Stressed!

I thought today would be an easy day, I will just drop by my site, confirm with the air-con technician how the aircon will be repositioned and then be on my way home. 

I even wore shorts to site because I was expecting it to be really quick, but it wasn't. When I entered the apartment, the air-con technician brought up how messy the previous renovation work was because the aircon piping was all over the place, I didn't think too much about that because that is just piping management stuff, as long as the pipes work then who cares since they are going to be covered with a layer of false ceiling anyways.

So I started walking around the apartment just to observe the other areas and that was when I noticed one of the existing water outlet pipes for the aircon had a hole in it. The day before, I had told the air-con's technician boss..

"Please get your worker to help me check if any pipes need to be replaced."

... because he told me it was better to replace the pipes, but then it was $200 per pipe and my client has 5 aircons, so I thought if there are pipes that can still be reused, we will reuse them, but if the pipes are damaged, then definitely have them changed. I just didn't want my client to have to pay an additional $1000 for nothing.

I bring this issue up to the air-con technician and his response to it was...

"Yup, that needs to be changed. But today my job is only to reposition the pipes, once I am done with that I am leaving, I still have other sites to head to."

... I got a bit confused because from what I understand, his job today was to also check if any pipes needed to be replaced and have them replaced, so I ask him if the pipe replacement is usually done by a different group, and he goes...

"Nope, I can change as well, but that is not my job today. You do need to get that replaced  though because once you cover it up with tiles, it is going to be a headache for you in the future. I don't want to be responsible when it starts having issues in the future"

... and I just couldn't believe what was happening. He was talking about the pipe like it is not his problem to solved. DUDE! YOU ARE THE BLOODY AIR-CON TECHNICIAN, YOU ARE THE ONE WHO NEEDS TO HELP ME FIX THE PIPES! WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT THE DAMAGED PIPE LIKE IT IS NOT YOUR PROBLEM?

I then call the boss up to check what was happening, I share the damaged pipe issue with him and he suggest for me to have it replaced, so we hang up and he calls the air-con technician. They have a quick conversation which then ended with the technician saying...

"Let's not discuss about this anymore, I won't be touching the pipes, today my job is only to do the reposition works, which I have already done."

... and then that was it. I was appalled at how that whole situation was handled, so the boss calls me a while later and then explain to me that he will be sending a second group down to take over the works. At this point, the air-con technician was just sitting on this tool box, I guess waiting for further instructions from his boss through me, but having heard what the boss is telling me about sending a second group down, I soon realize that he had probably gotten into an argument with this air-con technician and will not longer be using him for my site anymore, so I told him to just go first since he had other sites to rush to.

The boss then tells me he will try and arrange a second group to drop by later in the evening to take a look and advise me on what I can do, I was a bit worried because the timing was a little late and I was quite doubtful that the condo's security guard would even let them enter the premises. He requested for me to be around as well, so I decided to just wait at my Showroom rather than go home since it was a direct bus ride away and it was air-conditioned.

 

First time reporting to the Showroom in shorts.

So I waited for about an hour and a half, then headed back to the condo after receiving a call from the boss that his guys were on their way. I was 15 minutes late and the second group was already waiting outside the condo, so I went up to the guard first to get permission to enter the condo with my air-con contractor, assuring them that it was purely just to do a site visit, that no works will be happening, and their answer was..

"No contractor after 5pm! The management's rule."

... it was already 6pm when I reached.

To say I was a little annoyed would be an understatement, I had to walk up to the lorry of the second group of air con technician and shared the bad news with them. Started by apologizing for having wasted their time, they were very understanding and told me they had expected this to happen. I tried to explain the issue to them with pictures, but unfortunately, in order to properly assess the situation, they needed to see it in person, so no progress was made and their next available date is 2 fucking weeks later.

FML!

I brought this issue up to my client and she was also apologetic for that wasted trip I made, thankfully she is not actually holding me accountable for the delays because some unreasonable clients actually do that even when the delay isn't the project manager's fault.

That being said, I really can't deal with this project anymore, there is always something happening at every stage of the renovation, first was when we dismantled the existing floors, thinking we could reuse the old tiles underneath and then come to realize that the underneath layer was in horrible condition. 

