Not the smartest...

So the competency level of the sales team in my store is somehow going from bad to worst over the last few months.

Almost all the sales staff there lacks a sense of urgency or responsibility when it comes to getting things done, the moment they have clinch the sales, they just have a hands off approach to everything that happens after.

Earlier this afternoon, one of my colleague's client had a last minute request to have the delivery timing for one of his customers' item be pushed back, but instead of calling the delivery team to personally check and get confirmation if the reschedule is possible, my colleague just drops a text to one of the delivery guy without even bothering to make sure the delivery guy read the message. 

The delivery team ended up making a wasted trip to the client's house when they are not home, and when the delivery team ask my colleague what happened, his response was... 

"I already messaged one of your guys to let him know!"

... well, the problem with that is not just the fact that my colleague didn't make sure the delivery guy he had messaged had acknowledge the reschedule, the problem is that the delivery guy he message is not even in Singapore anymore, he has gone back him to India! 

This isn't the first time this kind of issue has happened with this colleague of mine, previously he sold a sofa that was actually meant to be put up for a Warehouse Sales event, what he should have done after closing the sales was to immediately tell the Warehouse team to reserve that piece for his client. Anyone with even a semblance of responsibility would call the person in charge of the warehouse to verbally disseminate the information and then follow it up with an email or a written message of what had been discussed with the details of the sofa along with all the product code, just so there is a black and white record.

What my colleague did however is simply send an email with a message that simply reads...

"I have sold this sofa, please take note."

 

...and then attaches the invoice to the email. Didn't bother to double check if the email had been read and action had been taken to ensure that the sofa had been reserved for his client. Not surprisingly, that sofa ended up getting sold during the Warehouse Sales and he got reprimanded by the customer for it, even got into an argument with the Warehouse Manager because of it.

You'd think after that, he would actually get his shit together and wise up, but nope. 

I honestly didn't have any problems with this particular colleague of mine until something he did to me a few days back.

Background of what happened.

He was attending to a customer who had entered the store to take a look at the furniture pieces we had, and during the conversation, the customer told him that she was a developer and wanted to furnish a landed property Showroom. Since my colleague isn't able to handle projects that requires Space Planning because he is a purely just a Salesman through and through, he decided to enlist me for my help. 

I have made it very clear to everyone in the team that I wasn't going to take do Design Proposals for their projects as it is not part of my jobscope, but because this colleague of mine had been very helpful to me in the past, I decided to just do him a favor and prepare a quick proposal for his client.

The proposal was completed within 3 days and I pretty much did EVERYTHING for him, this included furniture selection, space planning proposal, furniture detail down to the measurements and even the price break-down, this meant that he didn't even have to do any quotation because all the details are already in my proposal. He thanks me for the document and sends it to the client, that's all he had to do, forward my proposal to the client.

About 2 days later, the client get backs to him and request for some changes to be made, she wanted to change a few furniture pieces and so he was asking me if the new furniture the client was requesting would fit in the space, since I hadn't seen the updated floorplan yet, I told him I wasn't sure. He then asks me if I needed to update the floorplan for him or if he could just send the information of the new furniture to his client.

I told him I will update the floorplan for him just to be sure that the new pieces will fit. He forwards me the new drawings and then leaves me to do my work. On that very same day, my boss also suddenly bombards me with a new project that was quite extensive and also had a very tight deadline, so I decided to prioritize that first and  put my colleague's proposal on hold since that project didn't have any deadline that I was aware of.

I was so busy that entire day that I actually ended up working OT for 30 minutes, I wasn't able to complete my boss's project proposal but I knew I wasn't going to stay back any longer, so as I said my goodbyes to my everyone in the store, and as I was leaving, that colleague of mine suddenly asks me...

"You leaving already? Where is my drawing?"

... and I got a bit surprised, I thought he was joking with me at first, so I told him I was rushing the boss's proposal the entire day and didn't have any time to do his, to which he replies...

"The boss's proposal? That one can do later!"

...  I told him that our boss's proposal has a deadline and his didn't because he didn't give me any, and at this point, I still thought he was just saying all that in jest until he goes..

"But you told me you will do my drawings for me, I was waiting for your drawings, that's why I haven't reach out to my client yet! "

... I was shocked. He was showing a bit of annoyance at me because I didn't do his proposal that very day and I just couldn't properly process what was happening, I told him to give me a few days and he then respond to that with...

