MR Ceremony and work stuff...

 Attended my MR Ceremony today and it turns out, I am still not officially done with my National Service duties. 

I had assumed that after today's ceremony, I will officially join the Mindef Reserve and no longer have any National Service related obligations, which was mainly my IPPT in this case. 

My IPPT window for the year closes on 14th March, a day before my birthday, today is the 8th, I had initially thought to myself, how lucky I was for the dates to align so nicely, to be able to skip my IPPT window because it will close just a week after I MR, but nope, turns out my MR status will only kick in on 1st April, which means if I don't complete my IPPT by next week, I will get charged and have to take leave to go to CMPB for disciplinary action in my smart 4 uniform,  and I think if I don't attend the Summary Trial for it, it will affect my MR status. It's honestly not worth all the hassle, so I decided to apply for a half day leave for Wednesday, report to the FCC camp that is the nearest to my home in my sports attire and attempt my IPPT, beats having to report to Depot Road wearing my No.4. 

Hopefully I can pass with incentive and get myself the $200 incentive to add that to my Taiwan shopping expenses, I think I only got a pass during my last IPPT so we will see how it goes, oh, and I will be going to Taiwan again next week for 6 days! Exciting, will be spamming my Instagram again soon.  

Anyways, back to the MR Ceremony today. 

I decided to rent a car to attend the event today and had made an advance booking for a Suzuki Swift from GetGo earlier this week, I was honestly a bit undecided if I wanted to go through with the rental the week leading up to today or not because taking a Grab back and forth would be about the same price and I am just not a huge fan of driving in general unless absolutely necessary, but then by the time I was exploring the option to actually go ahead and cancel the booking, a last minute cancellation fee had already been implemented, so I just went ahead with it. It would be good to refresh my driving skills every once in a while too.

The car is located about 3 bus stops away from my house, so I booked it from 7am - 1.30pm, which was a bit of an overkill because my MR Ceremony was scheduled to last from 8.30am - 12.00pm, I was allocating a lot of buffer just in case. The great thing about the Army is that even though their reporting time may always be a lot earlier than the actual starting time, they will always end earlier than their stipulated timing, or at least that's my experience as a Reservist personnel.

I left home at 7am today and reached the car at about 7.30am, was a bit later than I had anticipated because I dropped off one bus stop earlier thanks to the misguidance provided by Google Maps. The Suzuki Swift was one of the smaller cars available for rent within my area, the others were bigger SUV type vehicles, so it was a no brainer for me to travel just a bit more for a car that I was comfortable driving. 

Compared to the Kia Picanto, the Suzuki Swift drives really smoothly, it's on par with the Mazda 2 I had rented for my last Reservist. The quality of the GetGo cars are generally quite good, so I should not be expecting anything less, which goes to show also how shit horrible the Kia Picanto that I had previously rented was, and the older Mazda 2 model that I had originally rented and returned after less than a day of use because of how shit it was.

The drive to the airbase was about 30 minutes long, traffic was alright, there were a lot of cars but thankfully no traffic jam of any sorts and because I had already been studying the route on Google Maps for the past week, I was already somewhat familiar with how to get there, by the time I reached the public carpark located outside the airbase, my reservist buddy was already there. Realistically speaking, I believe this will be the very last time I will be seeing him because we rarely ever meet up for non-army related stuff, unless it is work related, which has only happened twice in the 12 years we have known each other. He is a very good "army" friend, but we don't do much together outside of the our army commitments. 

We had a quick catch up and then headed into the camp together, registered our names and headed off to the cookhouse/canteen to just chill until the ceremony started 45 minutes later. He had a quick meal, I had a Teh Ping, once we were done, we headed back to the registration area and a lot of us were just standing around outside because once we headed into the auditorium, we would all be split up and seated according to the order of our award taking.

When I entered the Auditorium, it felt like such a full circle moment because the auditorium is really similar to the one in Tekong when I first enlisted 13 years ago, back then, regimentation was at it's peak and everyone had to sit really straight and keep really quiet, you had to be vocal and respond to every rhetorical question from the commander who was giving the speech with "Yes Sir", but today, it was the complete opposite, most of us were slouching in our seats, playing our phones, and we were just waiting for something to happen.

My friend and I headed in at 9am.... the ceremony only started at 9.40am, and I remember the timing because the Commander who was giving us the opening speech started his speech with...

"Punctuality is important and I think it is important to start on time..." 

... the guy who was seated directly in front of me, and myself, looked at our watch to check what time it was. It wasn't 9.00am that's for sure.

The commander then continued his speech and explained that he wanted to start the ceremony on time, but couldn't because a bunch of us went to the wrong Airbase and he didn't want those guys to miss out. The ceremony was being held at Paya Lebar, but they went back to Changi, and my friend would have been one of them had he not double confirm the location with me yesterday.  

So the ceremony officially started at 9.40am, my teh ping was already making it's way to my bladder at that point, so I really needed to pee, but I couldn't because it was really hard to get out of my seat,  my legs were literally pressing itself against the chair infront of me because that's how close the seats were to each other, and I was sited right in the middle of the middle row, the row seats about 12 people, if I wanted to get up, half the row would have to stand up just for me to make my way out, so I just held it in for as long as I could.

The speech that the Commander was giving felt so long winded because I had to pee and I needed him to get on with the ceremony so I can go to the toilet asap. When he was finally done, they started handing out the plaques and I guess it was actually going relatively quickly, but when you need to pee, everything just feels really slow, I was so worried that when I have to stand up and wait for my turn to get up on stage to get the plaque, I would start shaking from the pee trying to burst it's way out, but thankfully, everything stayed in place, I walked up on stage, shook the commanders' hand, we took our photo and I headed to the back of the auditorium to get the photo (I  looked really horrible in the photo), I noticed there were exit doors at the back as well, so I told the person who was giving out the photo I needed to use the toilet and if there was a toilet outside the backdoor, and there was, so I was able to relieve myself, which was a really great feeling.

