Oct Photo Dump~

29 Sept

Had a meal with Eric at TYCA when he was near my office area for work.

Miso Brussel Sprouts

Fried Chicken

This was an impromptu birthday treat for him, the meal itself was pretty good and it was also quite affordable for what it was. $15.90 for a Lunch Set in a cafe is a good bargain, considering how I have been spending so much more on sandwiches at the cafes near my gym after Saturday classes.

1st Oct

This was the first time I have actually hung out with a group of the people from gym for something that isn't gym related.

A bunch of us (like 12 - 14 people) decided to get together and celebrate the birthdays of 2 of our gym friends.

The meet up was at 6pm, I originally told the group I will only be able to arrive at 7pm, but after realizing that they have plans to go to the KTV at 8pm, which would effectively only leave me with an hour at the restaurant for my dinner, I decided to just leave work early and got there by around 6.15pm. 

It just so happened that my boss had cancelled our usual Thursday meetings, so he didn't come into the office and I only had to tell my accountant my decision to leave early, which she intially told me was fine as long as I don't get caught, but then in that very same breath, said to me...

"Just so you know, boss will usually look at all this kind of things to determine whether you will get a pay raise or not"

...  I know she wasn't going to snitch on me, but then I just told her...

"It's not like I am going to get a pay raise anytime soon, I have been here for 3 years and that has never ever been brought up before"

... she just laughs it off and then reiterates that IF there is, this decision will usually affect how much raise I get, and I just rolled my eyes in my head because when I told her months ago about my concerns regarding the lack of  any pay raise since I joined the company, she told me not to expect anything because my boss doesn't usually do incremenets and that I should be happy that I have commission, which I do agree with to a certain extent. 

She may not be a snitch, but she likes to take subtle jabs at people if they are doing things she doesn't exactly approve of or isn't very pleased with, and she accompanies it with a laugh at the end of her sentences most of the time so as to mask it as a light hearted comment. 

Not gonna lie, she has been getting on my nerves quite a bit lately. I'm not sure if it's because I am annoyed with her or if I just have some negative feelings towards my current workplace that it is affecting how I am starting to see her. Thursday company meetings have now also become something I dread because my boss has also been adding new responsibilites on my plate, like keeping in touch with potential clients to make sure they don't run away, and just the things that he used to be responsibile for as the "sales" department, so now when we lose a project, our accountant will indirectly blame the designer for not following up with them closely with her sneaky comments.

I digress...

Here is a photo of the bar, it's a pretty nice spot, we had 2 tables joined together, but because I was actually late, I ended up at the second table, and most of the conversation was happening at the first table, it was a struggle intially. 

Then the food came, the drinks came, serving sizes were small, people started moving around and Lily finally joined me and sat beside me to chat, so the evening felt more social after that. 

I had 2 drinks here, a Gin & Tonic and one of their own Cocktail creations, I did enjoy the former, but not so  much the latter. The entire group of us were there for about 2 hours before we got chased out by one of the staff for overstaying our reservation period, then all of us headed to a KTV place at Cineleisure where we were joined by few more people who couldn't make it in time for the dinner earlier.

The KTV session lasted from around 8.30pm all the way until 11.30pm, I drank probably another 3-4 cups of drink mixer, thankfully no one got full on drunk, so there was no vomitting or people passing out by the end of the session. Some did leave earlier than others, I left with the last of us, which was at 11.30pm, shared a Grab with one of the gym members since we stayed closed by to one another, and managed to get home at around midnight. 

What's amazing is a few of us were actually able to show up for gym class the next day at 7am!

3rd Oct

Post gym breakfast at Whiskdom on Saturday with Lily and a few others.

My social life now revolves around the friends I have made from the gym class.

It's actually nice that I was able to get what I had hoped for when I joined the gym because my depression before was caused by social isolation at work, and now I am getting enough socialising to get by. I do still feel lingering effects of the depresson on days when I am actually home the entire day, but it doesn't hit so hard anymore.

Rather than feeling just sadness, I now mainly just feel bored. 