After that, my client requested to hack their toilet last minute, which messed up the entire work schedule, and because of the hacking works for the toilet, both the water pipes and aircon pipes got damaged. 

Running into problems during the renovation is normal, but running into so many problems within such a short time span is not, pair all these issues with the severe lack in manpower and you really have a recipe for disaster. 

Delayed Grief

My grandfather's funeral had been going on for the past 4 days and I only attended the funeral on the first and last day due to work commitments. 

Unlike most funerals, no one was really crying at my Grandfather's funeral, it felt more like a catch up session for my Aunties and Uncles, who were all having light hearted conversations with one another.

I wasn't able to attend on the 2nd and 3rd day due to work commitments, but I adjusted my schedule on the fourth day to make sure I could at least attend the funeral procession, unfortunately, due to work related issues, I was distracted and wasn't 100% there mentally, I also kept thinking to myself...

"Quickly be done so I can get back to work and sort out all the issues that is currently stressing me out."

... and as I was thinking about this, I was staring at my Grandfather's portrait in front of his casket, feeling guilty that I was actually thinking about work more than I was thinking about him. 

I am not the type that can think of other things when work is stressing me out, so that guilt quickly went away and I started thinking about work again.

Throughout the entire procession, I didn't feel a great deal of sadness, we had a quick service at the Columbarium,  followed by our last look at him as we each place a stalk of flower on his coffin to say our last goodbyes.

The team at the columbarium were giving out tissue papers but no one was crying, so my Aunties and my Grandma just took it out of courtesy and just tucked it away. 

 Everyone was then lead to the furnace and  it was only when his casket was slowly being pulled into the furnace did my Aunties and Grandma started breaking down, I also started to feel a slight lump in my throat, but after that, everything went back to normal, we all gathered at the entrance and then made our way back.

The moment I got home, I started settling all my work issues, calling all the contractors to try and solve the problem, went to meet another on site, and when I have finally managed to sort my work stuff out, it is still in a mess, but at least it's a more hopeful one, I finally had time to just sit down and process what had actually happened, so I started thinking about my Grandfather. 

During the wake, whilst I was busy with work stuff, the grandfather I remembered was the unpleasant man who had a bad temper and who takes out his temper on the myriad of helpers that my Mum has hired and fired for various reason, I remembered him as the unpleasant individual that he was towards others, the man who liked to bragged and tell tall tales, who likes to complaint a lot because in my mind, that was who he was to me in the forefront.

But I didn't think about who he was towards his grandchildren, towards me and my siblings. He wasn't nasty towards us, sure he might have been a bit impatient sometimes, but he was ultimately a doting grandparent who would buy us candies and chocolates every time he came back from work when I was very young. 

When I think about how his face would light up every time my family went to visit him at my Aunt's place after he moved out from my place, how he would slowly push himself out of his room, while still sitting on his chair with wheels and then just sit across from us, content that he is being visited by his Grandkids, even though we were not actively holding conversations with him, I started to break down because it was just so sad to realize how lonely he must have been even prior to his hospitalization, constantly alone in the house when my Aunt goes to work.

Back when he was living with my family, there would at least be us outside his room, watching TV or doing whatever we do, so it was never really quiet even though he was in his room most of the time, but at my Aunt's place, he was alone most of the time, there was no one outside his room, even of he went out, it was just him until my Aunt comes home.

I was surprised at how much I started crying because I was completely fine during the entirety of his wake, even when my Dad broke the news and told the family that he had passed on, I didn't feel that much sadness, but now the wake is over and his remains have been cremated, the realization that he is actually gone just hit me. 

When I think of my Grandfather now, I don't think of the sickly state he was in for the past 1 year, I think of him as he was when he was living in my Aunt's place, not in the best shape but so much healthier, and looked like he would still have a few more years to live. So when I think about him now, it's just surreal that he is no longer around.

I might have said this in the previous post about my Grandfather, but this time round, it is with delayed grief and sadness.

Rest In Peace, Ah Gong

On the cusp of a mental breakdown...

 Sigh. I hate my job, but what's new.