"By Wednesday possible?" *which is about 2 days later because I am off the next day.*

... so I ask him to give me until Thursday because even though I know I can do it within an hour, I wasn't going to let you give me a deadline for a proposal I am helping you to do. He then told me he wasn't working on Thursday, so I just gave like a playful *tsk* at him, I didn't really want to express my annoyance fully even though I believe I have every right to, and my supervisor steps in told my colleague that I will be able to do it quickly before asking me how long I need.

I decided after that to just agree to the Wednesday deadline begrudgingly and left the store. 

I completed the proposal on Wednesday, pass it to my colleague, he was grateful for it, sends it to the developer and when I followed up with him a few days later to ask if the developer got back to him, his reply was...

"They never reply, but I will follow up again with them soon."

... fucking irritating. 

Anyways, he messaged me earlier asking if he can a coffee table that is currently on the Showroom floor, I told him I can't release any of the coffee tables because we are low in stock, that if he sells that table then it will ruin the showroom settings.

He then replies to me with a picture of another coffee table and asks me if that applies to that coffee table as well.

Extraction

I was unable to get to sleep last night due to a toothache, literally every time I tried to lie down, I will be able to feel some kind of pressure slowly build up on my molar and if I were to use my tongue to slightly press that molar, I would get this dull ache that slowly crescendos into an unbearable soreness, which would jolt me right up and make me pace around the room as I attempt to alleviate it.

 I was planning to visit my dentist next week because that was his earliest availability but the pain on the second night made me realize I wasn't going to be able to wait that long because the discomfort on the first night was nothing compared to the discomfort on the second night, if I waited a whole week, I am not sure what state of pain I would be in.

I was seriously contemplating to go to an emergency dental clinic just to get a root canal and rid myself off the pain and I managed to find one dentist online who claims to offer a 24 hours service, but every attempt at trying to reach him did not actually work. I called him and the phone didn't ring more than 3 times before it was rejected, I tried to reach out via the Online chat and there was no response, so I Whatsapp the number at 2.30am, hoping to get a response, but there wasn't any,

It was a very long, tiring and painful night, I was trying to keep myself entertained by watching Youtube videos, but after a while, the tiredness just takes over, so I will try and find a position to sleep upright, but being someone who can't actually fall asleep unless I am lying down completely flat, I would find myself slowly lying down as flat as I could until I  was comfortable enough, but that would cause the pressure to start building up and I find myself jolted awake by the pain that slowly builds up until it gets really unbearable and start pacing around the room again. This happened for at least half a dozen times.

At about 5.30am, I finally get a response from the 24 hour dentist asking me what issues I was having, so I replied and told him that I was having a really bad toothache and might need to do a root canal if absolutely necessary. To be honest, at this stage, I already knew the root canal is inevitable because I had a similar experience before a few years ago when my front tooth had that build up pressure, only difference is that front tooth had an abscess and this molar one didn't, but doing the Root Canal offered instantaneous relief and I really wanted that relief.

The dentist then went ahead to schedule a 10am appointment for me and I just wanted time to pass  faster so I can get rid of the pain and actually get some sleep.

I know I wasn't going to be able to function properly at work today, so I requested for half day off, not a full day off because I had to be there to oversee a few order transfers, and my goal was to leave right after the transfers were done.

So 10am comes along and I am finally at the dentist, compared to the other clinics I have visited before, this one felt different, it felt almost homey and the receptionist was extremely friendly, so I immediately felt comfortable. We took my X-Ray immediately after I was done filling up the Personal Information Form and about 5 to 10 minutes later, I got ushered to see the dentist on the second floor.

The dentist was looking at my X-Ray as I made my way up and it felt like he wasn't sure what he was looking at, so after we greeted one another, I explained to him what was happening and the history behind the tooth that was giving me so much issue.

History Time.

The very first time this molar started giving me an issue was during my company trip to Malaysia back when I was still with ID4 in 2019, I was suddenly awoken at night with a really really bad toothache, it's the type of soreness that comes after I would tighten my braces, except I was already done with my braces so there shouldn't be any sore. 

I visited the dentist a total of 4 times after that just to get the issue fixed, and we did the regular drilling away of the decay and patching up the hole that was left from it, and it did get better, but sadly, they were all temporary solutions to a permanent problem, because this molar would consistently act up every few months following the initial patch work.