Time suddenly felt like it was back to normal after that number 1,

I headed back into the auditorium and I think after about 15- 20 minutes, all the plaques were finally given out and we were done. The whole ceremony ended at 10.30am.

There was actually a buffet spread for everyone after the ceremony, but my friend and I honestly couldn't be bothered, so we just left after that. I think majority of us skipped out on the buffet, which is a little sad since it had been specially prepared for us, but alas, no one had any mood to stay when the alternative is to be able to leave and go home. We said our goodbyes, I told him I will see him when I see him, he jokingly responds back with..

"Very unlikely."

... and that was it. I got into my car and drove back home. Probably the last time I will ever see my reservist buddy in person.

When I reached home, it was only 11am, I still had 2.5 hours left for the rental car, so I left all the MR stuff at home, took a quick shower, changed out from my uniform and decided to do a site visit for one of my ongoing projects that was near my place.

It has honestly been a while since I went to do a site visit on my own, the last few times, it was  either with my boss or the Project Manager in charge of the project. I ended up spotting a few carpentry mistake and had to alert the carpenter about it, he couldn't do anything because everything had already been installed and it was too late to do any changes, so I had to alert the homeowner, who happened to be our company's accountant.

Our company account has certain expectations for her renovation, so I was honestly a bit peeved when I was talking to her. As a customer, she doesn't ask you to do something for her, she tells you to do something for her.

Asking to do something would be...

"Can you help me check what is the height of the shelving?"

Telling to do something would be...

"What is the height of the shelving?"

"This configuration is wrong."

... and even though it might just seem like a non-issue, to me, it was a bit triggering because site visits and checking up on the progress of the renovation are not within my job scope as the designer, this is the role of the Project Manager. I am doing an extra service for you, and she is very aware of that.

Anyways, once I left the site, I was already feeling really aggravated by her questions, and when I was returning the car, the app had some issues, so it couldn't connect to the car, which added on to my frustrations, so I ended up snapping at my accountant in the chat because when I was asking her if the drawings that I had done for her was correct, and she kept telling me to follow the 3D. The drawings were based on the 3D, but she just kept insisting to follow the 3D, so I replied to her with... 

"Yes! But the changes are the same as the 3D correct?"

... to which she agreed. 

After that, I apologized for my aggressive response, but she told me not to worry because she didn't sense any aggression in my text.

It's a good thing my tone couldn't be captured in that reply, because if I were to accurately type out how that reply sounded in my mind, it was more like...

"YES! But the changes are the same as the 3D, CORRECT?

I ended up just standing at the bus stop near the car rental return point for 15 minutes, messaging her and my carpenter to find a solution to the problem, it was not great because again, not my job, this is the PM's job, and also this fuck up was caused by my carpenter, so I was essentially helping my PM deal with the client to clear up my Carpenter's mistake. And I am suppose to be on leave today!

It was frustrating.

When all that was settled, I could finally focus on getting on a bus and headed to Westmall for lunch, on the way back, booked my IPPT for Wednesday and also applied for a half day leave with my accountant in order to attend the IPPT. 

It's going to be a busy week, I also have to meet Terrence and his wife next week, so fuck my life.  Nothing like meeting a shitty customer before your overseas trip to really sour the mood. 

Friday Meetings

I had 2 meetings to attend to yesterday at work, one was at 5.30pm and another was at 8.00pm. My work ends at 6.30pm, so the 8pm was really a meeting timing that everyone had to go out of their way to commit to.

The 5.30pm meeting went well, I met up with the customer on my own without my boss, and I feel like we really hit it off, the customer was receptive to my ideas, she came prepared with mood images she found online, so overall, it was a really productive session and I send her off with a few samples for her to mull over at home. Like most pleasant meetings, it's not really anything worth blogging about and that is a good thing.

The 8.00pm one on the other hand wasn't and is the reason why this post exist.

Just a bit of background, the customer for the 8.00pm meeting, let's called him Cee, had originally scheduled to meet my boss and I last Saturday at 10.30am in our office. I don't work on Saturdays, so this was considered OT for me, and my OT is only claimable for the time I have spend in the office, so travelling time is excluded.

On Saturday, I left the home at about 9.00am, my goal was to reach the office 30 minutes before the appointment so I will have time to print out whatever floorplans or documents that we needed for the meeting and also just chill for a while before we started.

When I was on the train halfway to my destination, my boss forwarded me the message that Cee had send him, requesting to push the meeting back to 11am, it was maybe 9.30am when I got that message, so I just send my boss a thumbs up to acknowledge it.

I didn't mind meeting at 11am, it just means I have more time to chill in the office. I decided to stop by the mall near my office to get a cup of coffee before going in. It was about 10.00am when I was at the cafe, I ordered my coffee and my boss forwarded me another message by Cee again, this time he requested to push back the meeting to 11.30am. 

 A bit annoyed at how last minute this changes were, but figured since I was there already, I will just watch a few YouTube videos in the office to kill time until the meeting starts.

As I was making my way to the office with my coffee in hand, from the mall, which would be a 10 minute journey, my boss forwarded me another message, this time, I was already stepping into the office building, and it was from Cee again, requesting to postpone the meeting to another day. He was being held up by a medical appointment and could no longer make it.