4th Oct

Went to IMM to get a new pair of shoes because my Nike, the very first pair of shoes I got for gym class, is now starting to fail on me. The soles are starting to fall off so it felt like a very valid excuse to get a new pair of shoes.

This time, I actually went to try on the Shoes at the Nike outlet shop instead of just looking at them and the ones that I wanted to get, the Nike Free Metcon, those did not feel great to wear. Ended up getting another pair of ON shoes, total damage was $200 because I got the Cloud 6 this time around. 

It's just so much more comfortable than the pair of Nike. 

6th Oct

Had another birthday gathering for another gym member on Tuesday.

This particular one wasn't as happening as the one at the start of the month, but it was still a pretty nice gathering. It was at a resturant that one of our gym member works at, so we got one of the VIP rooms and were able to enjoy some discounts for the food.

We didn't end up staying as late as the previous party, some of us left earlier than others, I pretty much stayed till the end and then got a ride home from one of the gym members ebcause it was along the way.

10th Oct

Went to JB with two gym friends, Brian and Lily after our Saturday morning session, this was something we had plan months in advance, and Lily and I weren't actually sure if it was still going to happen because we had thought Brian wouldn't be too interested to go anymore because he recently started seeing someone and we thought he would rather spend more time with his girlfriend, but he pulled through like 2 days before the trip and confirmed with us about it.

Brian is important for this trip to actually happen because he is our designated driver.

 We left for Malaysia at around 11.30am, and the jam wasn't too bad, but the haze was pretty terrible, this was the view as we were heading towards our first destination.

 

Brian pretty much had the first half of the trip planned with a perfume workshop, he even made the booking beforehand so Lily and I did almost no planning at all. He had arranged for a 1.30pm class because we thought we would be stuck at the checkpoint for a longer period of time, but since it was pretty smooth, we had lunch first at the spot nearby.

The food was pretty cheap, Brian paid for this.

Then we headed to the perfume workshop studio once we were done.

The vibe isn't as great as the eyecandle studio I had visited in Taipei

But they had a lot more notes to choose from. Lily and I had a great time just going through the different scents and shortlisitng the ones that we liked, or at least I did because Lily kinda got overwhelmed midway through the whiffing.

After about an hour of shortlisitng and mixing the scents, we each finally made our own little bottle, I asked ChatGPT to give my perfume a name based on the scents and that was what it came up with. It's a juniper bamboo scent with peony as the opening note. It did grow on me a little, but as of writing this post, I have gotten bored of the scent, it's too one dimensional compared to the scents that I actullay pay hundreds for. 

It doesn't really last because it is an EDT, but it was quite cheap, only $35 for the entire experience, if I had done this alone I would probably have been a bit disappointed by the end result, but the company I was with made this really fun.

After this, we took a stroll along a Pasar Malam, had fried baby crab and some drinks, the baby crabs were nice and crispy, and I got a mango slushie with sour plum powder, it was really refreshing, especially with the warm weather. 

When we were done with the Pasar Malam, we headed to a mall nearby because Brian had to get some stuff, so Lily also went to get a buy a few snacks back home and she ended up spending about SGD $200.

Once we were done with the mall, I directed Brian to this cafe I had seen online called Tree In One. This wasn't my first choice, my first choice was to visit another cafe called Mood Cafe because it was more my style in terms of vibes,but sadly that cafe closes at 6.30pm and it was already 5.30pm by the time we were done with our mall visit.

A shot of the cafe's exterior at night.

The interior is pretty cool as well. It wasn't too crowded when we visited, managed to get seated pretty quickly.

And the food offering were all so cheap compared to Singapore, but I have to say, the food themselve weren't really rave worthy, it was quite meh, but for the price I will say it was prety good.

 I also urged for us to order dessert because I just wanted for us to have dessert, sadly it wasn't that great as well, would have been nice if they had Ice Cream or some sort of whipped cream to accompany the toast because this was quite boring on it's own.

