she wanted made, send the updated quote to her and I have not gotten any new updates since.
Not sure if she is still interested, personally I am have lost interest in it because I actually gave her a huge discount that has made the project honestly not worth my time anymore. I am low-key hoping she would just reach out and tell me she has decided to go with another Interior Designer because my price is too high, she has shown me the prices the other Interior Designers are charging and I am really quite surprise at how low so many of them are willing to go, I can only predict then when the project starts, they will start piling on a bunch of add-ons to make up for the low profit.
Anyways, I have also decided that since I will be getting $800 this month, it would be a good time to get a new bed frame. My current one, which is also my very first bed frame now that I think about it, has lasted me since Primary School and it is starting to fall apart, it is definitely high quality, the fact that it has lasted 2 decades is a testament to it, but it keeps squeaking every time I roll on my bed to find a comfortable sleeping position since a few years back, so it is definitely time to go.
Got one from HipVan, was written that the bed frame could be delivered on 9th June, so I decided to make the purchase and it was only when I had confirmed my order did I realize that all the delivery slots for the next 2 weeks were fully taken up and I could only get the frame on the 22nd. It is a decent bed frame but I am a bit bumped out that I have to wait so long.
Getting that new bed frame has also made me want to get more stuff to redecorate my room just because the only loose furniture in my bedroom right now that is making the whole place look so drab and dated is my current bed frame.
I really want to get full height mirrors, a new dresser table, some paintings to hang on the wall, a carpet, just so my room can look like the room of an Interior Designer, but all those items combined will cost quite a bit, so I will wait for the bed frame to come in first and then decide from there, I might end up getting the other items from IKEA, just because they have more options and it is a lot cheaper.
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