 

The patch work would last for about a year or two before it finally broke off and that was when I found myself visiting the dentist again to try and rectify the molar, this time, the dentist recommended an extraction, but offered alternate solutions which included doing a crown to cover the molar or a root canal, but he was not very confident about the root canal because my molar didn't have a lot of it's original structure left, it was about 70% filling and doing a root canal may potentially cause my entire tooth to just shatter during the procedure, so he recommended I do a crown instead because from the X-Ray, it didn't look like the nerves were being affected by the decay, it was extremely close but he was confident that if we did a crown, we can protect the tooth from further decay, so I agreed to it and ended up forking about $1200 for a zirconium crown, the best and most expensive material for crowning that according to the dentist, will be able to last for a very long time, and it did for a while. This was back when I was still doing ID, so my salary was not stable and shelling out $1200 was a really big deal for me, but I was willing to spend that money if it meant I didn't have to extract anything.

Over the next few months however, I would start getting tooth sensitivity issues on that molar. whenever I drank cold drinks or eat cold foot and swish the beverage towards the left side of my mouth, which is where the problematic molar was, I would get this jolt of pain, so after a while, I just stopped chewing with my left side and only chewed with my right side.

The last time I went back to the dentist for the sensitivity issue was back in January this year, I was having this sudden throbbing pain at work for the entire day that wouldn't go away, but for some reason, it stopped the next day when I was at the dentist, the dentist couldn't find any issue when he looked at the X-Ray and told me it was probably nothing to be worried about, and because I was fine after that, I decided to take his word for it and did nothing. A part of me just wanted to believe everything was fine and that this random sensitivity issue was just going to be a small issue that would always come and go. 

Little did I know, the reason why the pain stopped is because the tooth had died.

This was what the dentist I visited this morning told me after he looked at my X-Ray and he told me that the situation was really really bad, and that it wasn't just my molar that was having the issue, but the tooth right beside was also showing signs of very very bad damage. He did a cold test on the tooth beside my molar and lo and behold, the cold was so sharp my whole body actually jolted on the chair. The receptionist, who was also the dental assistant was super nice and keep rubbing my shoulders to comfort me, she really helped the whole process feel less daunting and then when the test were done, the dentist told me the 1 thing I was hoping we wouldn't have to do...

"I would recommend for you to extract both teeth." 

... I am someone who is extremely self-conscious about my teeth because they were never aligned before I did my braces, for as long as I remembered, I was always very worried about people looking at my teeth, so I would always smile with my mouth closed and when I laugh, I always make sure to cover my mouth with my hand,  and it was only after I did my braces did I feel confident showing my teeth when I am smiling and laughing. 

I really didn't want my teeth to go back to how they were back 10 years ago because it was really really really misaligned and my biggest concern about extracting two teeth is how it could potentially cause the teeth to start shifting around.

Tooth extraction wasn't something I wanted to do, so I asked him what about a root canal, he told me he could do it as well, but it wouldn't really solve the issue because both my teeth were already badly damaged by decay, even if he were to do the root canal successfully, it wouldn't guarantee that the decay won't come back again, and if it does come back, the teeth will be even weaker than before due to the root canal treatment and I might face more issues down the road.

I really contemplated about what to do for a while and after really thinking about his advise, decided to go for the extraction because what the dentist said was true, the teeth are already severely damaged, the fact that I have been having tooth sensitivity issues for the past few years and having to constantly go back to a dentist and have the same tooth checked is a clear indication that it needs to go. I have wasted so much time and money trying to salvage something that is already beyond repair, extraction would be doing me and my 2 teeth a favor. That being said, it was a very painful decision because not only would I be losing 2 teeth, I will also be throwing the super expensive zirconium crown away.

The dentist starts prepping me for the extraction by numbing my mouth and I always felt like extraction was a much scarier procedure than a root canal, didn't really know why I felt that way but I did, and then as the dentist was trying to extract my tooth out did I realize why it was scarier.

Even though there isn't any pain, there is a massive amount of pressure when it comes to tooth extraction and this isn't something I would know despite having all 4 of my wisdom teeth extracted because I was a pussy then and opted to be placed under general anesthesia. 

The dentist was struggling to yank both my tooth out because of how long the roots were and because my tooth is short at the top, he couldn't find a proper grip and had to keep switching between the different pliers. The amount of pressure I felt was extremely concerning because even though I know the teeth are bad, it just feels weird to be extracting teeth that aren't shaky. The dental assistant had to hold my head while the dentist was slowly but firmly jiggling the tooth out from their socket, it felt like it was going on for way too long and I started questioning if I had gone to the correct dentist since I had only managed to find this dentist out of desperation a few hours ago on the internet, I had a lot of thoughts running through my head. 