We ended up staying in the cafe till about 7pm, talked about stuff. Brian is the first friend I had made in the gym and Lily is one of my good friends that I have made in the gym, so to have gone on this trip with the both of them was the best combination I could have gotten.

Brian ended up driving us home, literally to our doorstep, it was so nice, I felt so pampered during the entire trip.

12th Oct

We officially made the move to the new office on Monday. 

I have spend the last 3-4 weeks packing the old office whenever I had time and to finally move from Whampoa to MacPherson, I am still not sure how I feel about it.

I like the new office because it feels more like an Interior Design company (and because I was also the one who designed the new Showroom), everything about the new Showroom is just so much better than the old Showroom. 

What I don't like about the new office however is the location. Travelling time has increased, it now takes me about 15 minutes -20 minutes longer to get home and I have lost access to all the cheap and good food around Whampoa, now when I want to get food, the closest foodcourt is a 10 minutes walk away, and the food selection there aren't great. If I want more selection, I can travel to Paya Lebar, but it requires taking a bus and the food there also aren't neccesarily cheap. 

I am just waiting for the realization that I have actually moved to a new office to hit me because I have been at that Whampoa office for more than 3 years now. But then again, that Whampoa office was also where my depression started developing so maybe not so much.

17th Oct

Went for my usual gym class in the morning but didn't have breakfast with anyone after class because I had made plans to meet up with Eric for lunch. And also to collect my Niko Neko Matcha powder from him, plus Lily, my regular Saturday breakfast buddy, was overseas so I didn't really have anyone to have breakfast with anyways.

Eric was late, so I headed over to Hvala at Ngee Ann City for a cup of Genmaicha first, this was about $11, it was a nice cup oof Genmaicha, but it's also quite expensive for just a cup of drink.

Walked over to Paragon when I was done with my drink, I am glad I used to work in the Orchard area because it really familarize me with how the different malls connect to one another and the best route I can take from Ngee Ann City to Paragon without being exposed to the Sun too much.

Our lunch appointment was at this ramen place, called Sanpoitei Ramen, which is apparently quite popular. I wanted to get there first to join the queue, but there really wasn't much of a queue and I was seated within 5 minutes.

Eric arrived maybe like a minute after I was seated and we ordered the food, it was honestly a bit meh, not really my style.

I managed to get my Niko Neko refill so that was nice! 

After lunch, we then headed back to Wisma Atria for some dessert.

Awfully Chocolate

Shared a slice of cake, this was a pretty good slice of cake. Stayed in the cafe for a while, then made our way to Diptyque because I also wanted to refill my bottle of LePapier, but unfortunately, the store ran out of the refill, so ended up leaving empty handed. I did consider getting a new small bottle of another scent to try, but none of them resonated with me.

After this, we made our seperate ways and went home.

24th Oct

Went for my gym class in the morning, had a quick breakfast with some of my gym friends after class and then came back home and booked tickets to Hong Kong for November.

I'm going to visit Hong Kong in November! 

I still have 9 days of leave that cannot be brought over to next year to clear, so this trip will help me clear 5 days, and has also set me back probably between $2,000 - $2,500 depending on how much money I will be spending there. At least it cost less than the iPhone Duo, which was something I had really wanted to get but just could not justify spending that much money on after I started keeping track of my spendings.

Anyways, I have booked the flights and hotel for Hong Kong, am low-key regretting my hotel choice. Ideal location would be to get a hotel located in Hong Kong Island, that's where the more modern spots area, I got a hotel in Jordan, which is at the mainland side and it's the older side of Hong Kong. Been working on an itinerary and all the places that I am interested to visit are on the fucking Island side.

That's what I get for making rash decisions and booking the hotel I booked because I saw it being talked about on TikTok. The room is also small as fuck

25th Oct

Met up with someone I had matched with on Hinge.

We had been talking for a few weeks prior to this meet up and the conversation flow online was quite good, so I was quite optimistic that this meet up would be a decent one.

I found this restaurant near his place called Madam Flod that specialises in Crepes, I thought we could get different flavors to try...

... and we ended up ordering the same thing.

