Pick Me Not

Went for my second round of interview with the recruitment agency sourced company yesterday and the interview was with the managing director of the company.

The interview itself went quite well, I was able to have a good chat with the MD and at the end of the interview, I honestly thought my chances of getting hired was quite high. Right after the interview, the recruitment agent gave me a call and asked me how the interview went, I told her the interview was very pleasant and the MD was a very nice guy, and when I went into this second round of interview, I knew there was another candidate also vying for the position, but aside from knowing that the other candidate is a girl, I knew nothing else aside from the fact that I had a 50/50 chance of being offered the position.

The agent then proceeded to share with me more information about the other girl and I ended up knowing how old she was and the amount of work experience she has, based on those information, I thought we both had pros and cons, my pro is that I have more work experience, my con is that I am much older, and hers vice versa, so it really boiled down to what the company really wanted, someone young that they can groom or someone with enough experience.

So it was really 50/50, that is until the recruitment agent told me that the girl had already went for her second round of interview last week and that I was only shortlisted because the company needed someone they can use to compare. To me, this just meant that I wasn't really considered a serious candidate, the company just needed me to make sure the girl they have probably already decided to hire was good enough.

I was still hopeful nonetheless after I learnt about all that, but then not even an hour later as I was having my lunch at Shake Shack, the thought of having to leave my current company suddenly felt all too real and I started hoping I wouldn't get picked for the position because I am not sure if I was ready to quit, I know I have to quit but to actually quit a company I have been a part of for 4 years and joining a completely new one just felt so overwhelming to me.

The recruitment agent sends me a text and tells me the company likes both me and the girl, but they will require a day to make their decision, so I was going to know the decision by the next day, which was so much earlier than I had expected. If I was offered the position, I will definitely take it, that means I will have to tell my manager I am going to resign, that all the leads I have gotten will need to be updated and passed to another designers, and that all the projects that I still haven't gotten paid yet will have to be settled, I have to make sure I can get a clean break from my current company within the next 2 weeks.

I could hardly sleep last night because the thought of really quitting kept running through my mind, I kept looking at the time until I did eventually fall asleep at about 3am, I woke up at 7am and was not able to fall back to sleep, I wanted 10.30am to come soon so I could know the company's decision.

The morning pass and I did not get any updates, a part of me thought maybe I had already been selected and the agent was busy negotiating my salary, then late afternoon comes around and still no updates, at this point, it just felt like it is taking a little too long for a salary negotiating, that maybe I have been rejected and the agent just didn't know how the break the news to me. 

Evening comes by and finally I get a text from the agent and from the notification, I saw the word...

"bad news" and ":("

... in the message, I immediately knew what that meant, and I just felt relieved. I shouldn't be relieve, I should be upset that I didn't get the job, but I was relieved, like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. 

I told her I was half expecting to get rejected for the position after learning I was only picked to be a comparison model for the other candidate and she told me she didn't expect that to be the outcome at all, I felt like I was the one trying to console her for not getting the job because I am feeling relieve and not disappointment.

It might take a while for the disappointment to kick in, because the scope of the position itself was something I was genuinely interested in as it was a mish mash of different job scopes from marketing to sales to basic space planning, but alas, my age probably devalued me a little.

Welp, here is hoping HDB will reach out for an interview because I am looking for stability and there is nothing more stable than working in the government sector. although I believe that stability will also come with the dread of the daily grind. 

2 Interviews, only interested in 1

I had 2 job interviews lined up yesterday.

One was through a recruitment agency and the other through a job portal, the former was a traditional interview at the office while the latter was a video interview which I did at home.

The first interview went pretty well, it was actually not a position I was interested in at the start, so my expectations were honestly pretty low. I have very little faith in recruitment agencies actually being able to find decent jobs for me  because of a relatively unpleasant past experience, so during the interview, I was quite surprise that the position was an appealing one.

The 2 interviewers I met were very friendly, the main one who was doing the talking even told me to relax and treat the interview like a chit chat session because he could see I was a little flustered, which was a result of almost being late for the interview because Google maps gave me the wrong directions. I did end up reaching right on time though, so there's that. 

The interviewer shared the job with me, I shared my current experience with them, everything went quite well I will say, only thing is the monthly salary was not made clear to me, so that is the only question mark I have about the position.