These past week has been extremely busy for me and I am foreseeing myself becoming even busier in the coming months, but being busy is fine, it makes me feel productive as opposed to just lazing at home all day.

I had a really bad feeling that my projects this time round would be difficult just because my last three projects went by relatively smoothly, it's like the universe's way of balancing things out. I don't think I blogged too much about my last few projects because that is how well they were going. I have been having this general sense of unease the past few weeks and now I think I know why.

The reason for my great disdain towards my job at the moment is due my tiler's inability to provide enough workers for all the project's that my company is currently handling, he had initially told me he would help arrange to send some guys down to my site to work on my project, this was after days of back and forth with me essentially having to convince him that it was a small job and then beg him to help me out, and I thought that after that whole ordeal, the worst was over, that as long as he was able to squeeze my project into his packed schedule, I am all good.

But yesterday, my clients decided to drop a bomb on me and informed me that they would like to redo one of their toilets as well. Initially I didn't think too much of it, I figured adding one toilet into the fray wouldn't add too much of a burden, since a worker has already been scheduled to the site, he would probably just need to work on the place for an additional 3 to 4 more days for that toilet, so I called up my tiler and told him that I wanted to add another toilet works into the project.

He was not happy.

"You said it was a small project, now you are throwing in another toilet to do, I could squeeze you in because it was supposed to be a small scale project, now I have to arrange everything again and I am getting a headache from all this, I can't think properly right now"

... and then he tells me he can't confirm the date with me anymore.

I can tell he is under a great deal of stress due to the sheer amount of work that is being thrown at him, but his stress is now affecting me as well because if he can't confirm the date with me, I can't schedule the works out properly. 

My clients have a certain date that they want to move into the apartment, they don't mind that it is half done as long as one of the rooms is livable, so I have to get certain things done by then to ensure that it is move in ready for them, which I cannot do at the moment because I have no concrete date on when my tiler can do his work.

I have asked him multiple times to calculate the amount of raw materials I need to order because I needed to arrange delivery for it with the supplier, and every time. he just replies back with "OK", but then doesn't calculate for me. I only have 2 days left until the delivery is supposed to be scheduled and he still hasn't calculated the raw materials for me. 

At this point, I am feeling very anxious because I don't want to offend him by constantly asking him to calculate the raw materials for me, but then on the other hand, if he keeps delaying the calculations I need, I might not be able to order the materials in time for delivery. 

Today happens to be my Grandfather's funeral procession, and I was more focused on trying to get my work stuff in order than focusing on my family saying our last goodbyes to him. I feel bad that I am not caring as much as I should that he is no longer with us, I feel like it is because I am now so stressed out from work that his death probably hasn't really hit me yet, that when I can finally breath again, it will and I will start to regret it.

I reached out to my client after the cremation and I updated her that the work schedule is now in a KIV status because her last minute request has completely thrown my tiler's work schedule off the rails. 

Prior to this, a few weeks ago, she and her husband told me that if I couldn't get the place ready in time, then they will find a place to move in temporarily, so I figured she would be understanding and tell me that she will try and look for a place because it was her last minute request that caused the entire renovation timeline to be affected, instead, I was met with...

"Cannot. We did not buffer for any delays in the renovation, please talk to your tiler and settle this for us."

... I was so fucking stressed out. My cousin tried to start a conversation with me at one point but because I was so engrossed in trying to settle this issue, I just kind of brushed him off and didn't bother actually holding a conversation with him. I am horrible.

When I finally got home, I called my tiler and tried to get a solid date from him, or at least a rough estimate on when he can start work because I needed to arrange work with other contractors as well, and I spoke to him for 40 minutes on the phone, the entire time he was just complaining to me about how he can't think straight because he has too many projects to handle, that it's not his intention to turn down projects, but he just do not have enough manpower to spare and I was just sitting on my desk, listening to him talk about how he wish he could drop all his projects just so he can finally have a peace of mind, and we pretty much ended the conversation with him telling me..

"You ask me again in 2 weeks, I will settle all my current projects by then and will have more clarity to arrange new works"

... my tiling is suppose to happen in 1 week, and he was asking me to reach out to him in 2 weeks. 

