Psychotic Security Guards @ Cuscaden Reserve

I had the unfortunate privilege of coming across 2 of the most unhinged Security Guards today during a site visit with my boss at one of our new project located in Cuscaden Reserve, but in order to ensure that my colleague Yan won't have a hard time during the Project Management phase of the project, I shall abstain from leaving a scathing review on their Google Reviews until we are have completed the project. 

To say the Security Guards were unfriendly would be a huge understatement because in my line of work, I have met my fair share of Condo Security Guards, they are all generally quite cordial, and you do get some unfriendly ones once in a while, but this 2 Security Guards at Cuscaden Reserve were fucking mental.

So my boss had actually parked his car at a nearby mall and we decided that we would walk to the Condo on foot, we headed to the Guard House when we arrived and my boss just says to them...

"Visiting."

... we were expecting the guards to then simply ask us which Unit No, confirm our identities, and then  let us in since our clients had told us that they had already informed whoever they needed to inform in advance that we were visiting.  

The first Security Guard, upon hearing what my boss said, then responded in a very unfriendly tone with...

"Purpose?"

... to which my boss then elaborated...

"We are here to meet our homeowners for a discussion."

...which was what we were here for, that Security Guard was not happy with that answer, so he asks the same question again, which was what our purpose was, and my boss responded the same thing, that we were here for a discussion with the homeowner. 

The first Security Guard lost his shit after that and shouted at us....

"ARE YOU A CONTRACTOR?"

... and my boss very calmy respond back, telling him that we are, but that we are only here for a discussion meeting with the homeowners, and we are not here to do any actual contractor work yet. This reply triggered the second Security Guard in the Guard House, who then popped his head out from the guard house and started shouting at my boss...

"CONTRACTOR THEN SAY YOU ARE A CONTRACTOR! We have all sorts of people coming in saying they are this and that! YOU ARE A CONTRACTOR, SAY CONTRACTOR!"

 ....and he proceeds to go on this tirade that lasted way too long, and at one point he went...

"I HAVE A PHD, BUT I AM JUST A SECURITY GUARD, SO WHAT IF I HAVE A PHD?"

...and I guess the point of him sharing that information is just to tell us that not any Tom Dick and Harry can simply enter the Condo Complex, even if said Tom Dick and Harry has a PHD. I mean I get what he is trying to say contextually, but the level of hostility that him and his fellow Security Guard colleague was showing us was completely unwarranted. 

He was just going on and on while my boss was filling up the visitor logbook, and he was just shouting at him the entire time, it was fucking insane. I was just standing beside my boss, seriously contemplating if I should raise my voice back at him and ask him to calm the fuck down because there is no need for that level of hostility, but then I saw my boss, just remaining completely calm, so I also kept my cool and went to fill up my name in the visitor logbook. 

The Second Security Guard did eventually calm down a little when he realize we were not really retaliating, so he did eventually apologized, but still in a very uncouth tone, and said something along the line of...

"Sorry, it's not that I want to target you but a lot of people have been coming into the complex and telling us they are all sort of things.."

... and my boss was just completely calm about the whole thing, he reiterated once again that he was just there for a meeting with the homeowners, and that he wasn't coming in to do any contractor work, that's why he didn't say he was a contractor at the start. 

The Second Security Guard definitely felt really horrible for losing his temper, so he attempted to be helpful and gave us very clear directions about how to get to where we wanted to go to make sure we wouldn't get lost, the first one who lost his temper just kept quiet when the second one lost his shit, so he didn't say anything after that and just had the second guy do all the talking, or screaming. 

After that, as we were walking towards the carpark to get  to the lift lobby, I just laughed about it with my boss and told him how insane the guards were. 

I have heard of Security Guards at Condos in Orchard area being quite arrogant and unfriendly, but holy shit, I was not expecting one of them to start projecting their insecurity about their Security Guard position at us.  

Desktop is alive again...

BIOs have been flashed, the motherboard has been updated and my desktop is alive again! 

The $195 did not go to waste and now I have an upgraded CPU system. I was really not optimistic about this whole thing actually working, even though I had been watching quite a few videos on how to go about actually doing what I needed to do, you just never know what could go wrong. 