Update:

Just saw the company's job listing online and the pay is pretty shit. It seems like they are only offering between $2200 - $2500 per month. I mean it is still definitely better than my current job, but I am hoping to draw at least $3000 per month for a 5 days work week, 9am to 6pm job.

After the interview, I went to Shake Shack nearby for a $16 lunch which only consisted of a burger and a milkshake, it was good, but like Five Guys, too expensive for what it is, and the waiting time was so long, it took a whopping 20 minutes after I ordered to get my food, and the place wasn't even packed. This is my second time having Shake Shack, the first time was in New York, waiting time was definitely much shorter there but I think I might have ordered the same items there as well and the damage then was $13USD.

 

Anyways, after lunch, I headed back home and prepared for my second interview in the evening.

This company that I had applied for is a company that is known for operating co-living spaces, the position is for an Interior Designer, so when I applied for the job, I had assumed that it was to design the co-living space, maybe spruce up the apartments that they are renting out every few months and give the spaces a fresh look.

Well, turns out it isn't what I thought it was.

The interviewer who spoke to me was very friendly as well, but when she shared with me the job scope, that was when my interest in the position just plummeted to zero.  

Turns out the company had recently opened a new department that was focusing on Interior Renovation works and the scope is exactly the same as my current job, the only difference is they offer a monthly salary instead of a commission scheme and they are not as well known in the market as my current company.

As appealing as having a stable salary is to me at this moment, the job scope for the position is just not beneficial because it is still a sales position, I still have to meet clients to clinch new projects and then run the project from start to finish.

There is literally no "pros" and only "cons" when I compare that to my current job because I don't get rewarded for clinching huge projects, instead,I will only get punished for not clinching enough projects. 

If a target has to be met every month in order for the company to think I am worth the monthly salary and not be fired, then I might as well stay at my current company and set a monthly target for myself where I will potentially earn a lot more than what this other company offers me as a monthly salary.

I agreed to meet the Manager next week in person at the end of the interview, but I think I will be dropping the interviewer an email soon to withdraw my application instead of wasting everybody's time.

More Issues

Over the weekend, my company held a private event and when I went for the event, I really wasn't expecting to get any new customer leads, or at least, I wasn't expecting to get any decent customer leads because past experiences has taught me that the leads we have been getting have been going from bad to worst. 

I am also right now in a state of limbo, on one had, I am out of projects and am interested to look for new ones to run, but on the other hand, because I am out of projects, I am in the perfect position to look for a new job because I am not being tied down by any project commitments.

So I went to the event, not really expecting anything, maybe get one bad lead and then that's it, but nope, instead of getting 1 shitty lead, I got 3 decent ones, the last 2 actually being really good leads. They had a reasonable budget, I was able to click with them and at one point, I honestly felt like the universe was playing some kind of sick joke on me by introducing me to this good leads.

For the next few days, I seriously started contemplating to just stay in this industry and give it a another shot, which at this point would be my fourth or fifth shot, and we all know how those shots went. 

Anyways, I started doing the 3D models for those projects over the past 2 days and decided I was going to start working on the quotation today, so I did and then my phone buzzes. I didn't think too much about it and thought it was probably one of my family or company group chat going off, I continued doing the quote until I started losing focus and decided to check on my phone...

"4 Messages from "The Antoinette""  

... and then the urge to give this industry another shot just went away. 

I needed a reminder why I dislike this job and the reminder was given to me in the form of the Antoinette bringing up another issue they had found. 

After that whole electrical fiasco with their own electrician, I was not hoping to get another issue but here we are, a new one to connect us to one another all over again! I have never had to deal with a client for as long as I have to deal with them, especially after the project has been completed since the middle of last year. 

Thankfully the issue was relatively straightforward, but it is going to end up eating into my commission so fuck my life on that front.

After that issue found it's resolution, Mr Antoinette informs me that he has gotten his electrician in and they will be fixing the previous electrical problem today. I am going to have to pay for the repair and I wanted to mentally prepare my wallet, so I ask him how much it will cost, figuring since the electrician is already there, he can directly ask that tattletail fucker of an electrician how much he is going to charge them and he replies with...

"We will see later when he is done!"

... awesome. 

Ask the electrician to do first and then worry about the price later, that's fucking great.

This is one aspect of the job that I will NOT MISS AT ALL once I find a new job and leave this industry as a Project Manager, and to be able to direct The Antoinettes to my manager and have his side deal with all their future problem is a text message I am looking forward to sending, not just to The Antoinettes but to all my current clients. 