There really isn't anything I can do at this point but wait the 2 weeks out, I have to arrange my work according to his unstable scheduling and my client is insisting to move in at the date she had originally requested, so I am now stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Oh, and a job opening I had applied for last week actually reached out to me and wanted to arrange a job interview, but because of my ongoing headaches projects and an upcoming one that is happening at the start of next month, I now have a 2 months notice period.

The moment I told the caller I had a 2 months notice period, he immediately told me he will discuss with his boss and then didn't bother to continue the call anymore after. I can't just pass my projects to someone else because my company has recently introduced a new clause into our work contract that states if a designer were to pass his or her ongoing project to another designer, he or she will have to pay $2000 in compensation, that is $2000 per project, with the projects, which means if I were to successfully get a new job offer within the next 2 months and decide to quit, I will have to pay the company $4000 to leave, because what the fuck? 

Most of my projects that I have worked on in the past, I am barely earning $2000 and now you want me to pay a $4000 penalty to pass my projects over to someone? I am foregoing all the commission I can earn from that project, I am letting the person take over earn that commission, the company will still profit from the project, but the company is asking for an additional $2000 penalty on top of that.

The greed is real. 

A few of my colleagues are planning to leave the company soon as well because they are started to notice a lot of additional cost being thrown into running a project, additional cost that the designer are expected to bear, additional cost that goes into the company's pocket, not because a supplier has increased their price, but because my boss wants to introduce redundant services for us to use, under the guise that it will provide a higher quality end product. 

It will make no fucking difference. 

In the past, when he first started doing this, I tried not to pay too much attention to it, but now that he is introducing more and more of such redundant services, it is hard not to pay attention to it. We, as the sales team, are trying to help your company grow and make money, but for working our ass off to keep the company afloat, you chose to reward us by giving us more additional cost to pay and introducing that penalty into our work contract. This whole thing just feels very very conniving.

The reason why I stayed in this company, aside from not being able to find a decent job out there, is because of my colleagues at work, it somehow feels like I am back in the army and there is this camaraderie between all of us. 

Work ends at 8.30pm when I am on showroom duty, so at around 6.30pm, my colleagues and I will go buy our dinner and have it back at the showroom/office, but instead of just eating and be done by 7.30pm, we will usually just chit chat until 8.30pm.  I have once chit-chatted with a colleague until 9.30pm. That only happens when you actually like your colleagues and I enjoy the company of my colleagues, but unfortunately, I do not enjoy being in the company anymore and I also do not enjoy being put in such a stressful situation.

Rest In Peace

I got the news today whilst I was at site that my Grandfather had passed away earlier this morning. He had been in the hospital for the past year after getting a stroke and it didn't really come as a shock to anyone in the family. The past year must have been agony for him because he was paralyzed, kept getting infections, and during the last few days of his life, apparently had a lot of trouble breathing, so much so that, according to my sister who was able to visit him a few days prior to his passing, he was actually tearing up every time he tried to breath because of how painful it was. 

I had only bothered visiting him once very early on after he got hospitalized and then never really made the time to do more visits after that. I knew he was in a bad condition, but a part of me also kept thinking that he was eventually going to recover, not fully of course, but be able to at least wake up and be well enough to leave the hospital and still have a few more years to live, to be able to converse with us when we visit him at my Aunt's place after he comes out and then hear him complaint about how horrible the hospital stay was etc.

I feel bad that I didn't bother to visit him, that for the entire year during his hospitalization, I barely ever thought of him, only occasionally asking my parents how he is.  

He isn't someone who is very well liked in the family because he has a temper and he complaints a lot, but he has never once lost his temper on his grandchildren back when he was living under the same roof as me and my family, we hardly ever had conversations with each other, it was always the very basic...

"Eaten yet?"

... and me and my siblings would always nod very begrudgingly.

Back when I was still very young, whenever he came back from work, he would always buy my siblings and I candies or chocolates, that was what made us excited to see him return home, and our ungrateful ass would always express our disappointment when he would buy us Mentos instead of Kinder Surprise, and not one Kinder Surprise for each of us, we will only be happy if he buys the triple pack for each of us, talk about being ungrateful spoilt brats.