But it worked, now I don't have to fork out anymore money to send the entire system it back to Dreamcore for repair. Honestly speaking, even though this whole unintentional upgrade was a success, I don't think I am ready to upgrade anything else in the system, just out of fear that it would fuck with the rest of the system.

This processor replacement process felt like a complete fluke, so I am not going to tinker around with anything anymore, I am happy with the way the desktop is now, as the saying goes, if it ain't broken, don't fix it.

Only downside is my CPU Cooler Fan no longer has the fancy RGB lights, so it won't illuminate the dust that is just contained within the inaccessible crevices of the heatsink anymore.

My 10 Year Old Aftershock Laptop served me really well during this downtime, even though it's a bit laggy at time, the fact that it still was able to sustain my internet addiction for that short period of time whist my Desktop was out of commission is nothing short of amazing.

PC has spoilt

So I damaged my desktop earlier this morning after attempting to try and clean out the heat sink.

The internals of my desktop is just caked in dust because it barely ever gets cleaned, and it's not from a lack of trying, but simply because of how difficult it is to actually get into the nook and crannies that I eventually just gave up... so I guess it is from a lack of trying harder.

Covered in dust. It would be so satisfying to remove the dust from the heatsink...

...but it's almost impossible to access the inner part of the heatsink without removing the entire piece out from the PC because the fan blades are blocking it, I have tried to use compress air to blow the dust out, but it wouldn't really get everything out because of the cockblocking by the blades.

Well, today, I decided to try harder and looked up online how to remove the heatsink from the desktop so I can give it a good clean. From the videos that I watched, it looked quite easy, just gotta do some unlatching, disconnect 2 wires, and the whole thing would come right off with a bit of wiggling. 

I proceed to switch off my desktop, unplug the power outlet, and did all that. I actually had a really bad feeling that I could fuck it up, but proceeded to do it anyway because YOLO. There was some resistance at the start because of the latch was really hard to unlatch, but it did eventually came off...

... and something that wasn't suppose to come off came off with it, that black square with a smaller gold square in the center of the motherboard, that part is not suppose to be empty, that part is where the processer is suppose to sit and where it is suppose to stay when I remove the heatsink.

... here is is, at the back of the heatsink, the pins are crooked and it is completely stuck on the heatsink like it had been fucking cemented on. 

When you install a processor onto the motherboard, it's a very gentle process, you have to make sure the pins are all straight, and then you gently prop in onto the motherboard and lock it in,  but when you have the fucking heatsink just mounted on top of it, that is impossible. The heatsink doesn't just plop right on top, I need to angle it here and there to ensure the latches are in place, and when I do that, what ends up happening is it forces all the pins on the processor to bend with it.

The photo above was taken after it had been freshly removed, after attempting to stick re-install the processor and then failing to successfully latch the heatsink onto the motherboard, the pins of the processor got bend even more.

I did eventually latch the heatsink successfully back onto the motherboard eventually, but when I tried to turn on the PC, it didn't boot up at all because the processor has been damaged. The next thing I could think of was to simply drop Dreamcore an email and ask them for a quote to replace and repair the desktop, and if possible, also do some specs upgrade, since it's a Sunday, they won't reply to me until tomorrow the earliest. 

Since I had time to think about the issue, I decided why not get a new processor and replace it on my own, Dreamcore would probably charge me an arm and a leg for the repair and they will definitely do a crazy mark up the price of the Processor, or at least that's what Reddit claims, so I actually headed over to Sim Lim around 4pm to and managed to find a new CPU Processor, double checked with the seller if it's compatible with my motherboard, and it's definitely an upgrade from the current damaged one, it came with the Heatsink/Fan, I didn't realize they would come as a set but it did. I asked the Salesperson if he could help me remove the damaged processor from my current heatsink, but sadly their store isn't equipped with the necessary tools to do that.

Total Damage - $195

When I reached home, I tried to install the processor on my own and it didn't go well, things were falling apart left and right, eventually I managed to install the processor and the new heatsink onto the motherboard, but because I needed a USB Drive to update the motherboard, which I do not have, I can't really do anything more until I get my hands on the USB Drive that I have in the office.

