My boss's quality of being late...

I had to deal with my first disgruntled customer at work today and this whole situation was honestly something that could have been avoided had my boss not procrastinated and did things so last minute.

So for some background, this customer had been introduced to me as my boss's ex-boss kid, my boss had watched him grow up and he had came to us, along with his wife, to do renovation works for their upcoming home.

My role in this whole process is just purely the brains behind the design of the home, once the design aspect of it is done, I will pass the torch to the next person in charge, who is the Project Manager and my involvement will be significantly reduced. In my attempt to make this whole renovation as smooth as possible, I decided to visit the tile shop with the homeowners a month ago just to firm up on everything before the renovation would start. This was something I had taken initiative to do because I notice my boss's style with his other projects has always been to visit the tile shop literally one week before renovation begins and then just select the tiles for the customer super last minute, which is not the way this should be done, just based on my past experience at ID4. 

The client and his wife had both taken leave just to make the tile shop visit last month possible and it was quite a fruitful visit, we were able to shortlist a few options and then finalize the selection within a week. After the tile trip, we even took time to come back to the office to confirm all the colors for the cabinets, including how the internal components would work, so my part in this whole renovation process was pretty much done last month and I had just been touching up and fine tuning on all my drawings so the Project Manager can have as much information as possible to ensure a smooth handing over of the torch for the project.

Fast forward to this morning, my boss suddenly requested for me to list down all the tiles that had been selected for the renovation because he wanted to order the tiles today, renovation starts next Monday, today is Thursday, ordering the tile now is just super last minute, but I figured since my role in this is done, everything else will now be in my boss's hands because he is the Project Manager for this particular project, if any issues arises, he will be the one who has to deal with them. I did all the calculations for the tiles needed and sends him the list.

And an issue arises.....

Few hours later, he drops me a text and informs me that the one of the tile that we had selected is unfortunately out of stock, this was the main tile for the whole renovation. I was really annoyed because the renovation will be starting next week, we literally only have 2 working days left to reselect another tile. I had met the both the clients in advance to finalize all the tiles JUST SO we can avoid last minute bullshit like this, they even took leave from work to meet me on a weekday for the visit, and now we are in this fucking situation because my boss decided to only make the order so last minute.

He already had all the information he needed to make the order weeks ago, but he just kept sitting on it. I knew we didn't have time to dilly dally anymore, so I shared the bad news with the clients as quickly as I could while my boss was still contemplating if he should tell them or I should tell them.

He should have been the one to tell them, but the bearer of bad news ended up being me because we have no time anymore, the homeowners need to know as soon as possible so we can come up with a plan and settle this in time for the renovation to commence next week.

Initially the husband didn't take the news very badly, but as the conversation progress, I could sense that he was getting more and more agitated, asking us in the group chat why the order was never made in advanced because we had literally confirmed them weeks ago. My boss just didn't bother to chime in, so I had to do the replies and that made it seemed like I was the one at fault for not ordering the tiles in advance.

I was really not in a good mood because I just felt really indignant about this whole thing. I did my due diligence as the designer, selected and confirmed everything that needed to be confirmed way in advance, but because of my boss's habit of procrastinating, all the advance work that I had done with the customers just went down the drain.

My boss and I headed to the tile shop to look for a replacement and the husband said he will also drop by, usually when I meet a customer who is upset  over chat in person, they will drop the aggression they have been exhibiting in chat and approach the whole situation with a much friendlier attitude, but when this client came to the tile shop and saw us, he was NOT HAPPY.

I was in the midst of putting some alternative options together and when the husband approached us, he was just exclaiming out loud...

"What is going on? Why is this happening? Why like that?"

.... he was saying it with a slight smile on his face, but you can sense in his tone that he was very upset and was trying to mask his annoyance with the smile, I tried to explain that my boss and I have shortlisted a few tiles for him to choose from, and a few seconds later, my boss just bolts off to go look for other alternatives around the tile shop and leaves me alone with the unhappy customer. It was so uncomfortable 

I was extremely unhappy, not at the customer because his anger is completely valid, but at my boss because this was an issue that had been caused by him due to his negligence, and he just kept running away from it, literally going to the furthest corner of the tile shop so he can avoid talking to the husband.