A few times, when we want to go to the nearby HDB mart to get some new toys, I would convince my brother to shed crocodile tears to convince him to bring us there, and it works probably 50% of the time.

Now when I think back about how it was like for him staying with my family, it probably wasn't great because he would always stay cooped up in his room, he barely sits in the living room to watch the TV there, he would always only come out for dinner when everyone else was done and he wouldn't eat at the dining table, instead, he would sit in the kitchen and have his dinner there, on a stool that is not of a comfortable height against the kitchen counter top, and once he was done with his meal, he will go back to his room again.

The very few times he would come out of his room and look for me, it was to ask me to help him fix his CD player or adjust his bedroom TV for him because it wasn't working properly, I don't mind most of the time to go help him, and every single time I enter his room, it just feels so stuffy and warm, I thought maybe it was the way he was using the room that made it so stuffy, but after taking over the room, I realize that it is because of the glass blocks in the room that makes the whole space so warm and stuffy, and he actually stays cooped up in the room the entire day. 

At one point, because the house was running out of space to store our luggage, we decided to install a metal rack in my grandpa's room and put the luggage there, and it was only after I took over the room did I realize how horrible having that metal rack with all the luggage is, because not only does it look horrible and take up space, it makes the room feel like a storeroom. 

When I think back, his golden years were probably not the best and he probably spend the last few years of his life before his stroke, feeling like he was not wanted by anyone in the family, not just mine but my Uncles and Aunties, who kept pushing the responsibilities to my Dad because he is the eldest son, eventually one of my Aunty took over and housed him at her place. Every time my family visited him, he will be happy that he is being visited, but then after a while, he will start complaining about my Aunty and call her a bad person, his own daughter who opened her house to him after my family no longer wanted to house him because he was actually bullying our helper at that time.

The sad truth is his personality makes him a quite unlikeable, so it was hard to give him any sort of affection, when you are nice to him, he doesn't really appreciate it and might end up finding you bothersome like he did with my Aunty.

That being said, I still do feel a little sadness about his passing because he is after all my Grandfather who did stay with under the same roof as me for pretty much the first 25 years of my life, but it is not a great sadness that makes me want to cry when I think about him, a lot of this sadness comes from feeling a great sense of pity towards how the last 6 to 7 years of his life after he moved out was spend alone at home, watching TV and not interacting much with his own family, and as far as I am aware, he didn't have any friends to hang out with as well, and then to spend the final year of his life in the hospital, bedridden and paralyzed for an entire year before finally letting go.

I feel bad because I don't feel as sad as I should be when a family member passes on. The funeral today was not a somber event, it felt more like a family gathering than a funeral, everyone was happily chatting with one another, no one was crying and I guess because everyone was expecting my Grandfather's death, we were more relief than sad that he has finally moved and and is no longer suffering in the hospital. 

 The funeral procession will be taking place this Monday, I had to move my work schedule around to make my attendance possible, as I should, this is the least I can do as his Grandson, and the least I can after not bothering to visit him during his hospitalization. 

More Issues, but small issues

So that project that I am running now is giving me quite a fair bit of problem, and the problems are coming from the client's kids (my old clients) and not the clients themselves.

I am honestly not surprise at how difficult this project is getting because my old clients have done the same thing before where they were pointing out a lot of little details that I have never taken into consideration before because of how minor those details are.

Are they valid concerns? Yes. 

Do they really matter in the long run? No

It's like me baking a vanilla cake, and after baking said cake, the customer ask me what kind of vanilla I use, and I tell them I am using Vanilla Extract, only for them to question why I didn't use vanilla bean because they wanted to see the specks of vanilla bean running through the cake. So once again, is it a valid concern, sure, if you want the vanilla bean aesthetic, but does it matter in the long run, it doesn't because the speck of vanilla bean is not obvious unless you are really looking for it.

Vanilla Buttercream without using Vanilla Bean

Vanilla Buttercream using Vanilla Bean

Same same, but not really, it's not like I made the wrong flavor or coloured it wrong, it's just a minor issue that as a professional, I can't expect the customer to know about, but at the same time, because it is so minor, it is also not something I will ask the customer about before we start work.

