Shit felt like it really hit the fan at work today.
Today was meant to be a day for site A to do the electrical works, that was the only thing I was worried about as I fell asleep last night. Just overthinking, as I always do, about what could go wrong at site A today.
So today arrives and I drop by the site pretty early at about 9.20am, started prepping all the lights that needed to be installed before the electrician arrived and my clients were around, so the wife started prepping the items together with me and we started having a bit of a chit chat. The electrician arrives about 20 minutes later and I start instructing him on what had to be done, we were walking around the different rooms when suddenly my phone started ringing, I pick the phone up and the person on the other line goes...
"Hi, are you the ID in-charge? I am the carpenter, we have reached site B and will be starting the remaining installation works today, what time will you be coming over?"
... it was really confusing because I was not informed that they will be dropping by today by the head carpenter, as far as I was aware, the head carpenter was so busy he couldn't even respond to my messages about setting a date for his men to come back to continue the installation works, so I was shocked, albeit happy that the installation was finally making progress again, but panicking at the same time because there was marble polishing happening at the site today, and I had already told the marble polisher that he can do the works today because there won't be any other major works happening on site. I then also remember that my clients hadn't gotten their cabinet door handles down yet, so even if the carpenters were there, they wouldn't be able to do a full installation because the handles were missing.
All this thoughts of what could go wrong because of the carpenter's unexpected arrival was swirling in my head during the call, so as soon as I was done with disseminating the instructions to my electricians, I rushed over to site B and was very apologetic to the marble polisher for the carpenter's intrusion, they were very nice and told me it was going to be a little disruptive with the carpenters around, but there shouldn't be any problems.
So I went to talk to the carpenters and ran through the installation works, and when the topic of the handles were brought up, I got really stressed out because if the carpenters had to make another trip down again, I really don't know how long that would actually take to happen, actually trying to arrange for them to make this trip down took a while to happen, and also the fact that they actually drop by unannounced just makes it worst for the scheduling because it's not just them I have to slot into the schedule, each subcon/supplier that comes in will affect another subcon/supplier in some ways or another.
Honestly speaking, this just really made me miss my other carpenter because he will always tell me in advance when he will be dropping by, or at least he will reply to me and give me an estimated date when I ask him about it, but this carpenter doesn't do that and he usually ignores me when I ask him for a date. Although to be fair to this carpenter, it's covid and he is one of the only few carpenters that are still accepting jobs, so while I am extremely grateful that he actually took on my project during this period, I can't help but wonder how all this would have been so much smoother if it was being done by my other carpenter.
Anyways, I told the carpenters on site that I will check with the owner about the handle because I know they already have the handles, they just hadn't brought it over to the apartment yet. The problem with my clients for site B is that they aren't always available to answer my calls or reply to my messages just due to the nature of their work.
More often than not, most of my homeowners are office workers, so they can respond to the messages that I send almost immediately if it is urgent and needs their immediate attention, for example, the smallest things like how high they want their towel rack in their toilets to be, or how high will their beds be so I can catch the proper height to hang their side lights, just things that I may have missed out earlier on that I would like to quickly confirm so my sub-cons can start on their work immediately.
So this was what happened today...
I asked them if their handles were in the apartment, the husband leaves me on read but the wife didn't even read the message.
A few minutes later, I got a little desperate, so I send another message, essentially telling them if they have the handles at their current home, I can directly go collect it from their place. No immediate response, and I actually really needed to get the handles soon because it was around 11am then and the carpenters told me they will probably be done within the next 1 to 2 hours if they are not going to install the handles today.
About 10 minutes after the message was send, I started giving up hope and told the carpenters the handles will likely have to be installed the next trip, one of them then told me that his boss will probably get mad because he had actually rushed the installation for me. I then told him that I didn't even know they were even coming today because if he had told me maybe a day in advance, I would have had time to ask my clients to prepare the handles for me to pick up, and if I had been given 2 days advance notice, I could have gotten the clients themselves to bring the handles over the day before the carpenters came in.