Now that was frustrating because that means I can't claim any hours since I technically didn't end up doing any work. I could only send my boss multiple facepalm emojis and he was very apologetic about it, allowing me to take a Grab home if I wanted to. I headed into the office anyways and ended up just sitting at my desk, sipping my coffee with the air-condition on for the next 2 hours because I had to wait for the coffee to kick in, clear my stomach before I leave. I did manage to get some work done as well, but again, these are unclaimable hours. So that was how last Saturday went, time completely wasted. You would think that if you had a medical appointment in the morning to attend to, scheduling another meeting at 10.30am would probably be a bit tight...RIGHT? This whole waste of my time could have been avoided had Cee exercised better time management, but alas, he didn't, and this wasn't only the only management problem he had.

  So let's forward to yesterday's meeting.

8pm finally rolls around and Cee finally arrived, I had anticipated for him and his wife to attend, but he also brought along his parents, so there were a total of 4 of them and 2 of us, my boss and I. First impression of Cee is he is a friendly guy, and so were his parents, but his wife on the other hand did not look friendly, her expression was quite sullen and I don't know if she was in a bad mood or if that's just her default facial expression from her resting bitch face.

So before the meeting, Cee had already shared with us videos and photos of his new place that he had gotten, it's a resale flat with existing carpentry that he wanted to make amendments to and projects like this are projects that I really hate doing because it's very contractor style, you aren't really doing much design work, you are just fixing issues with the existing cabinetries, and this usually end up becoming more complicated, and when there are design works to be done, you have to think about how to design around existing features, which could end up severely limiting what I can do, leading to the need for a lot of compromises. 

The main revamp that Cee and his wife had wanted to do were the 2 toilets, it was to hack and redo from scratch, which would have been fine, had it not been for the fact that they are so adamant on exploring layouts that simply were not viable for a toilet of their size. 

The meeting yesterday started with my boss essentially telling them what they wanted to do for their toilet was not possible due to space constraint, like doing a wall hung toilet and an oversized basin when you literally have no space to do those, and they also kept insisting on erecting walls in their toilets to do niches for their body wash and shampoo bottles. It's ridiculous, we were stuck on their toilet layout for at lest 30 minutes and as the minutes went by, I could see the wife's expression just getting darker and darker because we were essentially crushing their dream of building their dream toilet.

BUT THEY KEPT INSISTING ON DOING A WALL NICHE FOR THEIR TOILET.

In order to do a wall niche, we have to erect a new wall in order to create those niches, the walls are about 20cm thick, based on their layout, their shower area is already small, like only 70cm wide, if I did a niche, they would only have 50cm left. When my boss and I suggested to build the wall up at other locations, they were against the idea because it was either out of reach for them or there were design compromises that had to be made due to the location of the shower drain.

The new wall niche is one issue, the other issue they had was the placement of their vanity cabinet, which they wanted to install right beside their door, 

This is how their common toilet layout is like, and with any HDB toilet layout for the new flats, the position of where your sink and shower are is pretty much fixed due to the space constraint. Cee and his wife really wanted a larger shower area, but when I told them it's pretty much fixed, Cee came up this layout...

Sink location in Red.

Shower location in Blue

Palm location on my face.

So the the moment you open the door, you are greeted by the side of the basin cabinet, walkway into the toilet is significantly reduced due to the sink location, and how the fuck are you suppose to use the sink properly when the shower is literally behind you, and that hard to reach corner beside the sink and the shower screen, like what the fuck. The layout is so fucking horrible, but the husband kept insisting on doing this layout whenever my boss and I tried to talk him out of it... oh, and the wife is also throwing her wall niche idea in as well.

I was Speechless! It's like they took a bad layout, and decided to make it even worst. Speechless.

I just wanted the meeting to end because it was like talking to walls at that point, plus the wife's furrowed brows during the entire discussion about their toilet was not helping. She was confused because my boss kept talking in circles about why we couldn't do what they wanted, and she was also upset that all their ideas kept getting shot down, but for very valid reasons.  We did eventually move on the other areas of the house, those were more straightforward, I mean after this mess of a toilet layout that they had thought out, literally anything else would be more smooth sailing. 

The meeting finally ends at 9.30pm. Fucking nuts that we had to OT so late, after they already wasted my time on Saturday. My boss also created a group chat for everyone and the husband dropped us a few photos when he got home of his current toilet at his current home with that stupid layout, the door literally opens to the side of the toilet vanity sink and they actually have a smaller than average walking space, the flow of the toilet is fucking horrible. 

At this stage, I am thinking of just taking on a more main-con approach and do whatever the customer wants to do, you want to do a layout that will not be efficient for moving around, we will do it for you. Of course  I will need to very strongly disclaimer to them that advise had been given and if they do end up regretting their layout decision, it's on them. If they don't and they actually love it, don't say it's done by me because one man's beauty is everyone else's garbage.

Oh, and the husband and wife didn't catch my name during the meeting, so the husband literally wrote...

"Thanks D(my boss's name) and (Sorry, forgot to catch your name) for meeting us earlier!"

... I literally laughed out loud when I saw the message at home because I was not expecting to be referred to as (Sorry, forgot to catch your name), it was a nice way to end a painful meeting I guess. 

I am hoping they end up looking for a few other Interior Design companies and decide to go with some newbie designer who will make the rookie mistake of just agreeing to whatever Cee and his wife wants to do to their toilet, and leave my boss and I alone so that we can actually work on Interior Design projects and not this Contractor scope shit. I fucking hate projects like this.

Back from CNY

 First day back to work after the CNY break and I hardly did any work.

The day started off normally, but this time, with my ex-colleague from my last job joining us as the new Project Manager. She was busy doing her onboarding by my boss when I arrived, so I greeted them both and went on with my regular routine of turning on the laptop and then just sitting there and wondering what I am suppose to be doing.

I don't really have any outstanding projects that I had to work on, had already rushed out most of them before the CNY break, so I am currently in a "waiting for feedback from the customer" phase.

