Cannot fit so my fault....

 Another day, another problem at work.

So I have a project that is due for completion in the coming days, and the owners are currently getting all their big items like their fridge, washing machine and dishwasher in. Yesterday was the day the dishwasher arrived and during our early design planning stage, we had already discussed about the placement of the dishwasher, which was to be tucked under the kitchen cabinets, basically an integrated dishwasher. 

The owners shared the model of the dishwasher with me, I went to Google for the measurements and came across the user manual pdf document on the dishwasher's official website, did a quick glance through the document and came across this information...

...the built-in dishwasher cabinet dimension requirements.

It was exactly what I needed, so I saved this document without giving it too much thought, since all the neccessary numbers are there, it's a very straightforward case, I shared this information with my carpenter, he did the cabinets according to the required measurements in the drawings and we went ahead to install the carpentry a few weeks later.

Well, the dishwasher arrived yesterday and as I was laying on my bed scrolling through TikTok at home since it was a weekend, I suddenly get a message from the owner in the group chat informing my boss and I that the measurements for our cabinets were off, that the dishwasher couldn't fit.

Initially, I thought my carpenter fucked up and messed up the measurements, so I was panicking internally because if we wanted the dishwasher to fit, it meant having to make major amendments to the Kitchen Cabinet. My boss then privately messaged me and ask me if I had allocated sufficient space for the dishwasher or not, to which I just told him I had already shared the measurements with the carpenter, so I had assumed the carpenter would be able to catch the measurements and build the cabinets accordingly.

After many back and forth, where I was essentially just pushing blame to the carpenter for not checking the measurements properly. I suddenly remembered about that pdf manual, so I took a look at it and realize my carpenter had followed the the required measurements in the pdf manual that I had given him, so it was something else that was wrong.

I come to find out later the issue was that homeowners had purchased a Freestanding Dishwasher instead of an Integrated Dishwasher, that is why it is higher, and when I looked at the PDF document again....

... there was an installation guide for Free Standing models right above the integrated model installation guide which I completely missed out.

And why did I miss that out? 

That is because the plan had always been to do an integrated dishwasher from the very beginning, from the very beginning when they requested to have a dishwasher in their home, the dishwasher had always been reflected in all my 3D visuals as being tucked under the kitchen cabinets and not beside it. 

Integrated models are meant to be under the cabinets, my 3D visual reflect the Dishwasher being installed like this, as part of the Kitchen Cabinet

Freestanding models look like this, they are meant to be beside the cabinets and not inside it.

That is why Integrated is lower and Freestanding is higher, because the freestanding is meant to flush with the Kitchen Counters, and when the owners shared their model with me, I had assumed they knew what they were supposed to be buying, or at least had been advised by the sales person at the shop to get an Integrated model based on their design requirements.

And what made things even more confusing is the fact that the user manual for the dishwasher that the homeowners bought included installation instructions for both their freestanding dishwasher model and their integrated dishwasher model

Why the fuck would you include both information inside? I mean I know why they did it, it's to make things easier for them, so they don't have to print separate installation manuals, but still, it was confusing as fuck.

It's so frustrating because whose fault is this? 

Is it the homeowners for not buying the correct model?

Is it the sales person for not advising them on which model they should be getting based on their requirements? 

Is it the manufacturer for their very "inclusive" installation manual? 

Is it me for not catching the measurements of the dishwasher and assuming the customer had gotten an integrated model?

I know I should take responsibility because the dishwasher dimensions had been shared with me, my mistake was blindly following the user manual and making the assumption that the homeowners were competent and knew which type they were suppose to get.

This problem is similar to the fridge jutting out too much issue. Homeowner's incompetence for purchasing home appliances is suddenly the fault of the designers because we never advise them properly.

I'm so fucking frustrated, I mean there should be a limit to how much handholding we can do for the customers. I would expect new homeowners to also have some smarts about them to at least do some research on the different products available in the market and then make an informed decision about which one is the suitable one for them to buy, especially on products that they are not familiar with at all.

Anyways, I think I am the only one losing my shit out of everyone in the group because my boss seems pretty chill about it, and so does the Project Manager attached to this project. This is why I cannot work the way I did at ID4 anymore, to be a one man show for my renovation projects because I am not calm headed enough in a crisis to be able to think straight.

We shall see how things can be resolved moving forward, but with this, as well as that fridge jutting out too much incident happening I think I have no choice but to treat every customer that I work with in the future as potential idiots.