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.
"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.
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