"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.