Decided that since I didn't have much to do, I would just open my CNY hamper that I had left in the office and distribute it to anyone who wanted anything from it, no one did except for my friend, after her briefing with my boss was over. She took a box of White Fungus and a bottle of Bird's Nest, we then started chatting and about 30 minutes later, all of us gathered for a meeting to discuss about all our on-gong projects, that meeting lasted about an hour. I always found these meetings to be quite boring but it is what it is.

Once the meeting was over, we headed out to have our "Start Work again" Lunch or whatever is is called in english at Kallang Wave. My boss likes to go there because it's a pretty large and quiet mall, so that's where we went and had our meal. Not bad for my friend's first day at work.

After lunch, we had Karaoke, everyone sang some songs including myself. I have been listening to quite a bit of Miley Cyrus recently, so I decided to sing Midnight Sky, but then I completely forgot that the MV is quite raunchy, which was really uncomfortable because majority of my colleagues are in their 50s to 60s, the MV is probably like softcore porn to people of their generation. I still sang the song anyway because it has been my jam for the past month. I have really started to grow fond of Miley Cyrus's voice, was not a fan of hers during her Hannah Montana era because she had such a nasal sound as a kid, but that nasal quality has now grown into a huskier as she got older, so I do find myself listening to her a lot more of her recent offerings nowadays.

The karaoke session was much better than the one I had last year , felt like I was in a better condition to sing, although hearing myself on the speaker was still a very humbling experience. 

Our day ended at 3.30pm and my friend and I headed over to Orchard, she went to take a bus from there and I went to smell some perfumes at Escentials, but not before heading over to the furniture store to just say hi to my ex-colleague. 

Whilst we were on the train towards Orchard, we got to talking about her new job and the initial concerns I had about her future with the company. She was quite motivated to do her best for the company, which was comforting to hear and then we started to talk about our old company a little because that is kind of inevitable.

It's mainly the same old rants that I would have with any of my ex-colleagues from there, but then she shared with me how much our ex-boss draws for his monthly salary and that was completely eye opening. I guess it is normal considering his position as the director in the company, but to draw a salary of $50,000 every month is still nuts to me. I barely have half that amount in my bank account right now after years of working, and that is his 1 month salary. 

Before I left, our monthly sales in the store averages about $500,000 every month.

-$300,000 is set aside for furniture orders. (Since the mark up is about 40% give or take)

-$160,000 for rental (This was the amount my ex-boss shared with us during one of our training sessions)

-$30,000 for staff salary (This is already being very generous)

Profit Margin $10,000

My ex-boss did say that in order for the company to breakeven, the store needs to be generating at least $600,000 in sales, and after doing the calculations, I came up to a $50,000 profit after subtracting all the overhead cost. 

That's how much he draws every month for his own salary. The figure had been there the entire time for us to calculate. 

The company is really just barely hanging on.

Anyways, when I finally reach the Showroom, the state of it is very much same same but not really, no major changes were made, the new items that they have introduced since I left aren't a lot, there were still a lot of repeated sofas and armchairs designs scattered all over the different zones. The company really doesn't see the point in investing money and introducing more varieties, so even though the layout had some changes, the overall feel of the space is still the same. I do like that it's not as cluttered anymore, there are a lot more walking space, which is also a problem I guess because that means there isn't enough items to properly to fill up the showroom. 

Headed over to Escentials after I had a quick catch up with my ex-colleague, mainly wanted to smell one fragrance, which is Creed Aventus, a $320 perfume, I am glad I didn't buy the decants from Shopee because it smells just like MontBlanc Explorer, that was what I wore whilst I was in Bangkok last year, so it brings back memories of my 3 days there.

The dry down for both scent is suppose to be different, but the general scent profile is MontBlanc Explorer, which makes sense since Explorer is supposed to be a dupe of Aventus. I do like the smell, but I wouldn't pay $320 for it.  

Didn't really know what else I wanted to smell, so I left the store and got myself a large Cinnabon before heading home. 

Overall, it was a pretty fun day with very minimal work.

Catch Up and stuff...

Went for a haircut earlier this morning and I knew the store was only going to open at 11am, so I headed out and walked over to the mall from my home about 15 minutes before they were slated to open, reaching there with about 2 minutes to spare.

Upon reaching the location, I notice there wasn't a queue, however, there was a lone boy sitting at one of the public benches a few meters away from the store and as I was making my way to the store front, there was another middle aged guy who was also headed towards it in the opposite direction. I stood on the left side of the door and the middle aged guy stood on the right, fiddling with his phone. As the hairdresser begins to unlock the door to open it for us, the lone boy got up from the bench and started walking over, but since I was closest to the entrance, I ended up stepping into the door first and became first in line, followed by the middle aged uncle and then the lone boy.

As I was about to make payment to get a ticket, I looked over at the lone boy who was behind the middle aged uncle and said to him ...

"Do you want to go first?"

... since it was obvious he was technically first in the non-existent line. Sadly, he wasn't paying much attention and this was when the middle aged uncle looked up from his phone and replied...

"Yes, I have other places to get to."

... and proceeded to buy the first ticket. He had a bit of an accent and that was when my xenophobia kicked in and in my head, I just immediately thought to myself...

"Typical Chinese immigrant."

... of course he would shamelessly take the first spot when I had never intended it to be for him. I wouldn't mind letting him go before me to be honest, it's just the immediate assumption that I was giving the first spot to him instead of the boy behind him that irked me, because I am pretty sure he is also aware the boy had been waiting way before the both of us arrived. 

I guess this is also something that the older generation of Singaporeans will do, the whole kiasu-ness of it all, I see it all the time when I am at the bus interchange waiting for a bus, there will always be a small handful of old folks completely ignoring the snaking queue that has formed and just park themselves right beside the automatic glass doors, and the moment the bus driver gives us the green light for us to board, these old folks will just shamelessly cut the line and join the people at the front of the queue into the bus. Sometimes you want to say something, but then it's old folks, it's not very nice to ask them to fuck off to the back of the line like everyone else, so we end up just letting them get away with it and they just get more and more brazen about it.