This was actually really tasty and surprisingly filling. I was struggling a bit by the time I got to like the last few bites.

 

Went to his place after lunch because he literally lives a 10 minute walk away from the restaurant.

He gave me a house tour, told me the design decisions that were made to come to the final layout and it's houses like this that is just so interesting to experience because walls were removed, layout was reconfigured, it's like everything was thought out very well by his chosen ID.

After that, he offered me some booze in the form of Gin and Tonic and we just kept each other company until it was time for me to go, left his place in time for dinner, which I settled alone at Chinatown Point because he was still full from lunch. 

Definitely one of the better dates I have had in a while, but not sure if we would actually meet again in the future. 

September Photo Dump

4th Sept

Visited a close to completed project recently to take some photos of the place for my own viewing pleasure and also to keep a record of it.

I don't normally visit my sites because most of the time, they aren't really worth the visit with how much changes the clients would make to my original proposal, but this particular project is different, the clients for this project gave me full creative control and this is one of the first few projects that I have done where I felt like we had to make very minimal compromisation when it came to the general design direction of the space.

There were definitely areas where I could have improved, but this was definitely quite a fufilling project to do, it's the type that makes you enjoy doing your job as a designer.

8th Sept

Met up with my Fitstop Seconday School friend for lunch.

She has been talking about meeting up for lunch during a work day for a while now because we both work somewhat close to each other, and after I told her I will be moving to Ubi within the few weeks and won't have much time left to have a meal with her in the Novena area anymore, we decided to finally set a date.

I did my research and came across this cafe called Otter and Pebbles, so that was where we had our meal. Since it was also her birthday like a few days back, I decided to treat her to this meal.

We each ordered our own Udon, our own drinks and she got a side of fried corn to share, ( I only ate one corn because it was still on the cob and a bitch to eat), the total damage was $89.

I had thought it would probably cost me below $50, but nope, cafe prices are now insane.

We hadn't done a gym class together for a while now so it was nice catching up with her.  we mainly talked about our plans to get a BTO and I ended up taking a 2 hour lunch break, thankfully my boss didn't come into the office that day so I didn't get into trouble, not that he would really care as well to be honest.

12th Sept

Had a hangout session with Lily on Saturday.

Lily is like my new bestie that I have made from gym class after we bonded over our shared interest in perfume.

This meet up revolved around a visit to a perfume store called The Scent Parlor, which is a store that was introduced to me by Zo, and a place I had only visited with Zo. I have tried going with other Hinge dates before in the past but none of those ever came to fruition.

The Scent Parlour only opened at 12noon, and Lily and I made plans to meet up at 10.30am, so we spend the first part of the trip at this cafe called Pout Cafe Bar.

They are quite popular and this was a spot I was suppose to visit with Drew, but then back then, Pout only opened on the weekday, so it was a bit challenging. 

They decided to open on the weekend as well recently and by then, Drew and I had already called things off and we are no longer in contact with one another. 

I am glad to be here with Lily though.

If there was one thing Drew was good at, it was finding aesthetic cafes... and lying a lot. The view from the cafe is of Marina Bay Sands and The Singapore Flyer.

The whole place was such a vibe.

The items we had.

We were supposed to be joined by another gym friend of ours, but he had a last minute appointment, so he couldn't make it in the end and the entire day was just Lily and me.

It was nice though, she knows about my sexuality so I was very comfortable talking to her about my relationship stuff, and she in turn also feels very comfortable talking about things she wouldn't normally share with a straight male friend.

We ended up staying in the cafe for close to 2 hours before we decided to head over to the perfume shop.

I didn't take any pictures in the perfume place, but we were the only 2 customers there and we took our time sniffing the different fragrances.

Lunch was at this Vietnamese place nearby, I had originally intended for us to visit this Matcha cafe that was a 1km walk away, but after loitering around the perfume place for so long, I just really didn't feel like walking so far.

The food here was not bad, but the shop itself could have been cooler, I just felt really a bit sticky because of how humid the weather was and if the restaurant had been freezing cold, it would have been a really nice spot.