The husband walked around the tile shop a little after he looked at what I had counter proposed, comes back to me and ask me where my boss was because he wanted to talk to the both of us before his wife came, so all of us found each other and he basically expressed his disappointed at us. My boss kept coming up with excuses, saying all this is out of his control because the stock was only recently swiped up and to have a stock get wiped out so quickly is not a common occurrence, this made the situation worst because everything could have been avoided if the tiles had been reserved in advance like he, so the husband just got even more emotional, my boss also felt like he wasn't in the wrong, so he didn't feel the need to apologize to the client and instead kept reiterating how all of this was out of his control. I kinda just sat there and not say anything because to put it very bluntly, this is not my fault and shouldn't be my shit to clean up. 

One of the salesperson in the store came over in the midst of all this and pulled my boss one side to explain the tile shortage situation, so my boss excuses himself and I was once again alone with the husband. 

I was able to change topic and distracted the husband from the issue at hand, so the mood got less intense after that and when the wife finally arrives, the air just stopped feeling so heavy. I guess because he didn't know how his wife would react to the situation, the husband was initially really affected by it, but the wife didn't seem very upset when she arrived, and we eventually went back to looking for different options. We were able to confirm the reselection, but instead of just reselecting one tile to replace the one that's out of stock, they decided that they wanted to reselect all the tiles and just explore a new look.

Again. All of this extra work could have been avoided if my boss had just ordered the fucking tiles earlier. 

If we had informed the customers that the tiles were out of stock two to three weeks before their renovation is scheduled to start, I'm sure the customers will still be understanding and just go visit the tile shop with me to reselect with no issues because 2 to 3 weeks advance notice would mean we DID make the effort to order in advance, and if it is out of stock then, then it is beyond our control because had already taken the precaution to attempt to order it early, 2 to 3 weeks would  also have given us sufficient time to reselect the tiles and for me to properly update the drawings. I can completely understand the customer's anger because if I were them, I would also be livid, and I was livid as the designer of the project because it wasn't just the clients time that was wasted during the first tile shop visit, mine was wasted as well because that trip ended up being for naught. 

I really got my work cut out for me because now, I have to rush out the 3D model for them with the reselected tiles within a day, just so they can have a visual of how everything will look together. Now I cannot help but wonder how many more fuck ups will actually happen once the renovation starts because to get the customers so upset before we even started the renovation is not a good sign.

Project Manager Problems and more Perfume.

So I had to attend a site visit a over the weekend with my boss in the East Coast area and it is for a project that will be starting the renovation phase in about a or two week.

My boss will personally be managing this project because one of our PMs recently tendered his resignation, this particular PM, whom I shall just refer to as Dave, apparently has the tendency to "quit" when he gets stressed out at work, the reason Quit is in quotes is because he doesn't actually quit, he would usually end up rescinding his resignation letter and just come to work again as per usual after he has completed serving his notice period, that is according to our accountant, who has been with the company for almost as long as Dave, apparently this is his sixth time pulling his stunt.

One of the current projects that he is currently working on is a project that I am involved in and compared to the other PM, whom I shall refer to as Jason, Dave is not very good at his job. Jason, the other Project Manager, is very meticulous and will show initiative, he will take time to study all my drawings and clarify any issues that he has with me before proceeding with the renovation work, if he notices that I have made certain design decisions that are not viable, he will take the initiative to adjust them on-site and then explain to the clients why those amendments were made, so I barely ever have to get involved.

Dave on the other hand is the completely opposite. He will glance through all the drawings I have prepared, but he won't study them in detail and will expect information to be spoon fed to him, information that can be found on my drawings with a little deduction skill.

For example, when I present to him the electrical plan, it will be filled with information such as where the switches will be, where the powerpoints will be and where the lights will be. 

