Offered to be VM

So Stacked Homes recently wrote this awesome article that delve into the Renovation Industry from a Interior Designer's perspective and what was written in the article resonated with a lot of Interior Designers, even myself, because it's not very common to get articles like this, usually when renovation nightmares are brought up, it's always from the perspective of the homeowners.

Based on my personal experience while working at ID4, whilst there are irresponsible and unscrupulous Interior Designers that exist in the market, if you are engaging someone from a big design firm with hundreds of positive reviews and somehow still manage to have a negative enough experience that would warrant you to leave a bad review, chances are you are the problem.

If you are getting scammed by an Interior Designer however, then I honestly have no sympathy for you, the only reason you would get scammed is because you decided to go for the cheapest quote without doing any research on the Interior Designers and the company. I have met my fair share of homeowners who wants everything cheap, they don't value your effort and thinks that everything an Interior Designer quotes them should be the same as what a contractor quotes them because who needs to earn a decent commission, we Interior Designers just really love eating grass right?

If you have don't think Interior Designers deserve to earn their fair share of commission from upselling you on the various sub-cons services because that's literally how we earn money, if you think the work that we put into preparing design proposals and managing your project means nothing, well then, have a taste of your own medicine, let all the money you have earned and saved from working for years be robbed away from you by somebody who shares the same sentiment as you. 

Anyways, update on life so far.

I have officially rescinded my job acceptance last week after a week of contemplating and my belief is if it's meant to be, I will really be excited to jump on the opportunity to accept the job offer, and if I am really unsure about a new job, then it probably isn't the right one for me.

After turning down the job offer, I was finally offered to take over as the store's Visual Merchandiser, not the In-House Stylist, this means I won't have to help the Sales team with their design proposals like what the current In-House Stylist is doing, I am only taking up a portion of his job scope, I guess the boss still wants me to do Sales as well, but I am trying to find solace in the fact that my job will no longer be focused on just sales anymore because I have been spending the last few months feeling this great sense of inadequacy at my job. 

My Sales for the month of March is still at $0 because I have been spending pretty much the last few weeks of February prepping the Design Proposal for the job interview, so I wasn't able to get any proper walk-in leads in the store to follow up for March, and also the fact that I had planned to quit so there really wasn't any motivation for me to chase any sales.

If the In-House Interior Stylist hadn't submitted his resignation letter, I would have definitely thrown mine in because I am just really tired of dealing with retail customers.

I decided to stay mainly also because I felt bad leaving the store without any Interior Stylist onboard, everyone else aside from me and the In-House Stylist are purely sales, they have no formal background  and experience when it comes to Interior Design, and my boss hasn't done anything bad that would make me feel glee from quitting and leaving the company in the lurch, that being said, this mentality isn't good because I am ultimately still a replaceable asset in the company and staying for the wrong reasons would only be detrimental to me.

Job Offer

I have decided to accept the job offer 2 days ago, it wasn't a decision that I am very certain of because I was constantly going back and forth on the idea. I told the boss that I needed some time to think and to give me until the end of the month to decide and he did, so on the last day of February, I pretty much spend the entire day at work just weighing out my options.

It was not easy, for a few minutes, I would weigh out all of the positives of joining the new ID firm and when I am certain of my decision, all the positives of staying at my current job starts flooding in as well and I start to question everything all over again.

So just to weigh out the pros and both jobs.

-New ID Firm Pros

• I get to do Interior Design again and be in a creative role once again. 

• The company offers commission on top of basic, so there is the option of earning more than what I am currently earning every month.

• The job scope is what I have been looking for in an Interior Design role, which is to just do the Design and not be required to Project Manage the site.

• Will be able to improve on my Design language

-New ID Firm Cons

• Quarterly Sales Target that needs to be hit, otherwise I will get terminated

• Lower Basic so I could also potentially earn less than what I am earning now every month

• Not so sure about the Bosses as I don't think we really click very well during the interview

-Current Company Pros

• Stable Salary

• Familiar Environment

• Generally stress-free

• Nice Boss

- Current Company Cons

• Job scope isn't what I wanted to do

• No discernable career progression

I know from a Career point of view, joining the ID Firm is the path to take, but from a stability point of view, staying with my current is the way to go, there is no right and wrong, it's simply a matter of what is important to me at this stage of my life and the honest truth is I just simply do not know. 

When I send the message to officially accept the offer that night, I felt relieve, not because I knew I had made the right decision, but because a decision was finally made. I requested for additional time for my notice period and the boss messages me back the next morning to ask if it meant I were to start in mid April instead of the start of April, and then ask me for my IC so he can prepare a contract agreement for me. 

I responded to his first message and told him that I would like to start in mid April if that was possible, and then send my IC over, this was yesterday morning, I haven't gotten any updates from him since.

So I went to work yesterday and my supervisor, being aware of my job offer, ask me if I had accepted the offer already, I told him I did and he tells me that our In-House Interior Stylist has also accepted a new job offer and will be submitting his 1 month notice the next day, which is today.

I knew the In-House Interior Stylist had plans to leave the company, maybe within the year, I just didn't realize it was going to be this soon.

This changes everything.

If the In-House Interior Stylist leaves, his position would remain open, that means I could potentially be asked to fill in his position and actually be doing the job I had originally applied for! My supervisor tells me that if I choose to stay, he will talk to the boss to ensure that I be given the In-House position.

At this point, I am also not sure if the ID Firm is even interested to hire me anymore because it has been more than 24 hours since my last contact with their boss, my last exchange was the request to have my notice period be extended to mid April, a request he didn't actually respond to.