I am not sure if I damaged anything during the dismantling because I disconnected the GPU, the WiFi card and a bunch of other shit that I have no idea does what, accidentally drop parts onto one another, it was a mess, the parts have all been reconnected since.

If this works, that's fantastic and might give me the confidence to also potentially upgrade the graphics card.

If it fails and Dreamcore does charge me an arm and a leg for the repair cost, I may just end up getting a new laptop and just give up owning a desktop. The whole point of a desktop is so I can upgrade it, but if attempts to upgrade it end up costing a lot of money, then there is just no point buying another desktop, just for me to change the entire system again 4 years later. A laptop also takes up a lot less space on my table.

Or I may just stick to my Aftershock laptop and get the upcoming PS5 Pro for my gaming needs, would also be a great way to make use of my Prism+ monitor.

Deadweight Hire

My boss has been losing quite a few projects lately over the past month, and with new hires that have recently joined us, it is really not looking too good for the company.

We were quite picky with our clients earlier this year because there was a sudden influx and they were all planning to start their renovation during the same period, I was actually really overwhelmed at one point and my boss had to take projects off my hand and pass it to our other designer to handle. It was really bad. 

Thankfully for me, that time has passed and now it is up to the Project Managers to take over, I am quite concern for my colleague Yan (whom I had introduced to the company earlier this year) because she is still relatively new to the company, but she has essentially being forced to take on all the projects because she is the only Project Manger left in the company, aside from my boss, who also has his own things to settle and would just toss all the projects for Yan to handle.

I expressed my concerns to him about her being overloaded with work and told him that it might be time to consider getting another Project Manager since the other one who was with us previously had gotten unwell and was probably not in any condition to return to work ever again, so he started to look for one and eventually found this new colleague to join us and become the company's 2nd Project Manager. I was initially relieved for my colleague Yan because I thought she could finally get some help, but that relief soon became more worry as we come to find out the new PM, Ruby, has very little Project Management experience.

My boss decided to have Ruby shadow Yan, so she could learn from her and observe how Yan plans the projects and talks to the sub-cons and suppliers, so Ruby ended up following her everywhere, from multiple site visits to trips back to the office, and the dynamic always felt a bit off because Ruby always kept to herself most of the time, and is just very passive. 

According to Yan, Ruby would just follow her quietly everywhere, and when they have conversations, it wouldn't be related to learning more about Project Management, it would usually revolve around Ruby asking Yan about personal stuff that she wasn't very comfortable sharing with Yan. This uncomfortable line of questioning has led to Yan being a little uncomfortable around Ruby, but because Ruby has to shadow Yan, she doesn't really have much of a choice. So their travels together usually involves a lot of quiet rides in the public transport with Ruby occasionally looking at Yan's phone when she is using it for work or leisure, which adds on to the discomfort even more because that is an invasion of privacy.

Needless to say, Ruby's addition to the company has had the opposite effect of what had been intended, instead of reducing the work load, she is now extra work for Yan because apparently, when asked to take over a site of her own, Ruby was not keen to take over and told Yan.

"You can still schedule the workers and contact the homeowners, I can help by visiting the site to take photos for you."

That defeats the entire purpose of your role as a Project Manager. She wasn't hired to be Yan's assistant, but she seem to have the idea that because she is not well versed in Project Managing, she should not be given any project to run on her own yet.

Now that most of the projects that I had been working on over the past few months are moving into the renovation phase, this is the time when the Project Managers will become extremely busy, and Yan really does not have the luxury of time to be babysitting an inexperienced Project Manager. What we needed was an experienced Project Manager who could come in and take over half the workload from Yan, but what we got instead was the complete opposite of that. 

I felt really bad for Yan and she has shared her concern with both the accountant and myself when she came in to the office yesterday to do some paperwork. She had instructed Ruby to go the a few sites on her own because she just needed to have a break from her, so the 3 of us all had a conversation about Ruby and we all pretty much shared the same sentiments.

She was a bad hire.

Yan had actually pulled her husband into the company 2 weeks before Ruby joined as an installer/repairman for the company, and my boss actually gave him 1 or 2 projects to manage just to let him have some things to do since we hadn't had a lot of installation works to do during that time. He outperforms Ruby by a mile, scheduling works, running through the drawings with me to ensure everything is in order and he fully understands my design brief, he was doing all that, but he wasn't hired as a Project Manager.