Popped by DOPA for Ice Cream after our lunch because I honestly didn't want the day to end so quickly, this was a spot that Zo had introduced to me as well, and I had Waffles and Ice Cream with him that time,  Lily and I just both got 2 individual cups of Ice Cream. It was really nice Ice Cream, but would have been great with the Waffles.

After this we went back to the perfume shop because I told her I wanted to go get a bottle of the cheaper perfume, she was really excited to just have the day last a little longer. I ended up NOT getting anything because I really didn't like the perfumes THAT much. 

Still, we had a fun time, Lily ended up spilling half a bottle of one of the cheaper perfume samples because she opened it wrongly, luckily the staff was nice and did not get her to pay for it.

That concluded our meet up on Saturday. 

19th Sept

Went for gym class and met Lily for breakfast after.

We went to Offsite AGAIN.

Ordered the same sandwich we had the first time because it was really nice, then stayed in the cafe for 3 full hours from around 9.30am all the way till 12.30 noon. 

We had different group of gym friends coming and going because there were 3 classes that day.

This was what I had ordered during our 2nd hour in the cafe with the last group of friends. 

Total damage that day was about $70 on my side because I paid for Lily's share as part of her birthday meal.

I really enjoyed just being in the cafe and having a bunch of friends to chat with, it has honestly been a while since I had a proper gathering like this.

Oh, and Lily actually gave me 2 candles from this brand to summer because she had extra ones leftover at her house that she wasn't using, I graciously accepted them and they smelled amazing!

I really can't bear to use them though, but I will use it very sparingly.

Photo Dump Updates

 Life has been a bit dull lately.

Now that gym class has become a routine of sorts, the intial excitment that I had towards it has slowly died down and just become a norm to me, a good norm because it has given me a consistent social life.

8th August 

Had breakfast with a few of my gym friends after our Saturday class, we went to visit Offsite cafe, which is super close to the gym.

Our usual spot is actually another coffeeshop in Beauty World, but that day, I decided to splurge a little with a friend I have made from gym, whom I shall just refer to as Lily. 

Lily has very similar taste in food as me, we prefer more westernized food, so instead of visiting the usual breakfast spot that we would go with majority of our gym members after class on the weekdays, we decided to splurge a little and visit Offsite instead, along with another gym member.

It was nice to be with a smaller more initimate group, we just chit chatted for maybe 2 hours before calling it a day. 

9th August

Made plans with Yen on this day to finally have a catch up session.

We visited this cafe called Mozmoji in Chinatown.

The entrance is at the side alley, so you will have to look for it.

It's a cafe that also sells handmade cups and plates, the whole cafe is very chill and quiet, at least when I was there.

I got myself a cup of Salted Chocolate Latte and Tofu Cheesecake, which were both really really good!

Yen was unfortunately like an hour late because she had forgotten it was a weekend and actually ended up waiting for a bus at her place that only operates on a weekday, she was really apologetic when she finally arrived at the cafe and we just took that time to catch up with one another about work and life in general.

We did stay in the cafe for a bit too long and were eventually asked very nicely by the staff to leave because everyone was only allowed about 90 minuts of dining, and at that point, we were probably sitting down for 2 hours, or at least I was because she was an hour late. 

Visited a few more spots around Chinatown, she was joined by her husband midway through and I did tell them I had to get home soon because I wanted to see my nephew who would be visiting that evening. 

10th August

Visited Offsite AGAIN with Lily.

What is funny is Lily and I had told ourselves that a visit to cafes like this should only be done once every 1-2 months because it's not cheap, but then here we were again, 2 days later.

I went to the café with Lily and two other gym members. Lily and I ended up staying there for so long that the other two eventually left, and later, we were joined by another gym member who had attended a later class that day.

All in all, Lily and I spend a total of 3 hours in the cafe.

This was an expensive long weekend.

15th August

Visited ANOTHER cafe, this time with my secondary school friend whom I usually do Weekend classes with.