But after what felt like eons, both tooth were finally extracted successfully...

... one of them is black on the inside because of the cement that was used to stick the crown on it, but that's how bad the tooth was, I feel like I was euthanizing the tooth during the extraction because it was clearly barely hanging on, and that little chicken leg looking part of the tooth, that is pulpitis and that was what was causing the pain. I don't really know how big a normal pulp is suppose to look, but seeing that lump at the end of my molar was very concerning and it just further justified my decision to do the extraction. The other tooth on the other hand is also in equally bad shape, it's not black on the inside but there were a lot of cracks, which was probably what caused all the sensitivity issue.

I requested to have the teeth but the dentist didn't really want to give them to me because it was not sanitary, he only allowed me to take some pictures, which I didn't take a good picture of, but the roots of my tooth were curved, that's why the extraction was a lot harder. As I have said before, my teeth used to be extremely misaligned so when I did my braces, a lot of shifting was involved and that shifting affected the way the roots of my tooth grew.

I now have 2 huge gap in my mouth, it feels weird, I am not sure if I am going to swell up from the extraction tomorrow because there was really a lot of pressure in the extraction. 

Anyways, the most painful part came towards the end of the procedure when I was given the bill, it came up to a whopping $3,200! That is more than a month's salary, sigh. I suddenly feel lucky that I am actually earning a stable income now because if I was still working at ID4, that $3,200 is going to be a huge damage to my savings. 

A huge bulk of the cost came from the bone grafting that had to be done in preparation for dental implants about a year later, the grafting for both tooth caused $2000, however I am not sure if I will actually go ahead with doing an implant because each implant is going to cost $5000, and I am not ready to shell out $10,000 for two unless I somehow become insanely successful over the next year.

I could've gotten tickets to New York with that money, and I am suddenly missing New York again despite the trip being almost 3 years ago. It would have sucked if I actually got that toothache whilst I  was in New York, would've completely ruined the trip.

A photo of my $1200 zirconium crown. This cost almost as much as my Samsung Z Flip 3. And today's procedure cost as much as me buying a Z Flip 3 and a Galaxy S22 Ultra, the good news is I am going to be getting my commission from my last projects at ID4 this month, so at least my savings will recuperate the losses I had to incur today and if this painful experience has taught me anything, it is that I had need to be grateful for having a job with a stable monthly salary.

Job Interview again.

So I had another job interview set up today and to be honest, it wasn't really an interview I had planned to take very seriously.

Even though I don't enjoy my current job, the stable salary is something I am still not prepared to give up, so I went to the interview today only to listen to what Interior Design companies are offering in terms of commission. The company itself is definitely a company I wouldn't mind working for because they have a very similar design language as me and if the offer was enticing enough, I would consider quitting my current company to join this one.

So the interview was done by the director and my first impression of her was that I didn't like her, it's nothing that she did, but just her general mannerism that rubbed me the wrong way because she just didn't come across as a very friendly and approachable individual. 

When she started talking about the job, she was sharing with me how the company works, what I am expected to do as a designer in their company and I just felt really stifled by the SOP the company had in place, seeing how I had quite a bit of freedom with the way I did things at ID4, I then expressed my thoughts with her company's SOP and told her it felt a bit rigid. I am not sure if she took offense to how I expressed my thoughts but she reiterated that "it isn't rigid to have those SOPs" in place and that was when I decided I didn't want to work under her. 

She is constantly disagreeing with me, when I ask if I could do my own 3D renderings since I have experience doing that, she says no, when I ask if I can use my own sub-cons, she says no, she doesn't even entertain the thought first and just says no to everything. The other ID firms that I have interviewed for would always be open to my style of working, when I ask other ID firms if I can do my own 3D, they will tell me to go ahead as long as it looks similar to what their own 3D Drafters prepare and when I ask if I can use my own sub-con, they would encourage me to introduce them to the company. 

And as if her rigidness isn't bad enough, the commission scheme is worst.

When I was working in ID4, the commission scheme was a 40/60 split, this meant I would get 40% of the profits whilst the company gets 60%.

So just to break down how that would work.

Let's say I managed to clinch a $11,000 project,

Project Cost - $10,000

Total Profit  - $1,000 (10% Profit)

The total project is then split between me and the company, so I get $400 and the company gets $600 base on the 40/60 arrangement.

This new ID firm on the other hand has a 45/55 split, which means I would get 45% of the project whilst the company gets 55% of the project, it sounds better, but there is this additional requirement that states the company will always be taking a commission worth 10% off the project cost regardless of how much the total commission is.