If the person who had been hired as an Installer/Repairman is doing a much better job at Project Management than someone who had been hired as a Project Manager, that is an issue.

Ruby came in to the office late afternoon yesterday whilst everyone was busy doing their work, Yan was planning a work schedule for one project and I was helping her do a rough work schedule for another site, our accountant was doing her finance stuff and Ruby just sat at a corner of the office, observing all of us without making a noise, I could feel her eyes darting between my computer screen and Yan's iPad.... and she was doing that for 2- 3 hours.  It was extremely uncomfortable and I could finally understand the discomfort Yan was talking about first hand, which made me feel even worst for her because she had been dealing with that for days.

My boss isn't one to fire his employee unless they have done something really bad, so I think we will be stuck with Ruby. I do hope this is just an initial phase of hers and she will actually become useful once she gets more comfortable with the people in the company as well as her position as a Project Manager because all she is right now at this moment is deadweight.

Speaking of project overload, even though we are super busy during this period, we have actually lost 4 projects over the course of the month. Some we had already predicted would run away because it's those annoying customers who just want to do a price comparison with another ID that they had found, others we were happy decided to drop because the customers were quite unpleasant and very entitled.

But one project that disappeared really struck a nerve with Yan because it was a renovation project for one of our ex-colleague from the furniture store. Yan felt personally offended because this ex-colleague of ours, Ava had come to us at the beginning, telling the both of us...

"I will be giving you guys this project, I am not looking at other ID firms."

... and making it sound like we got this project and it's already in the bag. Yan was so happy at the start and telling our boss that we secured a big project from our friend and I did meet up with Ava about two times to run through her design requirements, prepared 3 different design proposals based on her requirements, which involved carving out 3 additional rooms in a 5 room flat.

Yan was informed by Ava 2 days ago that she has decided to go with someone else. This information was not shared by Ava on her own accord, it was only shared with Yan after she asked Ava for her home's full address, meaning Ava had no intention of letting us know of her decision to drop us.

I had mixed feelings about this because on one hand, I felt a bit upset that she had felt the need to look at other Interior Designers because thinks my proposal isn't good enough, but I also felt relieved for Yan because that meant she wouldn't have so many projects that she will need to handle simultaneously. 

I expressed that to Yan and told her that it was probably a good thing since she was already going to be so busy next month, having one less project would lessen her burden, but she told me she had already mentally prepared herself to run Ava's site and that she felt really offended by what Ava had done.

In Ava's defense, she has the right to choose as a customer if she wants to engage us or not, but as a friend, Yan felt betrayed by her actions. 

It really is quite a pity because when I first started of Ava's project, I was swamped with work and couldn't really put a lot of time into it, but now that I am more free and can actually work on it, she decided to drop us.

If it's meant to be, it's meant to be, if it's not, it's not. That's all I can say.

Incompetent Successor

I have an upcoming project that will be starting very soon, and for this particular project, the homeowners decided that they wanted to support one of their friends by engaging them to supply the tiles for their home.

My boss, the project manager and I are not happy with this arrangement because getting an external supplier in is always a risk since we never know how their working style is like and if we can actually work with them properly, that and also the fact that we won't be making any profit from this scope of work since it's the homeowner's own contact, all that potential commission went into the the very generous discount that was extended to them.

During the early stages, I did visit their friend's tile shop with the homeowners, and my goal for them at that time was just to take a look at what they had, and then still stick with the tiles that we had already shortlisted from Hafary since we had spend hours the week before choosing the tiles from there. Unfortunately, their friend was around that day and he started to do his salesman pitch about why his items are better and blah blah blah, and because he is friends with my homeowners, they were convinced and decided to get from that friend.