Unfortunately, she had overslept that day and I ended up doing the class alone, well, not alone alone, I did pair up with someone in the class for the excercise, but I don't usually attend the class at that particular time because I am not close with anyone in that timeslot, so when my friend told me she wasn't able to make it for class, I did feel my social anxiety acting up a bit.

The guy whom I did pair up with eventually was fit, so I actually felt like I was going to pass out at one point because of how deseprate I was trying to keep up with him. 

Anyways, my friend came to the gym once the class was over to meet me and another friend of hers (who had taken the earlier class) and we headed over to the cafe together.

the Ritual.

Located at Stevens, this is the first time we had to take a travel via train for food, other times when we have breakfast after gym class, it is always walking distance from the gym.

Verdict for this cafe. It's good, not neccesarily mindblowing, but it's worth the visit.

18th August

I remember having breakfast alone after gym quite a lot this week, and this was one of the shots I took from my solo breakfast. 

A lot of the usual breakfast people either didn't come for class or they went for 5km runs after class, it's a bit crazy. I thought me joining them once or twice for a 1-2km run after class was already crazy, but then to go for a 5km after is insane.

But this week, I think I also wanted to take a social break and just have some quiet time during breakfast, so I went for my usual spot at TOMORO Coffee, which was the cafe I would frequent when I first started attending Fitstop back in December last year.

22nd August.

Had breakfast with Lily at another nearby cafe again after our Saturday gym class, she had just returned from her Malaysia trip, so she got me peppers and we talked about trying out Strawberries and Black Pepper together, thus the presence of strawberries in the photo.

She even brought a plate from home, as well as bottles of balsamic vinegar, it was very extra, but we had a good time.

This time it was just the two of us, so we really chatted a lot about our personal life and work life stuff, after breakfast, we went to an ice cream shop nearby to have ice cream as well because one of the other food combination we wanted to try was Vanilla ice cream with Olive Oil and Sea Salt, the latter 2 items we actually got from the supermarket after class, it was actually a really good combination, much better than the strawberries.

29th August.

This was the same day as my shitty interview that I had blogged about previously.

Went on a date with someone I met on Hinge in the afternoon.

Things with Bee are currently an enigma, like I don't know what the fuck is going on between us, so I have been matching with people on Hinge and going on dates, I did go for one the week before, that one was really awkward, this one on the other hand was a lot better, that being said, I don't think I will be seeing this guy for another date because we have stopped texting each other since then date and I also don't feel very compelled to want to reach out for more meet ups after this so there is that.

But back to what's going on with me and Bee.

We haven't really met up for an entire month now and our text messages to one another have been extremely sporadic, like maybe 2 -3 messages a week and they are super short messages that don't carry any sort of conversational weight. Things have definitely tapered down between us.

He did tell me we should get a meal together soon during our last sporadic text to each other and I told him we could meet on his next available day off from work.....he just left me on read. 

I will be honest, I had been thinking of calling things off with him for a while now because I have been struggling to find any romantic attraction towards him,  he is someone who is great on paper, has his own business, owns a place, drives his own car, and he is genuinely a very nice guy, but everytime we meet up, it feels like I am hanging out with a friend, not even like super close friend, but just a friend, much less a romantic partner. 

I guess him leaving me on read also proves that he probably feels like whatever we had has ran it's course, so a bit of me feels relieved as well, but the whole lip service aspect of bringing up the idea of meeting up again, and then not following through after I agree to it, it's very iffy. 

2nd Sept.

Met up with Zo

Zo had went to KL a week prior and offered to help me get Niko Neko Matcha from there, naturally I accepted his offer because the Matcha that I had gotten from Naoki and Crafti really cannot make it anymore after I had tried Niko Neko.

Another reason why I accepted his offer is also because it would present as a perfect oppurtunity to meet again, we had made plans to meet before this a few times but they just never materialize because neither of us ever followed through, but now that he has something that he has to physically pass to me, it makes the whole idea of meeting up feel more concrete.