I digress. 

The haircut took me a total of 40 minutes because I had allowed 2 people to go ahead of me, and after the haircut, I suddenly realized how much older I am starting to look, my sideburns are now 40% white hair, so it really enhances the middle age uncle vibes I was not going for. Honestly, it was a bit depressing because I wasn't expecting to look even older after the haircut.

Sigh. Mid thirties is when I star to show my age, gone are the days when people would mistake me for a 20 year old and call me Ah Boy.

Anyways, today was a relatively busy day because right after my haircut, I had a 2.30pm dental appointment. I really don't like scheduling my appointments at such late timings, would have rather gotten it over and done with in the morning, but alas, I hadn't thought too far because the timing today was made due to a last minute reschedule last week. I didn't feel like going during work then and letting the appointment eat into my lunch hour, thus the switch to today when I actually have my CNY off.

The appointment itself was pretty fast, it was only for the regular check up and cleaning, which is rare because most of the time, the dentist would always find a new decay somewhere and I would have to do fillings, but today, everything as great. Just a quick clean and I was done within 15-20 minutes.

After my dental appointment, I had a pretty long catch-up session with my ex-Manager and a few ex-colleagues from my last job. The meet-up was at 4.00pm and we were meeting up at Minds Cafe for dinner and board games. 

I was done with my dental at around 3.10pm, so I headed over to Dhoby Ghuat since the cafe was within walking distance from Plaza Singapura and took a walk around the mall to kill some time. Got a facial serum from Innisfree and then loitered in Sephora for a while to just smell the perfumes they had available.  I was mainly smelling the Jo Malone range because there wasn't any Tom Ford in the Plaza Singapura outlet, which was disappointing. 

The Jo Malone scents were all alright, wasn't particularly drawn to any of the scents I had sprayed on the tester, they were nice but not nice enough for me to want to get one, that was until I decided to pump a bit of the tester handcream because who am I to deny a free pump of a $120 handcream. I walked out of the store after lotion-ing my hand and as I was on the escalator to the upper levels, I gave my hands a whiff and it smelled really good. 

Headed over to Hooga and I couldn't stop smelling my hands. 

Over at Hooga, I started smelling more stuff again and honestly, my goal at Hooga was to smell a bunch of their diffusers and then leave without getting anything, but then I smelled one particular scent and I was suddenly reminded of hotel lobbies, it was really random but I was immediately attracted to it.

The scent is called Earl Grey and Angelica.

It's such an unassuming scent based on it's name because those 2 are fragrance notes that I really don't care too much about, but after smelling it, it is really something else. 

I saw the price of the room spray because they had it in that scent and it was only $13. That is cheap compared to the room spray that I had gotten from a Tik Tok Shop small business that was $26, and is probably half the size. I ended up getting the room spray and after a surprise discount, it ended up being only $9. I have paid $40 for 5ml of perfume so this room spray feels like a really good deal.

But now that I have it, the longevity of the scent is really quite shit, it barely last a minute before the scent completely disappears, I need to spray about 10 sprays of it in my room to smell anything. The $26 one I got from the Tik Tok shop performs like a beast compared to the Hooga one. I guess you do get what you pay for at the end of the day.

It was about 3.50pm when I was done at Hooga, so I decided to make my way over to Minds Cafe, but not before dropping by Sephora again to check out what the scent of the Jo Malone hand cream. 

It's called Peony and Blush Suede. It's a fragrance for women, but I am very tempted to get it. Didn't actually get one from Sephora, but I might consider getting a small decant from Shopee just to test it out.

Headed over to Minds Cafe after I got the name of the Jo Malone scent and turns out, there are 2 Minds Cafe located in Prinsep Street, one on the street level and another that is tucked away on the second storey in one of the shophouses. I was at the street level one, which was huge, but my ex-Manager had booked the smaller one.

Ran into her as I was headed over to the smaller one and we went up together. We ordered our dinner set, which was $35, the set came with free flow of snacks, drinks and unlimited play time with any of the board games and card games they had available, it was a really good deal, especially with a bigger group of friends.

Since it was only the 2 of us at the start, we started with a very advanced version of tic-tac-toe game, towards the end of the first round, that was when 2 others arrived, so we moved on to Cards Against Humanity, which would have been really fun had all 4 of us understood how the game worked. One of my ex-colleague was so blur he didn't really know what was going on, so my ex-Manager and I had to ask the staff there for a game that was much simpler to grasp, we found one, played a few rounds of that, and even then, that ex-colleague of mine would occasionally still fuck up the game rules.

By around 7pm, the last one of us arrived and when all 5 of us were there, the focus started to shift towards  gossiping about the current happenings with the store. None of us had anything good to say about the company, we just kept talking about how bad the bosses there are, how inadequate Upper Management is because you literally have a group of incompetent individuals sitting at the top making uninformed decisions based on assumptions and not based on experience, and when those decisions ends up turning to shit like they always do, Upper Management will suddenly disappear when the angry customers start to appear, and those angry customers will be left to the people below to placate, this involves becoming a punching bag for the customer to hurl their displeasure at, which is so unfair because the ones who should be getting scolded are the inept individuals who created the whole issue in the first place, but they are always hiding in their office not recognizing their fuck ups. The bosses surrounds themselves with people like those, so it just becomes an echo chamber of them essentially patting themselves on the back for making a bunch of very "good" decisions that is clearly causing a lot of mental distress for everyone else who are actually customer fronting.