So the daughter reached out earlier just now and pointed those small issues out and we ended up having this back and forth with a few phone calls in between, I will say that she was very cordial during the call and it was more to ask rather than to confront, her husband than chimed in as well and I also had a call with him, once again, very cordial and friendly, no aggression of any sorts.

The deal is I like this couple, I enjoy talking to them when it is not topics pertaining to problems they have found during the renovation, the good thing about this renovation is that the house belongs to the parents and not them because if it was their own house, I will have to redo a lot of things, but their parents are a bit more easygoing, so they tend to let things slide if the problems are minor ones.

I wasn't expecting this much issue so early on, I know some will pop up eventually, but not so early on and not at every stage of the renovation. I am not at the second stage, we still have 3 to 4 more stages to go, so far I can't think of any possible issues that might arise from those stages, maybe except the carpentry part, but we'll see how much white hair I will have added to my head by the end of the project.

The Start of a Reno is the End of my Peace.

The last time I had any site to manage was back in January this year, and that January project that I had left at that point was already close to competition, after that, I had not been getting any projects due to my desire to find a new job and leave this current company as soon as possible, and that resulted me with no proper project to work on for 4 months. It was relatively stressful to know that I was not having any income, but I feel like that stress is not as bad as the stress I would usually get from running a project. My face was relatively clear during those 4 months because my stress level wasn't high enough then to cause any sort of break out.

Today marks the first time in 4 months since I have gotten busy with a site to handle and today also reminded me of the aspect of this job that I hate so much. 

It is not just the horrible income, the reason why the income is so horrible is because in order to get a decent income in this job, you will have to deal with the difficult customers that comes with it because homeowners are my source of income and cherry picking who I am willing to work with limits how much I can earn.

This "first project since 4 months" of mine went so smoothly in the beginning. The hacking was done within half a day and my clients even introduced me to their neighbors  who were also interested to do some renovation works, everything honestly went so well and I had a nice chat with the clients that I started wondering why I was even stressing out so much in the first place because they are so friendly.

I said my goodbyes to my clients after I spoke to their neighbor and briefed my sub-cons on what to do, and then headed home to prepare for my Zoom meeting with my other group of clients in the evening at 7pm. I got home at about 1pm and then started watching Youtube and playing Genshin Impact, when it was about 6.30 pm, I started prepping for the meeting, setting up the drawings I wanted to show my Zoom clients and then that was when I got a photo message from my client today.

It was a picture of a pipe that had cracked, I thought it was quite serious because the pipe is partially buried underneath the flooring, if I had to replace that cracked pipe, I will probably have to replace the entire pipe, which means even more hacking, so I quickly send the picture to my plumber and ask for his advice.  Thankfully, the pipe was actually a redundant pipe that was needed in the past but was no longer needed now, so it didn't have to be replaced, we can simply just epoxy the crack up and be done with it or just completely remove it, so I happily shared with my client via text that that pipe is not important and can be fixed easily with epoxy glue, and that was when the problem started.

"When you say repair the pipe, you mean to just seal up the crack or will you change the entire pipe?"

"I am concern that if you just repair the crack and not replace the entire thing, it will cause problems in the future."

  "What if water starts leaking out from that crack?"

"I am concerned that if we just repair the crack with epoxy and the crack starts giving issue once the new cabinet is up, we will have to dismantle everything again."

... all this happening 30 minutes before my 7pm Zoom Meeting.  I was trying to mentally prep myself for the Zoom Meeting and this gets brought up to my attention, everything was going so well and then I get this issue that I have to deal with.

I was having this back and forth with my client and my plumber who kept telling me the pipe is redundant and can be removed without causing any future issue, an assurance that I kept bringing up to my clients, but it just fell on deaf ear. I called the client up directly and spoke to him and I thought that that was it, that all I needed to do was give him a call to finally get through to him, I then quickly arrange with my plumber to go down within the next 2 days to remove the redundant pipe and at about 6.55pm, I was finally done ,or so I thought,  my Zoom application was open this entire time and I could see my Zoom clients were already in the waiting room, so I quickly set up my camera and invited them in..