We met at Bugis+, had Chick-Fil-A, he passed me the Matcha and we just chatted for the entirety of our time together, even after we were done, we just made rounds around Bugis talking non-stop about releationship stuff, work stuff, gym stuff, etc. 

Zo is a very thoughtful person, so it's just nice to chat with him about stuff, and also the reason why he has sort of become my benchmark for how thoughtful I would like the people I date to be.

Shitty Job Interview

Just went for a job interview earlier this morning, had to miss out on my Fitstop class for it, and it was not good.

The co-founder of this company is someone I had matched with on Hinge about a year back, we did chat a little then, found out that we were both IDs, but the conversation didn't sustain long enough to warrant a meet up, so for us to actually meet up in the capacity of a potential candidate and pontential boss almost  a year later felt really really weird, and it was really uncomfortable during the actual interivew because none of us really acknowledged the fact that we knew one another through the dating app (or maybe he might have geuinely forgotten who I was, who knows)

 I didn't enjoy the dynamics of the interview, it was extremely uncomfortable, I think I had a bit of an inferioirty complex as well because this guy is almost my age, is running his own ID firm, and here I was, applying to join his company as an employee. 

The interview itself didn't go well, there were a lot of questions being asked about my past job experience, a lot of scrunitinzing and I think a lot of my responses weren't what he had wanted to hear, so he kept probing and probing to the point where I was actually getting quite uncomfortable because it made me wonder if he was asking me because he genuinely expected a better answer, or if he doing that because he is just being a bitch (my inferiority complex kicking in), looking back, I think it might be a bit of both.

I came into the interview expecting it to be awkward, but what I did not expect was to feel like shit about myself afterwards. The sad thing about this job is that if the boss had been someone else who was much older with much more experience, I would have been really excited to go further, but alas, I really didn't like the guy after how the interview went. 

 

He did propose to "test" me by giving me a task to do, to prepare a space planning proposal with 3D included and send it over to him because he wants to see how I design and plan spaces, which in all honesty is fair, this is something I had done for another company before.

The other company gave me 1 week, this guy is only going to give me 1 day, and that was after he had commented and told me how he knows I don't have a lot of time because I am working working a full time job.

Huh?!

That's like a barista telling the customer that they are aware they are lactose intolerant, and then proceeds to prepare for them a latte made with full fat milk.

Anyways, I left the office feeling not so great about myself and my current career trajectory, met up with a friend for a meal after and throughout the meet up, the interview would just keep replying in my head for the rest of the day, which really affected my mood a little, so I did eventually email the ID firm this evening and told them I was going to withdraw my application due to personal reasons. 

It's now time to go back to Jobstreet and MyCareerFuture to look for more job openings. 

Client from Hell.

Work hasn't been going well lately.

There is this really difficult customer who has been really challenging to work with, and I have expressed to my boss how uncomfortable I am to be working with this guy because he is just a very unplesant individual.

Let's call this customer Justin.

Justin is a single 60++ year old guy who was referred to us by a previous customer, upon the first meeting back in March, I already knew he was going to be difficult, he had a lot of expectations and some of them were not realistic, when my boss tried to manage those expectation by offering some disclaimer, for example, expecting tiles to be 100% align and the grout line to be perfectly filled, which I will have to say are standards that we will of course try to achieve as much as possible, but because laying of tiles is ultimately still done by human hands, there will be some minor imperfections here and there, Justin was not having any of it and told us his expectations are very high and that we should be aware of it and esentially deliver that standard that he is expecting. 

It was a major red flag because of how stubborn he was about it, so I wasn't keen to work with him and I had told my boss how much I didn't like Justin, my boss agreed that he was difficult to talk to and I had assumed we were on the same page and we won't entertain Justin anymore, my plan was to offer him a simple space planning proposal and we would prepare a quotation for him, just as a gesture of goodwill seeing how he had come down to our office to meet us.