It was also brought to my attention that the company didn't even give the employees any Red Packet this year for CNY, and I thought them only giving $10 last year was bad enough. The more I take part in that conversation, the more comfort I found in knowing that I am no longer part of the company.

 

We also ended up talking about that colleague of mine who will be joining my current company soon as a Project Manager and after listening to what my ex-colleague had to say about her, that was when I suddenly realized I may have really fucked up by introducing her to my boss.

My ex-colleagues were still jokingly telling me that I have made a mistake getting her onboard my current company, and that she will now be my problem to deal with.

Shit.

They were half joking.

Honestly, she wasn't my first choice when my boss had thought of getting a new designer on board, if there was anyone I would have liked to work with again from my old company, it would be my ex-Manager, but unfortunately, she didn't have the qualifications my boss required, and most importantly, she is not interested as well. 

The main reason why I introduced my colleague to my boss is because she has the same background as me in Interior Design and I figured she would be able to utilize her skills and knowledge as an Interior Designer to help the company grow, skills and knowledge that I know she has. I only forgot about the most important aspect, her character and working attitude.

She is by no means an unpleasant individual, but she is some who needs to develop a greater sense of responsibility for her job and that is very important as a Project Manager. I really don't know how she will performs as a Project Manager, so I do hope she can prove me wrong and become a very valuable asset to the company. I had my doubts about her longevity with the company, and those doubts came from my prediction that my company will not be able to meet her salary requirements in the future once she becomes accustomed to the whole construction industry again, but now, my new doubt comes from her inability to perform well due to her lack of discipline and responsibility, and that is even worst because if she messes up, it will look bad because I would be indirectly sabotaging my boss's company, which is the last thing I want to do.

Sigh. I guess for I can only wait and see and hope for the best but expect the worst.

Anyways. 

My meeting with all my ex-colleague lasted till 11pm. We kept chatting until we were the last group of customers in the café. I would never have expected that we would be able to have such a long catch up session, I spend a total of 7 hours in the café, that's nuts, it's longer than a single round of Guard Duty during my reservist, and the 7 hours felt like it passed quite quickly... and for only $35, with unlimited snacks and drinks refill, it's a steal. 

Who knew the most eventful thing that would happen during my CNY break is something that is not related to CNY at all.

1 Week CNY Closure

Today marks my company's official closure for CNY and my boss had arranged for all of us to have a buffet lunch at Concorde Hotel to commemorate the day. It was still half day work, so I went to the office as per usual in the morning to do whatever I could, and by about 11.30am, everyone who was going for the buffet finally arrived, and when I say everyone, I mean only 4 of us, including my boss, because our company is really really small and one of out PM had recently resigned.

Before we headed out, my boss sat all of us down at the meeting table and hands out our red packets, it was a really really thick red packet, but I didn't think too much of it, I thanked my boss and kept it away, after which, he also informed us that he had already bank transferred our bonuses, which I was very surprised by because I thought the red packet was more than sufficient.

The last time I got a bonus was when I was still working at the furniture store, they had only given me a 1 week salary bonus, which I have heard from a few people that it is considered quite a stingy amount, especially because I had worked at the furniture store for over a year and that was the first time they ever gave us any sort of bonus, so my expectations for bonuses in general were not very high just due to that sole experience.

Anyways, after that, we were made to draw lots and each of us were entitled to 1 out of the 8 hampers that the different suppliers had given to us, I got a medium sized one, but since I didn't have a car, I really had no plans to actually bring it home and just left it at the office. It was a Hamper from Eu Yan Sang, so there were abalones, white fungus, bird nest etc, it was a healthy hamper, but alas, too big for me to be lugging around via public transport.

By 12.10pm, we headed out in our boss's car for our lunch, the trip over took slightly longer than expected because my boss took a wrong turn at the Expressway, and then missed also the hotel car park entrance. 

We finally reached at about 12.35pm.

As we entered into the buffet restaurant, I immediately noticed how crowded the place was, the tables were pretty much all filled up and there was already a huge crowd of people encircling around the buffet spread. We were ushered to our seats by the waiter and proceeded to join the crowd to get our food.. 

Buffets are a waste of money on me because of how small my appetite is, I was pretty much full after I finished my first plate of food, but to be fair, I did take a bit of almost every dish that was being offered. so I did have a sample size of almost every dish there.

We were there for about 1.5 hours total, it was about an hour of eating and than 30 minutes of talking, mainly them and not so much me, I just kinda sat there and listened to them chit chat about their own stuff. Honestly got a bit bored and wanted to leave quickly because the PM started talking about himself for quite a bit there, but he of the older generation so they do tendency to be a bit more longwinded.

Total bill came up to about $170, fully paid for by my boss because that is how he is. I may have my issues with the way he works sometimes, but I cannot deny that he is one of the most generous boss I have ever worked under, excluding my Dad of course.

Right after the lunch, we split up and headed towards our own direction, I decided to visit Haji Lane because my ex-Manager from the furniture store was having a pop up event at the area, I didn't tell her beforehand that I was going to pop by because I didn't really want to commit incase I felt lazy and suddenly didn't feel like going, so it was pretty much a surprise visit.

As I was waiting for the bus, I decided to check the thick Ang Bao my boss had given me at the start of the day, I was honestly expecting a bunch of $2 notes and $10 notes just stacked together and at most get like $188, which I would have been very happy with because he had already given me a 1 month bonus, but when I took a peek at the inside, I was fucking shock, it was a huge stack of blues, and I mean a huge stack, it's not like 3 or 4 pieces that I could easily identity at one look, there was so much it looked like it was meant to be split into at least a dozen different red packets.

Just as a reference. 

My boss at ID4 gave all of his workers a $50 Ang Bao every CNY. 