I was then assigned a Sales Associate from the company to act as my contact because the homeowners definitely won't be able to co-ordinate this aspect of the works by themselves. (Which fucking sucks because just to reiterate, we are not getting any sort of incentive or commission from the supplier, in fact, they had essentially "stole" that portion of our business from us, but we still have to do the co-ordination work with them, it sucks)

The contact person is their friend's son, whom I shall just refer to as Lew, and that guy is just very unresponsive.  He takes forever to reply to my messages, has the habit of not acknowledging my messages and just leaves me on "read" most of the time when I ask him questions, and now that the homeowners have decided to get their products from his side, that unresponsiveness is just unacceptable because we have a timeline to follow, and I cannot wait 3 days for you to get back to me about a good time to meet on site.

I dropped him a text to tell him I will open a group chat with my boss and project manager so we can discuss the details further.

He leaves me on "read"

The chat is created, I introduced everyone to each other, my boss then greets Lew and ask him for a good date and time to meet. No response, I go check my own message to see the status and notice that Lew hadn't even opened the chat yet.

A day passes by and Lew still did not reply to my boss's request in the group chat, I go check the status of the introduction message I had send and he still hadn't read it yet, which means he didn't even open the group chat. 

The next day, I drop another message in the group chat to follow up on my boss's request, thinking this will get Lew to open the group chat and acknowledge our messages. 

No response.

The earlier messages I send weren't blue ticked at all because Lew didn't even bother to open the group chat.

The homeowner (husband) then messages us in their own group chat to check if we had gotten in touch with Lew, I directly told him that we have attempted to text Lew, even tried to call him, but he was uncontactable. I was honestly really frustrated at this point and the homeowner decided to reach out to their friend to ask what was happening.

Later that night, Lew finally replied (no doubt after his Dad relayed our complaints to him) and he told me he was currently on Reservist so he wasn't able to check on his phone as much, he ask when we are planning to meet and I told him we are planning to meet next week, but since he will still be in Reservist, it would be best if he could send someone else instead. 

The message was read, and I was then left on read.... YET AGAIN!

Anyways, I told the homeowner about what happened this morning, that I had finally gotten a response but that my request to Lew was left on read with no acknowledgement on his end and no updates about whether he will get someone to assist us. I then requested for him (the homeowner) to get his friend (the supplier) to link us up with another sales person instead, which he did requested his friend for, so now we are just waiting for the other sales person to get in touch with us.

The homeowner then send a message to us saying his friend is a reliable businessman.

Ermmm... okay?

Great that you have such faith in your friend, but the way the son is handling this whole situation is really proving otherwise. Doesn't acknowledgement messages and takes forever to reply to those messages is really not a sign of a reliable businessman, if he was really that reliable, he would have attached someone who was more competent to the project.

An example of acknowledging a text message would be a simple text like.

"Noted with thanks."

... or even just giving me a thumbs up emoji would be fine. Lew literally just leaves me on read. 

Being on Reservist also really does not excuse the lack of response as well, I think if you are going to be in a customer facing position, it's common sense to at least update in your Whatsapp status that you are away when you are away, and also include the date that you will be back. 

His status was just left as "Available". 

If you know you are going for Reservist and you have projects on hand that will require attention, please for fuck sake, pass it to someone to take it over temporarily. I feel like this is the responsible thing to do for the customers and also just common fucking sense for a sales person. 

Even if you don't do any of the above, which you really should, at least have the fucking decency to reply my initial message that I had send 3 days ago, that you have clearly read, with a simple message like....

"Hi. I am currently away on Reservist from this date to this date, so I may be unresponsive during this period."

... you literally blue ticked yourself by opening my message, and then don't have the basic common sense as a sales person to leave me a message like that to update me? My expectation of Lew was already quite low when I found out he was the son of the owner, because I used to be like him, I used to work for my Dad and I honestly didn't treat it as proper work experience, to me. I was essentially just projecting my personal experience working for my Dad on Lew and I don't really think I am that far off to say that he is quite incompetent at his job, which makes me wonder if he has any real working experience beside working for his Dad.

That being said, I do know of friends who do move on to take over their Dad's business and I have the utmost respect for them because they do take their job very seriously, and they are definitely not Lew. 

Update :

Lew has just replied to my previous message... 

14 fucking hours later.

Props to him for not having to take 3 days this time around I guess.  He is asking me for more information about our site visit so he can let his colleague know...

I don't need you to let your colleague know, I don't need you to be our proxy because that is going to take 4 times as long! 