My Zoom meeting didn't go super well, if I were to be very honest, I have never enjoyed Zoom meetings, so I did not have fun with this particular one, plus what happened earlier clearly had some effect on my mood.

During Zoom meetings, I will also set up 2 computes, a small laptop that has a video camera and then my desktop for me to do my presentation via screen sharing, sadly for me, my laptop that had the camera just went BSOD halfway through the meeting, so what my client ended up getting was just this freeze frame of me in a really really horrible ugly angle, that that was just stuck on the meeting screen for a good 2 minutes before it finally went away and that account that was kicked out.

I was still in the meeting via my desktop, so the meeting was still happening, the only thing was that my clients could only hear my voice now and could no longer see me via the video. 

Anyways, the reason why this appointment did not go well is because this Zoom clients decided to bring up how they were rushing to move in before a certain date, even though we had already discussed this previously TWICE in person and they had already accepted the fact that a delay to their move in date is inevitable. I don't know why everything I am saying or have said is suddenly just falling on deaf ears today.

It's always so irritating when I tell a client that their move in date is not realistic, and they still insist on moving in on that date. I was told that the reason they needed to move in directly after their wedding was because they had work commitments and exams to take right after and didn't want the renovation to be taking up their time and it's just extremely frustrating for me because this is not a problem I should be dealing with, if you were in a rush, you should have started looking for an Interior Designer much sooner.

Why are you suddenly piling this on me, especially about the exam, so if you end up doing badly, you are going to insinuate that it is my fault because I couldn't get the renovation done in time is it?

It's like me wanting to get a customized cake for a friend's party, but instead of ordering the cake in advance like I should when I want to get a customized cake, I go to the bakery an hour before the party and give the shop my order, expecting them to be able to do one for me, and when they tell me they will need at least 3 days to get the order ready, I tell them...

"Oh, but it's my friend's birthday today and I really need that cake like right now because the part starts in an hour."

...  the shop will suddenly no longer have a waiting list and the cake suddenly no longer need  30 minutes to bake, no longer need an hour to cool before it can be frosted, no longer need how many hours it would usually take to decorate, JUST BECAUSE YOU SAY YOU NEED IT URGENTLY because that can somehow alter the reality of time and logic. 

For fuck sake, that is not how this shit works, and it is just fucking irritating that homeowners don't get it, ESPECIALLY DURING THIS PANDEMIC WHEN MANPOWER IS ALREADY LOW! AND YOU WANT THINGS TO BE DONE FASTER THAN NORMAL? 

It's so stupid but anyways, the zoom meeting lasted only about 30 minutes because I hate Zoom meetings and wanted it to end as soon as possible and as I was saying my goodbyes to my Zoom client, my other client's daughter called me, she was also my client previously, that's why we are familiar with one another, and then reiterated her father's concern to me, and it was just me repeating the same thing I have shared with her father, to her again, and she wasn't very convinced, I do have to say she was very nice about it, but it's still really frustrating when the clients just don't bother to listen and believe what you have to say.

She then discusses with her Father after our call about what can be done and it seems like I am back to square one again because now the Dad wants to talk to the plumber directly and get his response, he is just going to be getting the same reply as what I have shared with him because that is LITERALLY WHAT MY PLUMBER IS TELLING ME!  What is an easily solvable problem has now become unnecessarily complicated because the clients are not convinced that what I am saying is true despite what I am saying is what the professional is relaying to me. 

The funny thing here is I have worked with the daughter and her husband twice and both times, despite me liking them both as individuals and enjoying having conversations with them, they are not my favorite clients to work with. I was honestly expecting the same thing to happen with this project and unfortunately, I was right and it is happening right now now, but it is feels less aggressive because the Dad is much milder compared to his Daughter, so I won't say I am too surprised at how it turned out, but that doesn't make the experience any less unpleasant.

Anyways,  I have to meet another client tomorrow who will be starting work next week, I was anticipating the project for that client to be the most troublesome one, and I thought these two that I have spoken with today will be somewhat manageable, but it seems I may have underestimated them. Now I feel like the one who will truly be giving me a hard time is actually the Zoom Meeting one, but we'll see how tomorrow's meeting goes and who will be the bane of my existence and be given a coveted nickname during this round of projects.