I have 2 more interviews set up later this week, not sure if they will end up becoming a waste of time like my last one, but the fact that I am going for interviews give me some hope that I may be able to leave this job behind soon.

Another Interview again.

Just had a zoom interview with the company I had applied for about 2 weeks back for an in-house designer position and it went the way I had sort of expected it to, which was being informed that I was lacking the relevant software skills to actually be considered for the role, mainly my AutoCAD skills, which at this point is pretty much non-existent.

The meeting with the boss was pleasant, we had a good chat at the start, I introduced myself and shared with him my education qualifications and work experience, he asked me which job I had applied for because apparently his company had multiple positions available and he wanted to double confirm it with me, so I told him I had applied for the In-House Position, he requested to see my portfolio, and since it was online, he asked me to send the link to him after the interview so he can take a look, so we continued with the interview and started discussing about what I am doing at my current job and then delve into my software knowledge.

We first went into 3D Modelling, which I had assumed was the more important skill he was looking for because it is stated in the job listing that they wanted someone who could do 3D Modelling, my main concern was which software he wanted me to be proficient at and I was extremely relieved when he told me Sketch Up was fine because he uses Sketch Up himself.

After that, we started discussing what I was dreading, which was my AutoCAD skills.

It's non-existent, I have stopped using the Software ever since I graduated from Poly, I know only the very basic, aside from being able to draw a few lines, I knew fuck-all about the software and I wasn't going to lie and ovesell my AutoCAD skills, there isn't any point to lie now, get the job and then get fired after they find out that I can't draw a Floorplan out for shit. So I told him I know AutoCAD, but haven't used it in a while because I have been relying on another software for my space planning proposals.

 

It was at this point when the boss started to get really disinterested and goes...

"Yeah, that is a problem."

... and then goes on about how he needed the In-House Designer he plans to hire to be very proficient, not just in the software itself, but also have knowledge when it comes to actually drawing out a floorplan for building submission, which is something I know fuck-all about.

Everything kinda went downhill from there and I honestly just wanted to get the interview over and done with at that point. 

He started sharing with my about other positions he had, but then I could sense he wasn't very keen to hire me for those positions because I told him in the beginning that I wanted something that was more behind the scenes, that I didn't want to deal directly with homeowners anymore and the position he had in mind was exactly the position I didn't want, which he also brought up, he was pretty much thinking out loud because he was offering me the position and then turning it down for me.

But right after that, he told me he could offer me a mixture of the position I had applied for and the sales position, telling me it could work like an apprenticeship, wherein I can join their company and test out my skills to see if I was suitable for the position. It wasn't very convincing because I could tell he also wasn't really sure what exactly the position he was trying to offer me was because it made no sense.

So you want me to meet clients, run projects, and prepare 3D Drawings for my colleagues at the same time.

That would be like asking a Grab Delivery guy to deliver the food and also be the one who prepares the food in the kitchen, it just doesn't work.

I knew he didn't know what he was offering me, so I also didn't bother to clarify what exactly that position would entail, he kept telling me he will have to discuss with his business partner first but I don't think he will actually bother.

Before the interview ended, he reminded me to send him a link to my portfolio again and it just felt very ingenuine, like he was just saying it be be consistent with his earlier request to see my portfolio BEFORE he knew I didn't have the relevant software skill he was looking for.

So I send him a message with a link to my portfolio, making sure to thank him for taking the time to talk to me.

This was done via Whatsapp, not via email, so I was honestly expecting him to reply something simple like...

"Thanks Tim!"

 or

"Will take a look! Thanks Tim"

or

"*Thumbs Up emoji*

... like a simple courtesy reply, but he didn't bother. I was just left at a "double tick". 

I decided to delete his number and the chat an hour after I send him the link to my portfolio.

So this interview was a wreck, but at least it wasn't as bad as the Food Writer interview I went for a few years back, now that is one that I think about from time to time and just cringe.

Here is hoping I get shortlisted for an Interview with the HDB position because that is the one that I really want to get! I feel like there is nothing more stable than a job in the Government Sector.

In the meantime, I am not getting any new projects and my current ones have pretty much ended, save for a last round of touching up for my blur customer, so I am now in a way "jobless". 