I message him

~14 hours later~

He reads it.

~14 hours later~

He sends it to his colleague.

~14 hours later~

His colleague replies to him.

~14 hours later~

He updates me of his colleague's response.

I replied to that message within 10 minutes, thinking he will be able to reply me quickly since he was already looking at his phone, but it has been about 6 hours since and he hasn't even read my message yet. 

For Fuck Sake.

FOMO Meet Up

I just had a quick catch up session with some of my ex-colleagues from my previous job this evening and I haven't had a catch up session like this in a very long time, and by that, I mean the type where you meet up once and then tell yourself never again.

Today's meeting just reminded me why we have never ever hung out after work before, and that is because we were nothing beyond just colleagues at work. Our conversations in the past revolved purely around work related happenings and gossips, and with our common denominator out of the picture, since all of us are now working in different companies, the conversations that we had just felt empty and hollow. We spoke for the sake of speaking, to fill up the silence in between our pointless conversations, and the struggle to find new topics between conversations could be felt, it just didn't flow smoothly.

Compared to the meeting I had with another group of ex-colleague from the same company (a different clique), that was 7 hours of just talking and laughter, genuine catching up and just being around a group of people who truly enjoyed each other's company, with the meeting this evening however, I honestly didn't get the same vibe at all whatsoever.

For this meeting, I was meeting 2 of my ex-colleague for Ramen at Funan.

First we have Alan (just gonna refer to him as that) who was the reason why we were eating ramen because he loves ramen. We went to Funan because I hadn't visited the new Funan before, so this was sort of my foray into visiting the mall for the first time since their revamp from their "IT Mall" moniker days.

Just some background.

Alan was my Supervisor in the furniture store and I was lucky to have been in his good graces whilst I was working there, however, if I were to be very honest, my impression of him has never been positive because he has always generally been quite unpleasant. 

He was unceremoniously terminated during his time there because he was reported to have been verbally abusive to one of the staff, plus he also has an attitude problem that the company had been putting up with because he was efficient at doing his job, however, after they found out his attitude problem was causing a staff member a lot of distress, they could no longer put up with that and ended up firing him. 

Another ex-colleague who joined us is Ivy (just gonna refer to her as that), she is our ex- Customer Service colleague who was pretty good with her job. I will say, I was more interested in catching up with her because I did enjoy her company when we were working together. She is quite close to Alan during our time at the furniture store, and this meet up was sort of initiated by her after she came across photos of my meet up with the other group of ex-colleague on Facebook. I guess she was feeling a bit FOMO and wanted to have her own version of that with us.

The deal with Alan and Ivy is they do not like our ex-Manger, whom I am still friends with and who had been part of the the earlier meet up, because they think our ex-Manager is a very manipulative individual who got Alan and our Operations Manager; who had just joined the company for less than 2 months then, terminated.

The simple truth is Alan got himself terminated as a result of his own actions. 

The Operations Manager got terminated because he was going around character assassinating my ex-Manager whilst she was on her 3 weeks holiday in Europe and the main reason was him going on a power trip and boasting to all of us that he had the authority to get anyone terminated, including ex-Manager fired if she was not performing. 

Everyone in the company knows Alan has a horrible working attitude, and I can say with confidence that none of us really missed him and was sad that he was gone, in fact, the environment in the store improved after he was terminated, we were more concern about who would take over his responsibilities.  

The Operations Manager on the other hand, his stay was too short to really leave anyone with any lasting positive impression, and the fact that he was already going on a power trip and engaging in character assassination really didn't help the final impression he had made on everyone else, which also goes to show how dangerous he was as an individual if power had been given to him. 

So with that short background out of the way, the reason why this meet up was horrible was because I did not enjoy Alan's company, and Alan and Ivy still thinks that our ex-Manager is the villain and extremely manipulative, whilst the Operations Manager who got terminated was a poor victim of her manipulation, which is a view that I do not agree with at all whatsoever. 

Since I am still friends with my ex-Manager, and will go so far as to say that I am a lot closer to her than I am with Alan and Ivy, listening to them shit talk about her was quite an uncomfortable experience for me, and then to have them paint the Operations Manager as the innocent victim, when he, along with my Supervisor, was the one who instigated this whole thing, was the eye-roll on top of the cake.

