I have not been able to click with either of them, the husband is constantly questioning my design decisions, he keeps telling me something feels off with the color scheme, or the combination of materials I have selected is not nice, and when I ask him for more feedback so I can understand his preferred aesthetics even more, he tells me...
"We need your help to propose the design for us, you help us propose."
... so you want me to propose a billion different options for you to consider and possibly shoot down instead of telling me exactly what you want, these kind of clients are one of the most time consuming clients to deal with.
This is the second Saturday in a row of mine they have burnt, my boss and I literally just met them last Saturday and that meeting was actually worst, I was literally scowling during that meeting because I was so irritated at how inefficient the whole design meeting was going, like I don't know what the fuck you want!
I had presented to them a reference photo of a Kitchen I had found on Pinterest previously to use as a jumping off point for the theme of the home, they told me they liked it, so I followed the colour scheme of the reference photo, and the comments I get from the husband is...
"Something looks off. The colour don't match very well, it doesn't look like the reference photo."
... it's literally the same colour scheme and is literally on theme with the reference photo that they agreed to, but suddenly the colour don't match well.
For the meeting today, I was not looking forward to it because the clients are really dense, so that was bad enough, but right before the meeting ended, the husband suddenly requested for us to go to the tile shop together, this is after a 2 hours meeting, so I asked...
"You mean later?"
... because again, you have just burned our Saturday with a 2 hour meeting, we just want to call it a day and go home. I'm mentally exhausted because for a 2 hour meeting, we really should have tied down a lot of things, but it didn't feel like we did, and just felt like such an inefficient 2 hours for everyone.
He then said...
"Yeah, since it's just nearby right?"
...and we couldn't tell him that we didn't want to go, this is one of those request where you don't really have the option to turn down because it is true, the tile shop is nearby and it would be better for us to just settle all the tiles by today, so my boss and I begrudgingly agreed to it.
This particular tile shop is in the midst of moving to their newer outlet, so they are taking the opportunity to clear a bunch of old tiles. In an attempt to try and cut down on the renovation cost, the clients only looked at the tiles that were on clearance, which severely limited their options, most of what were available were honestly either ugly or dated looking, and the ones that were passable were either low in stock or completely sold out, worst part for me as the Designer (3D Drafter) is that I can no longer find the digital print of the tiles online because they have been taken off from the shop's website, so I have no idea what I am going to have to do to implement the selected tiles into my 3D for the renders.
Thankfully, the tile selection was pretty quick, I just wanted it to end, so I didn't offer too many suggestion, not that I could anyway because again, limited selections available, the vision I had in my mind can't be executed with the tiles they had, although if I were to be honest, I think we have very different aesthetic sense, so it would be a pointless endeavor to force what I think would be nice on them, I still did my job and spoke up if the tiles they had selected were really really ugly, but if they were passable, I just told them to go with it, because the choices were so limited, it's going to be average at best.
We were done within an hour. My boss had initially told me he will need to leave within 30 minutes for another meeting, but he ended up staying all the way with us, which I was thankful for because he had to liaise with the sales person to help us reserve all the tiles right at that moment due to the limited quantities available.
Before we bid adieu to them, the wife asked if we should meet again next Saturday, my immediate thought in my mind is...
"Fuck! No! You know we don't work on Saturdays, but you have already burnt 2 Saturdays of ours in a row, and now you want to make it 3?"
... I do not appreciate clients who only start looking for Interior Designers at the last minute and then puts us on a time crunch.
If you want to move into your new home by a certain date, you better start looking for, and actually engaging the services of an Interior Designer AT LEAST 3 -4 months before that date.
Literally just ask Google!
To be meeting the same customer every week is intense, usually, I will meet every other week just so I can have at least 2 weeks in between to update my drawings, especially with the amount of projects I am currently dealing with at the moment, 2 weeks should be the bare minimum.
Sigh.
We eventually decided to settle on a Monday with an online meeting instead, which I think will be even worst than meeting in person, so I am definitely not looking forward to that.
I so wish this clients would just drop us and look for someone else, but it's probably too late for them to do that unless we really fuck things up, like me engaging in some sort of verbal assault with them, plus the project is worth at least $100,000, so financially speaking, it doesn't make sense to do that just because the designer is uncomfortable with the clients.
Aside from this big project, we also have another big one, for that one, I am a bit more hands-off, or at least I am trying to be a lot more hands-off and just let my boss handle it because the clients did say that they didn't need a designer onboard with their project, the husband for that project is pretty much doing all the drawings and layout plans. My boss just added me into it to help "tie up any loose ends" for the clients in terms of design choices, but I am honestly not needed at all.
As sorry as I feel for my boss, because of how overwhelmed he currently is with all the projects coming in, I really do not want to help with that particular project. I am also extremely overwhelmed myself as well with my current project load where I actually need to be involved in as a designer, my bandwidth is at it's maximum capacity, I just cannot deal with anymore new ones or ones that I am not necessarily required to be a part of, and this is something I have been hinting at my boss, so all the new enquiries have also been redirected away from me.
When I see job ads online and they write...
"Relish working in a challenging environment."
...this is what they mean I guess. Most companies would treat it as an opportunity for growth, but when you are overwhelmed with work, you are overwhelmed with work, growth can only happen when the workload is a lot, but it's still manageable, not overwhelming, that will allow the workers to grow by teaching them how to manage their time better, but if a company is overwhelming you with work, than that is different, if they do that and are not aware that they are doing that, it just shows that they are the ones who needs to growth and actually learn.
To be fair, my boss didn't write that in the job ad, also I have not gotten any pay increment since I joined the company almost 2 years ago, which I am personally not very pleased about, but it's a give and take situation since my boss is much much nicer than any other bosses I have ever worked under.
That being said, times like this just makes me want to look for a simple admin job. Don't have to think too much, clock in, clock out, stress free life, or work in a Government Sector where there will be stability and consistent pay increment. I would really like to work in the Government Sector, I just need to really look for one that is suitable with my current skill set and experience, one would assume HDB be the obvious choice since it seems to be co-related to Interior Design and Construction, but then all I see are openings for Estate Management, Data Scientist, Technical Product Manager, HR Manager, etc, which makes sense because the Interior Design aspect of it is for the homeowners to go look for on their own once they get the flat.
My search continues...
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