Sigh, after that, I went to the nearby mall to have a drink because I was parched, I hadn't had a drink since I was at site A, and I rushed down to site B and was pretty much glistening in sweat, there was a wet patch on my shirt and I could actually smell how bad I smelled, so I ordered a $7 drink from Coffee Bean and just started sipping at it like crazy at first, but then controlled myself after a while because it's a $7 drink, I didn't want to finish it within a minute and be left with a full cup of ice, and as I was nursing my drink, the husband finally responds.
He informs me that his family has it at their place and that I can drop by to collect it, so I requested for the address, called my carpenter and told him I was going to get the handles and will get it to him within the next 90 minutes. I was obviously not going to get the handles within 90 minutes if I took the bus, so I went to take a Taxi, the total damage was about $12 to the apartment, which to me, was money well spend because I would rather spend that money to get the handles for the carpenters to install myself, then to save that money, wait for my clients to get it over, and then wait another few weeks for the carpenter to return and help me install the handles.
When I got to the place, I contacted the mother, and I was expecting to grab the handle at the main gate, and then leave, but she invited me into the apartment and started asking me about potential renovation works she would like to do to one of the rooms, I entertained her for a while, shared some potential ideas with her, but then had to break the news that I was actually serving my notice period at the moment, so if she was interested to proceed further, I can connect her with one of my colleagues. I just didn't want to waste her time and have her spend all this time sharing her ideas with me, only to be told that I can't actually commit to the project, but I told her that my resignation has yet to be shared with my clients yet, and I will only be informing them next week, to which the Mom then tells me...
"You do it at your own pace when you are comfortable, I won't let them know."
... and I was just really grateful that she was so understanding, because there can be some parents who will immediately get worried and ask how the renovation will proceed if the designers just quit, they will be more concern about their children's renovation than the designer's career, which I get is completely understandable, but she was very nice about it.
She then informs me that maybe I can just not let them know yet to alleviate their stress, but I don't know if I want to keep it hush hush from my clients, I think it might be worst if they don't know, and then assume I would be available to meet anytime or be available to collect things for them, so I do think there is a need to mentally prepare them for my potential absence.
After that, I got a Grab and made my way back to site B with the handles in hand, which is another $12, the wife then finally replies after so long and informs me which handle is for what and for that brief few minutes, she was actually really responsive, so I confirmed everything with her and the carpenter and then made my way back to Site A to check up on the situation
Before that, I had a quick meal and I will say, during that trip back from site B and as I was having my lunch, I felt insanely productive because despite everything feeling so chaotic, the fact that everything ended up working out so nicely in the end almost feels like a miracle and I just felt a little proud for navigating through that partial shit storm.
The meal took a while to finish because it was really filling, and when I finally got back to site A after my lunch, the place was pretty full, my client got her own contractors in the house doing their own stuff and she introduced me to one of them who happens to be her friend, we exchanged a quick hello, and they soon went back to chatting with each other, I just walked around the place and observed everything that was happening, it felt good because there was actually a lot of progress being made today, the place was slowly starting to come together. and once I felt I have had my stay for long enough, I decided to drop by site B again just to check up on the progress.
All that positive feeling I had before went away when I got back to site B because that was when I started to notice a lot of issues popping up, they are small issues but issues nonetheless.
1.
There was a carpentry error for the wardrobe doors, a small design detail had been left out and if I get those doors redone, the carpenter will definitely be upset (even though it is his mistake), and the project will definitely be delayed again. I already fucked up their carpentry once and had to get it replaced, so if the clients notice this issue, they are definitely going to be very upset about the delay again.
2.
The handles were installed way too far apart from one another.
My clients got handles that looked similar to this....
... it is half handles and when I instructed the carpenter to install this handles on the door, I just naturally assumed he would install it like this...
,,, because it's 2 halves, so you would want to install them at the edge of the doors to make 1 whole, but for some reason, he actually installed it like this...