And it's not their completely out of touch character analysis of both the managers that was bothering me, it was the way Ivy and Alan kept saying shit like...

"I am very good at judging a person's character."

"My sixth sense / perception for this kind of things is very sharp."

The both of them are so far off the mark, yet are still so confident in their judgement of somebody's character, that was what really sealed the decision for me to never want to meet up with them again. The fact that they are aware I am still friends with our ex-Manager, but then still go on this whole rant about how she is a horrible person is what really irked me. 

Alan was the one who was feeding all the negativity to the Operations Manager, and the Operations Manager was the one who then took action and began his smear campaign against her.  So for Alan to be blaming our ex-Manager for the shit he started is honestly mind-blowing.

You made the bed that you and the Operations Manager ended up laying in.

They are both in so deep in their own echo chamber of what they think happened and I am just standing from the outside peering in. I tried to pull Ivy out of the echo chamber when we were both on our way home together because I know it's pointless to talk sense into Alan, he is his own echo chamber, but Ivy just couldn't see the light as well and decided to just remain in that echo chamber as well. At some point, you just need to learn to let go, so I let her go and left her in her own delusions.

We were discussing about a situation that happened due to her resignation.

-----This how the event transpired as per my recollection----

Operations Manager joined us.

Ivy submitted her resignation letter 2 weeks later. (and proceeded to serve her 1 Month Notice)

Operations Manager and Manager started to look for new hires for the Customer Service role

Ivy's one month notice was ending soon and they still couldn't find a replacement.

Manager was going on a trip soon and needed someone to fill that role while a replacement was being looked for.

I was suddenly pulled into a meeting one day and my Manager told me as we were walking to the back office for the meeting that whatever was going to happen was not her idea, and that it was entirely the OM's idea. 

During the meeting, I was officially designated as the Temporary Customer Service personnel. I was extremely upset with this decision. 

My Manager had to leave the right after the meeting because she had to pack her luggage to go on her Europe trip the next day, so when it was just the OM, my Supervisor and myself in the meeting, the OM told me it was my Manager's idea to make me the temporary Customer Service Personnel, he told me he wanted to take on the position, but my Manager told him he shouldn't, and that he should delegate this role to someone else, that's why I was picked.

I took that as the truth because I was very upset at that point and couldn't really think straight, I just needed someone to blame, so I took what the OM said at face value and blamed it on my Manager.

My Manager then went on her 3 weeks trip, so I didn't have a chance listen to her side of the story, I believed whatever the OM was telling me, and he was feeding me a lot of  information about her that painted her in a negative light, this was when I started to look at my Manager differently.

Ivy's one month notice finally ended and she left the company. 

Prior to Ivy's last day, my Manager arranged for the 3 of us to have a Zoom meeting to run through the list of Customer Service cases, she was in Europe at that time, so she was Zoom meeting us at 2 - 3 am in the morning on her side.

Luckily Ivy was able to clear most of the outstanding Customer Service related cases, so I didn't have to do much aside from sending some follow up emails to our suppliers about missing parts and what not. I CC-ed my Manager in those emails as well so she could follow up when I went for my Taiwan trip.

I went for my Taiwan trip before my Manager came back, so I didn't get a chance to have a proper conversation with her until my own trip ended.

On the first day of work after my return from the trip, I was working the same shift as her, so during closing, I decided to clarify what exactly happened before the meeting that made me the Temporary Customer Service Personnel, I told her my OM's side of the story and that was when she started tearing up.

She got very emotional after she learned what was being told to me by the OM because according to her, she was the one who offered to take up the role temporarily, but the OM insisted that she hand it over to me, so she started crying because she felt really indignant and I felt really bad for her.

My goal was to listen to her side of the story because I think it's only fair for me to listen to both sides. I felt horrible for having this negative impression of her for the past 3 weeks she was in Europe, so I kept her up to date with what had transpired during her 3 weeks Europe trip in the company, mainly with the OM had been saying about her to everyone, and the very next day, she brought this issue up to our boss. 