My boss at the furniture store gave everyone a $10 Ang Bao every CNY

I didn't actually count how many notes there were inside the red packet because I was at a bus stop, it would be a bit weird for me to just pull out a bunch of notes and started flicking through them, so I quickly zipped up my bag and waited for the bus to arrive, the entire time I was in the bus, I kept trying to guesstimate how much would be in there, the thought that maybe my boss had given me the wrong packet by mistake did cross my mind, but then everyone else also had an equally thick stack so it couldn't be.

The ride to the pop up event took about 20 minutes, so it wasn't as near as I had initially thought, and the walk to the pop up event took maybe 5 minutes, I got a little lost because I don't go there often, but when I finally reached the place and saw my ex-Manager, she was shocked.

I hadn't seen her since her farewell party at the club that was way to loud and I had actually done an Irish goodbye then because I did not want to go back into the club after I had stepped out to take a break, so I didn't actually had a proper goodbye with her. I was very happy to see her and she happened to be manning the pop up store on her own today.

The walk-in for the event wasn't great because it was a weekday, and we pretty much had an uninterrupted conversation for the entire 1.5 hours I was there, and we also calculated the Ang Bao that my boss gave me together, the both of us were shocked when she helped me count the bills.....

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10

... I could hear the crescendo towards the end as she was flipping through the bills because both of us couldn't believe what we were seeing. 

There were a total of 30 $50 bills shoved in that Ang Bao....

30!

My boss gave me an Ang Bao worth $1,500! 

'

....this is on top of the bonus that I had also received! The last time I got such a big Ang Bao was when I won first price at ID4's D&D back in 2020. That was $1,888.00, and that wasn't guaranteed, this $1,500 Ang Bao is guaranteed because he gave each of us equally thick Ang Baos, maybe the others had more than me, but that still doesn't change the fact that I got a $1,500 Ang Bao from my boss! 

It's nuts! I am actually still reeling in from the shock of it all. I immediately starting thinking of what new tech I could buy, couldn't think of anything, but I could definitely get another MFK perfume if I wanted to.

Oh, and I also don't have to go to an ATM to withdraw any money for the Ang Baos I am planning to pack for my parents anymore because my boss has essentially done that for me..... and then some.

So yeah, I shoved that big fat Ang Bao right back in my bag after the counting, my ex-Manager jokingly told me since I now have access to all that money, I should getting something from her pop up store, which I did, then did more catching up with my ex-Manager, and it was really nice to see her again after such a long time. I then decided to drop by Fluff Bakery because it was a walking distance away from the Pop Up Event, so I headed over, got 2 for myself and 2 for my ex-Manager, *cue her shock and gratefulness for getting her cupcakes as well* , then I booked a Grab because I had money to splurge.

It was a pretty good day. 

And now I have a full week of break from work to enjoy! I did miss being able to enjoy the CNY Closure when I was working at the furniture store. Working retail hours sucks because retail stores have to be open throughout the public holidays. I had a lot of Off-in Lieu then, but sometimes, I just want to enjoy my holiday on the same day as everyone else without having to specially apply leave for it.

Will be going back to work next Thursday and I am not really sure how that will go. An ex-colleague of mine from the furniture store will officially be joining us on Thursday, she will coming in as a Project Manager. So from ex-colleague to colleague again.

I will be honest, even though I was the one who had recommended her to join, I have told my boss and our accountant not to put too much hope into that colleague of mine committing to the company for long. 

She is a very money driven individual and was a Sales Designer in the past like me, the main difference between the both of us is that she exceled in doing Sales, and the furniture store would have been the perfect place for her had it not been for my ex-boss's stinginess when it comes to the commission.

I had originally introduced her come in as Designer, because it's office bound and generally less stressful than Project Management, or at least to me, but she told me she preferred Project Management, so we shall see how long she can last here and if my boss may need to find a new Project Manager soon to replace her when she decides she could do better elsewhere. 

The difference between being a successful Sales Designer and being a Project Manager who will be drawing a fixed monthly salary is the income difference. Her earning power as a Sales Designer is much higher, of course it was also a lot more stressful and unstable because of the nature of the commission based job, thus her decision to join the furniture store to take a break from it all, but I do feel like once she finally re-familiarize herself to Project Managing a renovation, she will definitely start to make comparisons and either ask for a salary increment, which my boss may not be agreeable with and I am very concerned that she might make a big fuss about, or resign and return to her Sales Designer roots.

I am predicting that she won't actually last till the end of the year, but who knows, I do hope she proves me wrong and end up becoming a valuable member of the team because my boss will definitely need a bigger team. 

I will also have to deal with Terence with 1 R once the CNY break is over and I am not looking forward to messaging that prick again, I really wish we can drop his project, but my accountant told me that Terence is one of the projects that my boss has very high hopes for because of how much spending power he potentially has, it's just unfortunate that he is not going to be a pleasant customer to deal with.

For now, all I will think about is how to spend that bonus and red packet money that I have received from my boss.

Hello February

First day of the month of February and I am already getting a moron of a customer trying to correct a spelling error I had made of his name.

I didn't save his number, so his messages appears in the chat with his self written username, which he spells with 2 "r" , and I wrote it as such because I had wanted to respect his spelling version, and I get this as a reply. 

That condescending response "This is a very simple spelling" and this fucking idiot doesn't even realize he had spelt his own name wrong the entire time he's been using Whatsapp.The guy is a retiree, so he is too old to be trying to be cute with his spelling 2 "r" spelling.

 

"Ownself check ownself"

.... with a screenshot of his fucking username is what I would have liked to reply, but because he is a customer, I had to "apologize" for spelling his name wrong. I did however point out to him that I had only spelt it that way because he spelt it that way, he read it and didn't reply for maybe an hour, and after which, his response was....

"No problem, let's move on."