Prior to this interview, I was unable to see myself getting any new projects and running them because a that stable job I had been looking for just felt like it was within reach, like it was plausible for me to leave my current job before CNY, but the moment the interview was over, all the just went away and I just wanted to get new customer leads again.

Blur

There is this "blur-ness" that my client from one of my current project has, that has gone from endearing at the start of the renovation, to a little frustrating to deal with now that we are at the end of it.

There has been a few scenarios...

First scenario

After telling him that contractor B can only come in after contractor A has done their works, he will message me a few days later and ask me if B is "coming this week" even though A will only come in 3 weeks later, and he ask if B will come almost every week and I will have to keep reiterating that B will only come in after A has completed their end of the work. 

Second Scenario

A few weeks back, I told him that we will be doing the touch up for his painting works only after his bulky furniture has arrived, reason being that those bulky furniture could end up damaging the wall during the move, so touching up the current paint now might be redundant if it will end up getting scratched again.

He doesn't believe me and request for the painters to come in sooner, problem is I can't get them in sooner because he was requesting them to come with only a few days notice, my painters need at least a week advance notice. I had no other option, so I ended up getting my handyman to drop by instead to do the touch up, that ended up costing me $150.

Last week, his furniture finally came in and he sends me a picture of his wall getting scratched by one of the large furniture and request for me to get my painters to come and touch up the walls for him, LITERALLY THE SCENARIO I HAD WARNED HIM ABOUT A WEEK PRIOR. I would have liked to reply "TOLD YOU SO!", unfortunately, that isn't very professional , so I ended up having to arrange my painter, which thankfully is part of the painter's service so I don't have to pay for that, but fuck me because I paid for the handyman who came and touch up for shit.

Third Scenario

Today, my electricians were scheduled to drop by his place to install his dining lights for him, we couldn't install it previously because the shop he visited had some delay in shipment, which was fine, so last week, I told him I will arrange it for today, and that because the electrician has a pretty tight schedule during this period, they need quite a bit of advance notice.

I drop him a text yesterday evening to remind him of the electrician's visit and told him I will update him on the timing again later at night once my electrician is done with their scheduling, which usually happens only at around 8.30pm, and his response to that was...

"Sorry, I forgot they are coming tomorrow"

... I appreciate that he was apologetic, but I did not appreciate him forgetting about the arrangement, I was very worried and asked if that meant he hadn't gotten the lights yet, to which he told me he has and then proceeds to ask me what time they electrician will be dropping by...

I literally wrote in that reminder that I do not have the time yet, that I will only be able to let him know the timing at night and he ask me what time they will be dropping by. I then ask him what time he would prefer and he tells me the afternoon would be good, so I proposed between 1pm to 3pm, to which he agrees and thankfully, my electrician was able to adhere to my request. 

Today, the electricians were scheduled to drop by and my client suddenly text me at 11am, asking me to get the electrician to come down a little later because he was afraid he couldn't make it to the apartment in time. He had requested that they pop by at 2.30pm instead.

It was so fucking frustrating because I have told him that the electrician's timing is very pack, that means every hour counts, if one site gets delayed by an hour, it will have a domino effect. You don't just tell me last minute that you want them to drop by later and expect it to be done.

Thankfully, once again, my electrician was able to adhere to the request because the electrician was going to be around the vicinity the entire day, so it wasn't really a problem.

2.30pm comes around and my client tells he is home, I told him that the electrician should be popping by soon and then there wasn't anymore replies after that.

At around 3.30pm, he sends me a message and tells me that after the electrician has done the install works, there will be more areas that need touching up, so I told him that the painter will take care of it when they drop by next week, I had already arranged it for him the week before and he had agreed to it, but then he suddenly goes..

"Can your painter come by the following week instead?"

... which was fine, except I was worried that the painter would be taking their CNY break by then, so I told him I will check, but cannot promise. He agrees and tells me to keep him updated.

Not long after, he sends me a picture of the dining light my electrician had installed for him, I thought he was just updating me that the light had been installed and I was going to reply with a "Looks good", but then the picture was accompanied by a text that reads...

"Tim, your electrician install the lights wrongly, it's not centered with the table."

... I wanted to roll my fucking eyes so badly, I really wanted to scold him so fucking badly through text.

Why did you not bother to double confirm with the electrician the position of the lights before he installed them?