This means that if I were to clinch an $11,000 project.

Project Cost - $10,000

Total Profit - $1,000 (10% Profit)

I don't get any commission because that 10% will be taken by the company as their share.

Let's say a project that I have has a cost price of $30,000. this means the company would automatically pocket $3000 worth of commissions even before the project starts. If I charged the customer $32,000 for the whole project, and I only end up having $2000 worth of profit, I don't get share of that $2000, in fact, I would end up owing the company $1000 because of their commission scheme. 

Out of all the ID companies I have interviewed at, this honestly is one of the worst project sharing scheme I have heard of because you will get punished by the company if your profit margin is below a certain percentage. I guess my search for the next ID firm to join continues!

Not a good VM

Had to go to work today on Hari Raya and this isn't the first time I have had to work during a holiday, but for some reason, being at work today just felt really shitty.

I guess a bit of it had to do with the fact that one of my colleague had indirectly told me that I was not doing a good job as the VM of the store because I wasn't allowing her to sell our Showroom furniture. She was ranting to me about her lack of sales the past few months but her rant somehow ended up targeting me because me not allowing her to sell showroom pieces is apparently a reflection of my capabilities as a VM. 

She has this extremely selfish mentality and the reason I told her why I couldn't let her sell the pieces we have on the Showroom floor is because we do not have similar pieces in the Warehouse to replace those in the store. But she doesn't get it.

When I think of the Showroom in the store, I think of this...

...every piece of furniture in each setting is specially selected to compliment each other, if you sell one piece, you are going to ruin the entire setting. So if you want to sell that sofa, you don't tell me...

.. we have this yellow sofa in the Warehouse that we can use to replace the Showroom sofa. It doesn't match, the size is wrong, the color is wrong, the design is wrong. 

I honestly thinks that the vision she has for the store's Showroom is something like this...

...she has that "whatever we can bring in, we should bring in" mentality because all she wants to do is sell as much pieces as possible so she can get her commission.

She is from the older batch of sales people that still enjoys the commission scheme and the truth is, not a lot of people in the store have a lot of respect for her despite her seniority in the company because she is quite a selfish individual and this was not something I took notice of until I became the store's VM and have to deal with her constant...

"Can I sell this" despite already telling her it cannot be sold" 

...messages, and when I tell her she cannot sell those items because we want it to be displayed, she will complaint to me about her lack of sales and then take that opportunity to tell me that the VM isn't doing a good job.

She is very aware that I am the VM, she just doesn't use the pronoun "you" when expressing her dissatisfaction about me as the VM of the store. 

The reason she thinks the VM isn't a good job is because it's the VM's job to be flexible enough to make the furniture pieces work together if something gets sold off the floor. 

If she wants to sell the 2 seater sofa in the living room setting and all I have left in the Warehouse is a 15 meter Dining Table, it's my job to make that 15 meter dining table work in the living room setting because I am the VM.

Annoying.

Also, I really want to quit and return to Interior Design again because this job is starting to feel very meaningless. I thought becoming the store's VM would change that, but it hasn't, especially when I have to deal with people like her who only thinks about things from her own point of view.

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.

New Job Again?

Went for a job interview about 2 weeks ago for an Interior Design position and during the interview, I was able to learn more about the job.

Unlike the regular Interior Design firms that have now saturated the market, this company has very clear job positions in their company, if you are an Interior Designer, all you have to do is design, and if you are a Project Manager , then you just have to Project Manage. Majority of the ID firms in the market would usually require the ID to do both the Interior Designing as well as the Project Management and I have never enjoyed the latter because that is usually where a bulk of my anxiety originates from.

So anyways, I spoke to the boss of the company and first of all, he was 30 minutes late for the interview, so the first impression I had of him wasn't great, then the interview starts and he starts talking about his company and asks me about my skill set and experience, after which, he asked me if I had some time because he wanted to show me a 20 minute video, so I told him I did, but I was not expecting the video to actually be 25 minutes long , I thought he said 20 minutes as a figure of speech, I thought it was going to just be a quick 10 minute video and that was it, but it had the same running time as an episode of Attack on Titan, like it was really long and throughout the video, I was just hoping it would end soon because my brain was legit starting to switch off after a while.