... shouldn't that be MY line? 

Move on from you being a condescending fuck face? At least have the decency to apologize for wrongfully calling someone out for a spelling error that YOU MADE! Or acknowledge that you had made a blunder, stupid old fuck.

To have to deal with the ridiculousness of the Bacons last week and then now this Terrence fuck face, 2024 has, so far, been really shitty work wise. 

Terrence Fuck Face's project will be starting in April and we haven't even finalized any design yet because that's how much fuck this fuck face and his wife gives about the upcoming renovation, none, I have been messaging them to arrange for a date to meet, and to let me know their thoughts on the proposals that I have prepared thus far and all Terrence Fuck Face has feedback to me about is his fucking name being spelled with an additional "R".

.

.

.

.

Ending January on a shit note....

 January 2024 is really ending on an extremely shitty note for me.

First, I got sick because there was a virus going around in the office and I ended up catching the bug from our accountant, who is always seated literally right across from me in our office space. She was coughing pretty much the whole of last week, so I knew it was only a matter of time before I ended up getting infected. 

Due to that, I am currently on a 3 day MC, today being my last day, but fuck my life because as if being sick is not bad enough, 2 projects of mine that are currently in the renovation stages had to have issues arise from it.

Let's refer to the first project as Project Bacon.

Project Bacon is actually already in it's final lap and we are about to do the handover next Tuesday, all the renovation works are done save for a few minor touch ups here and there. The deal with this particular project is I can't really predict how the customers would react to certain situations because the husbands' attitude can be quite unpredictable. 

One day he can be really understanding and close one eye for certain defects that he may have spotted. But then on other days, he can become extremely nit-picky and take issue with the smallest issues.

Yesterday was the delivery date for his fridge, and that's usually how someone can sort of tell how "complete" the renovation is, because once the homeowners are receiving the deliveries for big ticket items such as a fridge or a television, the renovation is good as done and the space is essentially ready for moving in, but then there was an issue.... 

"Why is the fridge jutting out from the cabinet so much?"

... and he attaches a photo along with that message in the group chat that everyone who is involved in the project is a part of.

Not my project, but the same fridge with the same amount of jutting.

This is completely normal for fridges, if you do not want your fridge to jut out, then buy a slimmer fridge. "Counter Depth Fridge" do exist and the reason why those slimmer fridges are called 'Counter Depth Fridge" is because kitchen counters have a standard depth of 600mm, this measurement is based on ergonomics and we usually don't tinker around the the depth too much unless specially requested by the homeowner.

My boss, who is also the Project Manager of this project, then responds back and informs the customer that the fridge jutting out is normal because fridges are deeper than the standard counter depth, he then attaches a screenshot of my 3D rendering that I did showcasing that even in the 3D, the jut out was reflected. 

Mr Bacon couldn't take that as an answer and request for a call, but my boss was busy, then Mrs Bacon responds back...

"But the 3D rendering isn't jutting out as much."

... and it's by like 4cm. So my boss finally gets on a call with them and the conversation didn't end well. Mr Bacon is complaining, Mr Bacon's Mum is also taking part in the conversation and making a whole bunch of noise because she happened to be on site as well, and my boss was unfortunately not able to assuage them that the jut out that they are looking at is normal.

THIS

LEVEL

OF

JUT

IS NORMAL!

Every once in a while, you will get customers like the Bacons who will question why something is not done to standard when it is the standard, I honestly have no words.

This is the very first time in my 5 years as an Interior Designer that a customer is complaining about their fridge sticking out too much, and when you tell them it is normal, because it is normal.

"I wasn't aware that it would jut out that much."

I get that sometimes, we have to manage the customers expectations, but this is akin to me telling people who go to the pool...

"Hey, just to let you know, there is chlorine in the swimming pool, ."

… and if they go in not knowing there is chlorine in the pool, but then end up getting the smell of chlorine on themselves, their reaction would be...

"Oh, it must be the chlorine form the pool causing that smell."

… and then they just accept that and move on instead of whining to the pool and asking why they smell weird. 

You are the one who got the fridge! I didn't buy it on your behalf without your consent! This is literally your own problem for buying a thick fridge.  

The reason why I don't want to do Project Management is because I want to avoid stupid situations like this, like having to justify why water is wet, why fire is hot, why humans need to take a shit, why a 750mm fridge would stick out from a 600mm deep cabinet.

I really don't know how to deal with this, the more I think about it, the more frustrated I get. On one hand, I am thinking, maybe all I need to do is speak to them logically, which my boss did, but it failed miserably and the Bacons are in their own echo chamber because Mr Bacon is agreeing with Mrs Bacon, and Mrs Bacon is agreeing with Mummy Bacon, and Mummy Bacon is agreeing with Mr Bacon. It's like a daisy chain of stupid just going round and round jerking each other off with WRONG. 

"Oooh, yeah, how is that wrong feeling? Does it feel good? I love that wrong! The wrong feels so good."

Today, as I was watching A Quiet Place 2 on Netflix and trying to enjoy the last day of my MC whilst pushing out the thought of the stupid Bacons out of my mind, I get a text from my boss about another project.

It had to do with a specific tile I had chosen with the clients for the project, turns out what we chose wasn't suitable for floor tiles because it was too fragile and we had to do a reselection.

I have a bit of PTSD after what happen the last time with a different group of customers involving tiles.

The difference is that this time, the project has already begun and we are in the midst of doing the tiling works, if I could visit the tile shop today to sort everything out, I would, but I am on MC and I doubt the customer can make it today.

I was very apprehensive about the whole situation, thinking the customers will flare up like how the last one did, but thankfully, both husband and wife were quite calm and the wife agreed to meet me tomorrow to reselect their flooring. Hopefully I can find a matching one because I really don't know what I would do if I can't.