The next day at work, I was suddenly pulled aside by the OM, who confronted me and asked me why I said what I said to the Manager, he told me he was very disappointed in me and I felt bad at that time because I thought I had broken his trust. But when I think about it now, if what he had been telling me was the truth, then there should have been no reason for him to worry about anything, if what he had told me was the truth, then the one who would be in trouble would have been my Manager.

He told me he will get my Manager to have a chat with all of us, including my Supervisor, and I didn't realize it at that time, but now, I come to find out he was trying to gang up on her, it would be a 2 vs 1 scenario because as I have stated, my Supervisor does not like her and they would have definitely ganged up on her. Thankfully in the end, she didn't get involved in that and waited until our boss came by.

Both my Supervisor and the Operations Manager got terminated that very day.

My Manager ended up actually taking over the Customer Service role until the new replacement was found, and her actions spoke for itself, that's why I chose to believe her and not my Operations Manager, who was really just all talk and no action.

--- this is what happened----

It is a long list of event and at that time when I was talking to Ivy in the train to try and explain that the OM was the bad guy and not our Manager, I couldn't remember the full timeline, but I essentially tried to explain to her that the decision for me to become the temporary CS was the OM's decision, she said it wasn't because the decision to make me the temporary Customer Service Personnel was decided before the OM joined us, which completely wrong.

She threw her letter AFTER the OM had been with us for 2 weeks.

 

So all that shit transpired after the OM had been with us for a little over 2 weeks, whilst she was serving her 1 month notice, and it was happening towards the end of her notice period, which meant the OM had already been with us for a month. He was still "new", sure, but he had been within the company long enough to feel comfortable flaunting his authority of what he can do to the Manager, and was comfortable enough to be painting the Manager is a very bad light.

Anyways, since I couldn't remember the exact timeline myself during our MRT ride home, I couldn't correct her but now that I have the time to sit down and recollect the events, she was wrong.

But to go back about what we did during the meet up aside from the toxic gossips and empty conversations that we were having.

We met for ramen, the ramen sucked. This was agreed amongst the 3 of us and I guess it was a sign of how the rest of the meet up would be like.

We walked around Funan to look for a place to sit and chat, most of the stores were closed by then and good thing we didn't because I literally have no idea what we would talk about. So we decided to walk to Raffles Place instead, reached there feeling a bit sweaty because it was quite a humid night and ended up not getting anything. I did takeaway a slice of chocolate brownie, but that was about it. So we essentially wasted all that energy walking to Raffles Place from Funan for nothing.

The walking dynamic was also a bit odd, because we weren't necessarily talking and walking as a group, Alan was in front, I was in the middle and Ivy was behind me, we would make passing comments once in a while, but we never really had a proper conversation. From an outsider's perspective, we probably just looked like 3 strangers walking very close to each other in a straight line, or at least that's how it felt to me.

I also really don't like the dynamic I have with Alan, and I honestly never did. Whilst I am grateful to have been in his good graces during our time as colleagues, I can tell from his body language that he has a superiority complex, so he doesn't treat me or Ivy as equals, and he was exhibiting the same attitude towards us during this meet up, which helped me realize that I never have and never will truly see him as a friend. 

When I waved goodbye to him as Ivy and I had to switch trains, he didn't even bother to look up and to say goodbye, he didn't even bother to acknowledge me at all, he was just glued to his screen, focusing on his game and that's just who he is as a person, someone who lacks the capability to be respectful to others. 

Anyways, I felt mentally drained after that, and the train ride back with Ivy was also frustrating, to listen to her just being wrong about everything and then still have the confidence to think she is right and is a good judge of character. 

The delusion is honestly quite a sad sight to behold. I am still open to meeting up with Ivy if she ever wants to have a meal together, but I am done with Alan. He radiates really negative energy, so I really do not like to be around him and I just didn't feel good after hanging out with him because of the lack of respect, he gives off the vibe like he is doing me a favor by agreeing to hang out with me, and that I should be grateful for his presence when the truth is, I would rather he not be in my presence at all.

Cannot fit so my fault....

 Another day, another problem at work.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And why did I miss that out? 

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's so frustrating because whose fault is this? 

Is it the homeowners for not buying the correct model?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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