Why the fuck are you telling me this this right after the electrician has left your place?

I get that I have a responsibility to be there to make sure everything runs smoothly, but this is something that is so easy to handle, all you have to do is confirm the position with the electrician, agree that the position is correct and then let the electrician do his thing, the chances of screwing this up is microscopic, and if anything is not done well, HEY! The electrician is RIGHT THERE and you can just let him know straightaway and have the issue resolved.

BUT NOPE!

Manages to screw up the light position despite being on site with the electrician to actually determine if the position is correct IN PERSON.

Only realizes the position is wrong AFTER the electrician has left and then say my electrician installed it wrongly. 

MY GAWD! This is like peak blur cock! It's so frustrating. 

Luckily the electrician was within the vicinity so he was able to return and "rectify the issue", which later turns out to be the client not placing the table at the correct position it was originally in, which is another "WTF HOW BLUR CAN YOU GET?" situation! 

I mean I am grateful that at least he is a nice guy but holy shit, the level of frustration I had to deal with today because of how blur he is is just astronomical. 

I feel like when the painter goes up the following week, it will be another new scenario to deal with again, I cannot underestimate how blur he is.

Continuation from my last post....

This is a candle I got at the JFK Airport right before I left America, it is the final souvenir I decided I wanted to get for myself.

I have tried to find it in Singapore but to no success, so I have been keeping it unlit for the past year just so I can take a whiff of it every now and again. To date this is probably my favorite candle scent I have gotten and the only place I know that sells it in America.

So here I am, lighting it right now at the start of 2021, and telling myself that I have to earn enough money to be able to afford another trip to America so I can get my hands on this candle again and make my room smell like the candle instead of simply settling on taking a whiff from an unlit candle for the next few years!   

(Technically I can buy the candle online and have it shipped over, but it is going to cost me $55 with shipping and I only paid like $15 for this, so I'd rather go back to America and get it myself!)

I need to get my shit together.

Spend the start of 2021 going out to watch a movie with a friend.

Prior to the movie, we had Five Guys at Plaza Singapura and I have always wanted to try Five Guys ever since I learn that we could add bacon into the milkshake they had, so I added Bacon, Bananas and Peanut Butter and it was quite a nice combination, in fact I think I have had this combination in a burger before so I already know it works.

The milkshake itself was on the pricey side at $10 a cup and the burgers were about $13 if I remembered correctly, we also ordered a small side of fries to share and they were all good, but the only downside is that they are quite expensive, it's about the same as shake shack in terms of quality and price, good but quite expensive for fast food. 

I use to see Five Guys all over New York and Washington but never went to actually patronize the place before, there was literally one Five Guys across the hotel I stayed in at Washington and it's so weird how I never felt the need to pay a visit to the fast food joint once. I guess it is because there were so many just plastered around New York and Washington that it just felt too "mainstream" to go visit, so my Sister and I just never really bothered, plus the interior always looked very bathroom like to me.

Sigh, googling Five Guys New York just makes me want to go back to New York again, even though it has already been more than a year, looking at old pictures still invokes a bit of post travel blues. That being said, and this whole Covid situation aside, I don't think I can even afford another trip to New York anytime soon because my savings has dropped to really dangerous amounts over the past few days.

I use to have a relatively steady five figure amount in my account at all times, and that amounts has been falling at a relatively slow pace for the past 4 years ever since I started my career as a Sales Designer, but it has never really affected me as much as it did during the past few days.

My personal threshold for how low I am willing to let my savings in my account go is pretty much as long as it is within a five figure range.

During the start of my career, right after I left my Dad's company, I told myself it always has to stay within $30,000 because that was roughly how much I had at that time, and if I wasn't making a lot of money because of the nature of my job, I would at least like to keep the savings consistent and don't drop beyond that. 

During the initial few months, it did go below $30,000 but then I had a few projects that I manage to complete within the first 8 months on the job and the commission from those helped me get the figure back  to the $30,000 mark, it was slightly below what I originally had but I figured I was still new and being able to maintain that amount is what is important.

But those few projects left a fear in me after I realize how difficult project management really is and how difficult the homeowners can become, so I became a lot more selective with the clients I choose to work with.