... which is also an option, but why would you install it like that unless instructed, the handles were clearly designed to form a whole circle, I thought it would be common sense to install it the first method.
But since the carpenter had already installed it, nothing I say will help and if he attempted to reposition it, it will leave holes in the doors, which will then lead back to the need to refabricate the doors, which would take another few weeks to be ready. I know for sure he will just get annoyed and then blame me for not telling him in advance, plus since the damage has already been done, all I can hope for right now is that the clients either don't notice it, or the best outcome is that they had intended for it to be installed like the second option since the beginning, but the latter is more hopeful thinking on my part.
3.
My electrician had actually told me that one of the electrical appliance my clients got was damaged during delivery, so he didn't install said appliance and told me to inform the clients to get it exchanged. That appliance was then left on the kitchen counter top in it's box for my clients to take back to the shop to possibly do an exchange. I forgot about this and failed to inform my carpenter about it, so he took the appliance out of the box, and installed it onto the carpentry.
I didn't really cared too much about it at first and figured I can just remove the appliance for my clients when they decide to do the exchange, I saw the box the appliance came in, chucked outside at the service yard area, so I scrummage through the box to make sure there was no other rubbish inside and noticed a snipped of power plug at the bottom of the box.
The carpenter had not only fixed the appliance into the carpentry, he actually prepped it for my electrician to install it by snipping off the power plug, I was so shocked, so I asked him if he had snipped it off and he told me he did, he got really defensive after that and told me I didn't tell him beforehand, that I should have told him about it. And I admit it was my fault because the box was clearly sitting on the counter top and he would naturally assumed it was meant for installation. I then told him it should be fine since the issue with the appliance is just a dent on a removable portion, if they can't return it to the shop, then I will just cover the cost to get the new removable portion.
This project is just hemorrhaging money at this point, and the clients haven't even made their next payment yet.
I wasn't planning on sharing any site updates with my clients for site B because of all this issues, but then the more I think about it, the more stressed out I got because I kept playing the many possible scenarios of how they would react to those issues in my head once they see it in person, so I decided to just bite the bullet and send them the photos, I didn't bring up the issue with the wardrobe door and the handles, I kind of want to see if those issues are actually noticeable to them or not in the photos. It was obvious to me, but maybe it won't be a an issue to them?
So far, only the husband has seen the photos but hasn't responded yet, the wife still hasn't seen the photos so I am not sure what her reaction would be, the worst and most plausible respond I can imagine getting right now would be...
"I thought the wardrobe was suppose to be designed this way? We actually really liked that detailing and would like that added in as per discussed." *circles out missing detail in the attached 3D drawing*
&
"The handles look really far apart from each other, is there anyway to reinstall them so they are actually closer, because the whole point of the handles is to have the two halves form a whole, putting them so far apart kind of defeats the purpose."
... and technically, I can get the carpenter to refabricate the entire wardrobe door because he did miss out the detail, and that would solve my handle issue but it's the constant project delay that I am just really not very keen to go through anymore. I'm tired, it's exhausting, I don't want to keep rectifying when the project is so close to completion, all I am left is the tabletop, the plumbing works and the final round of electrical works and the project will be done, after today, the project is suppose to be able to just auto-pilot itself to completion because everything left to do is extremely straightforward and won't require too much attention on my end.
Please just let this project complete successfully without anymore delays by the end of the month so I can actually start work at the new place without any baggage from my current job.
Site A is actually progressing pretty well, there is just this, in my opinion, major touch up works that needs to be done, so I am actually thinking of getting one of my colleagues to coordinate and settle that issue for me and then just pay them a small $100 to $200 coordination fee. It could potentially be a 1 day job, so it is not a bad deal if I were to say so myself, the only reason why I need someone to oversee it is because the day that issue is getting rectified, it will be my second day of work at the new company and I really do not want to have that problem hanging above my head while I am trying to adjust to the new environment.
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