For this current project, we had to demolish a wall, and on that wall, there were existing powerpoints that would be affected once it was taken down.  As an experienced Project Manager, I had expected him to look at the electrical plan and understand how to deal with those affected powerpoints, which would simply be to relocated them to where I had reflected in the electrical plan, but instead of automatically thinking of that, he sends me a photo of that freshly demolished wall with all the dangling wiring and ask me to think of a way to deal with them.

I have already thought of a way to deal with them... in the electrical drawings. In the end, I had to literally draw out on the photo how to re-run those wires and where they will be relocated to. At that point, my mind was blown at how inept he was and my expectation of him as a Project Manager dropped.

After that, he went on and arranged more works, but had stopped requesting for any clarification on my end, so I figured he probably had everything under control and that my drawings I had prepared were sufficient for him to plan the works smoothly. 

I was wrong. 

My boss had brought me to that site to take a look at the ongoing works together and I realized Dave had done the false ceiling wrongly, I showed the drawings I did to my boss on-site and my measurements on it were a bit off, but it was very obvious that the false ceiling designs were meant to be aligned with certain walls. 

This is how a False Ceiling Plan would look like. (I found it off the internet)

If we were to look at the yellowed coloured part, we can see that the false ceiling will end in alignment with the wall on the right. I had a false ceiling that followed a similar concept, but instead of an alignment with a wall, it's in alignment with a door. 

On my False Ceiling plan, I had also included measurements, those were meant for my accountant because she needed the measurements to prepare her quotation. I had assumed that Dave would have the sense to look at the False Ceiling plan, catch these little details, and maybe ask me for clarification before he instructed the sub-cons on how to do the false ceiling, but he doesn't and instead, just gives the workers those measurements and they followed them to the dot. The floorplan isn't to scale because it's one of those condo floorplans like the one pictured above, they have no measurements and are usually not accurate, so the false ceiling that was constructed ended up extending beyond the door frame and that was an issue because it meant the full height wardrobe that was directly facing the false ceiling would no longer have enough allowance to open the wardrobe doors, they will end up hitting the false ceiling.

When my boss and I saw that, we checked all the bedrooms and they all had the same problem. If Jason had been the one running this project, I am very certain he would have foreseen all this and pointed out all this issues to me, but unfortunately, Dave is the one in charge and he didn't. Luckily my boss and I were able to come up with a solution, so nothing had to be redone, we also didn't want to message Dave because it was a Friday and we know that alerting him to all this issues would just spoil his weekend.

And that is the other problem with Dave, it's the fact that we have to baby him so much because if we don't, he will have a mental breakdown and then just go MIA, like he did last week. He was so stressed out that he just became uncontactable for 2 days, my boss had texted me about it last week and literally told me not to message Dave because he was under a lot of stress, that even my boss couldn't reach him. I was actually flabbergasted that my boss allowed Dave to pull this stunt because just like his habit to "quit" when the job gets tough, he also has the habit of disappearing for a while as well. Usually his modus operandi is to disappear for a while, and then make a reappearance to throw his resignation letter. 

SIX times.

And every time, once his notice period has been served, he would come return to work like he had never thrown the letter at all. I am honestly hoping that my boss will actually find another Project Manager soon that is as capable as Jason, because Dave is just not that great at his job, and he cannot just keep disappearing and then quitting when the job gets too difficult, only to come back again to potentially repeat that cycle. It's so disruptive to the company because projects that he is running mid-way through will have to switch hands and then projects that had been assigned to him in advance will have to be reassigned to another PM who may already be overloaded, and if that other PM has too many on his plate, it will fall on my boss's shoulders. My boss needs to find a new Project Manager soon so Dave won't be able to return once his notice period is up, because he is clearly taking the kindness of my boss for granted.

I really cannot trust Dave to run any of my future projects because the one he is working on right now is actually extremely straightforward, the fact that he can mess it up is really a testament to his capabilities as a Project Manager.