Fast forward a few weeks, no news from Justin, I thought he was gone, but for some reason, my boss decided to reach out to Justin and ask him if he had any feedback, and suddenly Justin was back in our lives again. We had a second meeting and it was really not going anywhere, my ideas were presented but he wasn't very keen on it, and we went thorugh that whole "expectation" and how he has very "high standards" chat again, it was exhausting and this meeting just reinforced my disdain towards the idea of working with him as a client.

Weeks go by and my boss decided to reach out to Justin again to check for any updates. Justin replies, but because he was going to be travelling, we didn't have a third meeting  but Justin would ask some questions and at that point, I just could not be fucked and left my boss to do the replying. After a while, the chatgroup just went dead, and it stayed dead for weeks, so all of us just assumed Justin is no longer interested and we all just moved on.

Well, Justin came back 2 weeks ago and now my life suddenly feels like shit again.

He was texting in the groupchat asking about a bunch of new things, scruntizinig the last quotation we send over and the way he worded his mesages were very unplesant and extremely entitled, writing certain words in captial letter to emphasis his point, so he would write this like...

I would EXPECT you to know where to find this materials because YOU are the expert, not me.

...everything is laced with a very passive aggresse energy and you can't help but just get extremely upset by them. I actually lost my cool and one point and replied to him the same way he replied to us, highlighting certain words in CAPITAL letter, but I don't think my anger was conveyed successfully because my boss didn't realize I had send that particular message in anger.

Anyways, I express to my boss once again how we should drop Justin and not entertain him because I didn't want to work with him as I felt like the project is just not worth the mental anguish this guy is putting us through , plus I also didn't want to waste Justin's time, I want him to quickly go search for another ID. 

But my boss kept replying back and apparently he had a call with Justin last week where the both of them were essentially shouting at one another on the phone, at least that was what my boss told me.

Upon hearing how unpleasant that call had been, one would then think that the toxicity of this client and just the way the call went, it is a pretty clear sign we should drop it before it gets to that stage.


This early design stage is SUPPOSED to be the fun part, it's where the client and the designer / contractor exchange ideas and work together to come up with the final design, the painful part only starts when the renovation begins, but with Justin, we are already experiecing that level of difficulty at such an early stage, the Project Manager is going to be dealing with a much more unpleasant version of Justin and if our one and only Project Manager quits in frustration, the company is essentially screwed because most, if not all the projects that we have on hand right now are single handedly being managed by that one Project Mnager..

So what does my boss decide to do?

Set up a Zoom call with Justin, and for me to be present so we can run through my proposal together. 

Fucking Hell.

This meeting happened yesterday and it was probably one of the most unpleasnt design meeting I had to sit through, it was 2.5 hours long of Justin just being extremely condescending, questioning every single advice we were offering him, I was literally shouting over the mic at him at the start because he kept debating my design choices, then when I realize how pointless the whole conversation was, I just switched off mentally and let my boss handle the rest, my boss was ALSO shouting in the mic because of how upsetting the covnersation was going and by the end of the meeting, I was just done.

I looked at my boss when I ended the call and asked him rhetorically...

"This type of customer you still want to take?"

... never have I had a design meeting where we were spending more than half the time debating with the client in such an aggressive manner, like the entire meeting is 

And my boss's response.

"I think we are making progress."

what.

the.

actual.

fuck.

...like what the actual fuck, I couldn't believe THAT was the fucking conclusion he came to. We literally sat in silence for like a minute because I just couldn't believe my boss still thinks this project is worth taking, that it is not going to become a complete shit show.

His judgement is completely messed up, why in the FUCK would you choose to work with someone who is going to be a complete fucking nightmare, we are only at the early stages of design discussion and both the boss and the designer attached to this project are already having an argument with the client over a zoom call, and my boss thinks "we are making progress".

For the longest time, I have been planning to find a new job, but this current job has always been so comfortable  (despite the shitty pay) that I just never really found the need to actively pursue a new company, but the way my boss is willing to put the team through this abusive collaboration with such a toxic customer has shown me just how fucked up his sense of judgement is and if there is a second Justin that appears in the future, I would rather not be here to deal with that shit anymore, I am not getting paid enough to deal with this shit.