The fear actually got worst the more projects I worked on because I got exposed to even more difficulties and problems, they were not any easier or any harder to deal with, they were just different problems because aside from technical issues, I had to also deal with the "human" part of it, and it isn't easy because every homeowner is different, for every 2 amazing and wonderful clients I get to work with, there will always be 1 difficult one who will make me lose my appetite, make me have an acne breakout because of the stress, make me want to quit, like literally just quit on the spot and have my company deal with it, clients like Sly Fox,  Lil' Bitch, The Antoinette's, J&J, and a handful that I have never given names to on this blog, and they are actually considered saints compared to the nightmares my colleagues have to deal with because they are not as selective as me.

As the years went by, the amount started to drop even more and at one point, I told myself as long as it doesn't fall below $20,000, I am good. It eventually went below the $20,000 mark and so I told myself, as long as it stays within the 5 figure mark, I am fine.

Then the New York trip happened, and even though my Sister actually sponsored quite a fair bit for me for the trip, the damage from the Air Ticket, the small hotel fee I decided to chip in and the general spending money I had taken out for the trip took a relatively huge dent in my savings, in the same year, I also decided to get a new computer and all those combined actually ended up taking 25% out from my savings. 

Right after that, I started having tooth issues that I had to get fixed and that cost me a bomb, all the projects I was working on didn't earn me as much commission as I thought they would, so my savings never actually recovered and has been on a steady decline.

About a year ago, my insurance agent requested we meet again  and he encourage me to sign a new savings plan and health insurance plan with him , I told him I will take the savings plan first, but I didn't want to add the health insurance yet because I was simply not earning enough, he told me he understands and hopes that by taking the savings plan now, it will force me to either work harder to earn more and recuperate the amount I have paid for the insurance, or find a more stable job.  My goal at that time was to find a stable job so I told him that the saving plan actually "hurts" my bank savings quite a bit and would be motivation enough for me to find a new and much more stable job. 

I never did, the interviews I went for all didn't work out, so I stayed at my current company, and it was mainly because I was very comfortable at my current company, which was not good at all for me.

Then a few weeks back, I met him again and he was surprised I was still at my current company, he asks me how I was financially and I was so embarrassed about my situation that I lied and told him I was earning a little more than I actually was.  I told him I was earning about $2000 per month on average, but in actuality, I was only barely earning $1000. He knew I was in a pretty bad state, but he didn't know how bad it actually was, so when he suggested I sign on the new health insurance plan he had talked to me about a year ago, I was a little hesitant at first but for some stupid fucking reason, decided to just go ahead because I felt bad that he specially came to meet me and I didn't want him to go back empty handed. I was a fucking idiot.

The savings plan I had signed up for last year takes out $3000 annually, this new health insurance takes up $2000 annually, that means every year, I have to fork out $5000 for my insurance, and I am only earning less than $12000 a year. 

Recently, my tooth started giving me issues again, so I had to pay the dentist another visit and get a crowning done, that has cost me 1$350.

I have not been paid a single cent last year because I wanted to wait for all my projects to be completed and get a big cheque at the end. Let's say I take it that the commission is what I made from January 2020 to December 2020, I would only be earning an average of $1000 every month.

But if I were to tabulate all the projects I have clinched purely from this year alone,  I would only be  making $5800 in commission. That is the equivalent to an average of 2 months salary for most of my peers, and that is my annual income, which means I am only earning about $480 per month.

My bank savings, after I paid for my insurance yesterday, has dropped to a measly $9000, that is dangerously low, what the actual fuck am I doing with my life, what have I been doing with my life. 

Even though I am technically employed and working, I have allowed my initial $30,000 savings in my bank account drop to a measly $9000. 

My bank savings should be increasing, not decreasing. I am already 30 years old, like what the actual fuck am I doing with my life. The realization that I do not have my shit together actually hit me really fucking hard after I realize my bank savings had dropped to a measly 4 figures.

I need a job with a stable income and I need that job now! I need to find a stable job in 2021, that is my New Year's Resolution and it is something I have to stick to, no more trying to make this current job work, I have had 4 years to "try and make it work", and it has obviously not worked out at all, I am simply not cut out for it!

I have already applied for a few job openings over the past few weeks, not really sure how long it will take for the company to process the applications, but they are all jobs with a stable income, no more "commission based" positions anymore. This is also one of the biggest reason why I turned down the job offer from the other design firm, it is just not viable anymore, especially at my age.

Well, this post has taken a turn, guess I will write a proper post about my New Year activity in the next one.