The video finally ends, the boss walks in a bit embarrassed at how long the video was and he starts asking me about my impression of the company, I told him I didn't expect the video to actually be 25 minutes long and he laughs it off, but then I told him I was interested to be part of the company because what they are offering is what I have been looking for for a while now, he then tells me that he wants to give me an assignment to gauge my skills, and it's as ridiculous as the length of his introduction video.

The assignment was to create a full design proposal based on a floorplan he will be giving me after the interview.  

He didn't specify exactly what the proposal needed, but he did tell me that I needed to prepare a space planning proposal and a mood board, to which I ask him if 3D rendering is required, and he sort of left it up to me, but then said something along the lines of...

"It's up to you, but we will gauge how desperate a candidate really wants the job based on their proposal."

... which translated to "if you don't prepare a 3D rendering, then we will assume you are not desperate enough to be considered for the position" and to be honest, I was itching to do some Interior Design related work, so I agreed to it, and I told him that I needed some time to do it, he was agreeable to it 

He sends me the floorplan the very night and I thought he would send me a simple floorplan like this....

not this...

... but nope, because this is a test, of course he had to send me this complicated multi angled floorplan...

... the lines may be straight, but almost every wall is at a different angle, it was such a pain. He then asked when we can meet for the second round, and after seeing the floorplan, I knew I needed some time, so I told him if we could meet on the first week of March and he agreed. 

I managed to do the AutoCAD out within 2 to 3 days, did a SketchUp of the empty apartment at work because it was pretty quiet in the store for the past few days, and then I get a message from the boss requesting to push the 2nd Interview forward due to scheduling conflicts as he wanted me to meet a few more people for the second round. I was a little bumped out about it because that meant I had 1 week short to complete the proposal, and I also had to take leave to accede to his timing, but I understand the timing issue, so I agreed to it and applied for leave. He felt quite bad about having to trouble me so much, but I figured it was a valid reason to take leave from work and I could enjoy my two days back to back off from work because the next day happened be my off day. 

Before the Interview, I will say, I was pretty proud of my proposal because I put in quite a bit of effort for it. I was expecting the boss and his group to be impressed by how much effort I had put into the proposal for the interview, so I went to the office feeling quite proud of myself.

I reach the office about a minute late, the boss invites me in and then informs me that unfortunately, only him and his co-founder will be attending the interview today because the other guys are not available... 

A part of me was relieved because I really didn't want to present to so many people, but another part of me also felt a bit cheated about it because I had agreed to this new date due to your request to meet the other team, and now half of them are not able to make it, which meant I had rushed out the proposal and wasted my leave for nothing.

Anyways, I start to set everything up in the meeting room for the 2 of them, and when I open my Proposal, I was sort of  hoping they would be impressed by the amount of work that had gone into it, the amount of renderings I did, but there wasn't any of that, the both of them just kinda stared pretty intensely at the screen, as if they were trying to spot issues they had with my proposal.

So I go through my proposal and I could sense throughout the presentation that the other co-founder was starting to get bored because at one point, he started looking at his phone instead of paying attention to what I was trying to present. Seeing him lose interest made me rush through the presentation even more because I just wanted to end the presentation as soon as possible lest he ends up dozing off.

The moment the presentation ended, that was when things kind of went south for me because it became critique time, it was like I was back in Poly

They really only highlighted the negative things about the presentation, I mean they were not mean or rude about it, it was generally really constructive feedback, but for the amount of work and effort I put into the project, it would have been nice to have some my hard work acknowledged.

It was quite a demoralizing experience to say the least. I went in all proud of my proposal and I left the office really second guessing myself a lot. I later found out that majority of their designers were given the exact same floorplan to play around with and they definitely came up with much more interesting layouts than the one I came up with, so that was definitely the wake up call that I needed. I mean I knew my designs were never super impressive, but to potentially be joining a new company and have the weakest design sense is a bit worrying for me.

It would be a good place to learn and grow as a designer, but I don't really know if the company would be a right fit for me because I came into the interview for the job not to join the company to learn, but to come in as an experience designer, so I'm not sure how I feel about that. I mean if this had been a company that I had followed on Instagram before, and am a huge fan of their work, then me joining the company to learn from the team is definitely something I wouldn't mind, but it's not, it's a company that reached out to me out the blue one day, a company that I have never heard of before that has a decent portfolio.

I think my ego would probably stop me from accepting the job offer if one was going to be made to me because I really am not feeling the company anymore, to be honest, even though what they are offering is what I am looking for, there is something with the company that I just don't really vibe with. 

Update :

An offer was made and I have requested for some time to think about it. Not sure how the boss will react to my request though.