Anyways, as I was saying, I did a site visit over the weekend with my boss and we had  no choice but to meet on a weekend because the client is currently on reservist and is only available to meet on that very Saturday. We had previously met on a Saturday before on site as well and the reason why I am bringing this up is because after the meeting, I did the very same thing I did after our previous Saturday meeting, I headed over to Orchard and got a bottle of perfume. 

Previously, I had visited Escentials at ION to get the Gentle Fluidity Silver, they had a discount going on then so I managed to save around $40, but this time, I wanted to actually get the perfume from the brand's flagship store, so I dropped by Maison Francis Kurkdjian at Ngee Ann City instead, which is a walking distance from ION.

It was so fucking crowded. The walk from ION to Ngee Ann City through Wisma Atria took so fucking long because the human traffic was insane. I was actually really annoyed at how crowded it was, but I did eventually make it to the shop, passing by Le Labo, Byredo, Jo Malone and a few other niche fragrance store along the way. I hadn't noticed all these brands were at Ngee Ann City until I started getting into fragrances, and it is such a pity because I used to work so close to all this shops and could have visited them so easily.

The flagship store is a lot smaller than Escentials, but understandably so because Escentials carried other brands of fragrances as well. When I headed in, I already knew what I wanted to get, a bottle of Gentle Fluidity Gold. I had originally planned to get the 70ml bottle, which was what I tried to get online but failed because of customs issue from France side. I thought I could also get it for $300 at the retail store since it was the flagship store, but when the sales person informed me that it was going for $340 instead, I had to take a step back and reconsider, then I just thought fuck it, I will just get the 35ml bottle instead because I didn't want to pay that additional $40. 

The smaller one  was $209, which is the same price point as Escentials, they didn't have any ongoing promotions, but they did give me a free sample of my choosing, I requested for the Baccarat Rouge 540 Extrait, but it was unavailable, so in the end, I settled for Amyris Homme. 

Honestly not a great deal, if I had known the price was the same, I would have just saved myself the walking and got it from Escentials at ION instead.

I also did an unboxing video for it for Tik Tok, just to document my questionable financial decisions.

It looks good in my perfume collection though.

This 2 bottle alone cost almost $400, add in the Mod Vanilla, that is $500 worth of perfume in this photo.

And this is the collection of my full bottled perfumes, which amounts to about $700 in total. Mainly Ariana Grande perfumes because they are actually really nice, I did try the Billie Eilish releases as well but they were not my style.

I also recently added another Ariana Grande fragrance to my collection 2 weeks ago, thank u next 2.0 the heart shaped one on the bottom left.  That was a blind buy because none of the shops online sold any decants of it and the reason is because it is a limited edition.

I got it for the sake of getting it really, I was hoping I wouldn't like it because it would probably be impossible for find another bottle in the future since it is a limited edition release, but of course it had to smell fucking good. It's strawberries and apple, and the strawberries scent has a tartness to it, which is what really makes it so good to me. I can't really wear this out as my main scent because it is a bit too juvenile and feminine, it's the type of perfume popular pretty girls in school will wear, girls that are nice in front of the teacher but an absolute bitch when no one is looking, so I will usually only spray it on the back of my hands before I go out, just so I can take a whiff of it when I want whilst I am at work or just outside in general. My signature scent is still the Gentle Fluidity series.

I would usually spritz a total of 5 sprays of Gentle Fluidity on myself, mix and match maybe 3 spritz of gold and and 2 spritz of silver depending on my mood, 1ml equates of 15 sprays, which means each sprtiz is about 20 cents based on my calculations, that totals to me going out with a dollar worth of perfume on myself everyday. It's so fucking expensive, but it smells so good. 

If I manage to finish the 2 bottles within a few months, then I will definitely be buying the bigger bottle in the future, but if I don't and end up switching to something else, then that will be good news for my wallet, unless the new perfume I end up wearing is from another niche brand like Parfums De Marley or Aventus, because those are also expensive shit.

I really need to go take my IPPT soon, get the $200 incentive to make up for this MFK purchase, but who am I kidding, I will probably use that incentive to get another bottle because I am out of control.