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.

June Updates...

Attemped to bake for the first time in a long while and it was to make Sticky Toffee Pudding after the delicious one I had at PS. Cafe.

Looked for a recipe online and decided to make the one that looked the easiest...

... I should have known the recipe was going to be a disaster when the poster wrote how you could prepare the toffee sauce using the microwave, and so many steps were not explained in detail. 

This pudding was really moist, and not in a good way, the cake was not crumbly at all, it was actually mushy, the toffee sauce was fucking disgusting, the whole thing was a fucking mess, it looked so fugly. 

Decided to do more research and watched more videos of people actually doing the Pudding the proper way, not using the microwave...

... and it came out so much better.

My sauce was closer to Caramel than Butterscotch, but it was definitely leaps and bounds better than the first attempt. Nothing close to the one at PS Cafe, but it was a very decent bake.

7th June.

Made a batch for Bee, replaced a few ingredient because he can't take dairy, so the caramel sauce had to be made with Coconut Cream instead of regular cream, which was not bad, but it doesn't set the same way as regular caramel.

I also left the cake in the oven for a little too long, so it ended up becoming really dry, the difference an additional 1-2 minutes of overbaking makes. I brought the bakes over to his place and he got ice cream, which I told him was a requirement because we needed the ice cream to moisten the cake again.

It was still dry.

He didn't complain about the dryness and just kept telling me it was good.

We headed out after lunch at his place to look at more plants, I was so worried the weather would be very hot, so I met him in my Dry-Fit clothes that I would normally wear for gym class. The last time we met, I remember how sticky I felt and I didn't want a repeat of that. 

Once he got his plants, we went to this vegan cafe around the Dhoby Ghuat area called Lilac and Oak, I was worried it was going to be packed, but thankfully it wasn't too bad, probably because the location isn't the best and vegan spots don't always scream good food.

The plan was just to have ice cream and waffles, but we ended up sharing a main...

Rose Pasta but instead of Tomato Sauce, it's Gochujang, so this one was throwing me off because I kept expecting the pasta to have the same bounce as tteoboki, but it doesn't, it doesn't even have the same bounce as regular pasta because this is a vegan version.

Pulat Hitam Ice Cream with Waffles.

This was pretty good. It was a great pairing with the pasta, everytime I ate one, I would suddenly have appetite for the other, so they were acting as appetizers for each other.

Bee then suggested we have a slice of cake as well..

So Lemon Cake with Black Seasame it is. Not bad as well, but their cakes are on the drier side, and by that I mean it felt like the cake was pulling moisture from my mouth, maybe it's a vegan bake thing, the flavors were great, but I just wish it was lighter and more moist.

After this, Bee walked me to Plaza Singapura and we called it a day.

13th June

Saturday Fitstop class with my Secondary School friend.

I went for the 9.15am class with her, but if I am alone I will usually book the 8am one. Anyways, the 9.15am class is actually Competition Training, so instead of being just 50 minutes long like the 8am class that day, it was roughly aboout 75 minutes. I went knowing it was going to be longer, and I was quite worried if I can handle it, thankfully I did survive. 

We would usually have brunch after, but because this class was longer than the usual classes, I think it would be more apt to call this an early lunch. 

I opted to take a shower before heading over because the session was long, I was sweaty and I knew my shirt will start to properly stink up once I am dry.  We were joined by another gym member and headed over to Bukit Timah Plaza for sarnies at this shop called HunBun when I was done freshening up. 

The walk over was hot, which wasn't really surprising, and I normally wouldn't think to walk to Bukit Timah Plaza from Beauty World in the past, but I think being made to run around the area for cardio class has made me realize that the distance between the two places isn't as far as I thought.

Anyways, here is what I got, it's called a Caprese Diem and it's mainly just cheese and marinara sauce, but we added an extra chicken breast inside for some protein, I shared this with my friend, and we also got a side of fried Cauliflowers as well, which was equally tasty. Her friend got his own portion of another sandwich that was a lot more sustainable looking. 

20th June

I did not attend my weekend Fitstop class on this particular Saturday because they were having their Games Day at their other outlet and it was going to be a culmination of members from all 3 gym locations. Just the thought of being surrounded by so many unfamilar faces in what I know would be a very crowded event was enough to turn me off from attending it.

That Saturday would have been extremely lazy if I hadn't made plans to meet up with Bee for a very late dinner, since he had work, we could only meet after his work ended, which was at around 8.30pm, it was really really late, I remember how odd it felt for me to be heading out for dinner when the sky is already dark, the only time I would usually do that is when I am on a solo overseas trip and wanted to maximise the trip.

We met at Great World City and had a meal at P.S Cafe.

Had a chat about work and stuff, then had Ice Cream at Kind Kones, which was actually quite nice before calling it a night and headed our seperate ways.

27th June

Went back to my regular Saturday Fitstop Class in the morning, and since my friend wasn't able to join me, I decided to go for the earlier timeslot, which isn't Competition Training, so the class was not as long as the previous Saturday and also not as intense. 

One thing I have noticed about my body ever since I started going for gym classes is that it is perpetually in pain, if it's not the back, it's the shoulders, if it's not the shoulder's, it's the wrist, and if it's not the wrist, it's my thighs or my calfs, there is always just this constant ache somewhere and the odd thing is I actually enjoy the ache.

The lower back ache and wrist one maybe not so much because those are due to bad form.

Anyways, I decided to get a new pair of shoes for gym class and headed over to IMM to take a look at the selection. 

I really needed to get a better pair because I have come to realize that the current Nike shoes I wear is more for daily wear and short jogs, it doesn't really provide the best support for Functional Training.  I got ChatGPT to recommend a few options and it was either Nike Metcons or ON Cloud, both are around $250, which is more than twice the price of what I paid for my current shoes, and honestly so much more expensive than any shoes I had gotten in the past, because most of the sports shoe I had were free pairs that I got from the Army. 

A lot of the gym members wear ON and most of the coaches wear Metcon, I was defintiely more interested in ON, I did went to the Nike shop and Addias one to take a look at what they had, but it was so crowded and I was really confused where the shoes I wanted to look at were, so I just gave up and headed straight to Running Lab to look at the ON shoes.

Original price of the shoes were $240, Running Lab was selling them at $175, it was a really good deal, so I looked at the colour I wanted, struggled to find a place to sit because the store was also really crowded, found that they fit pretty well and got it after maybe just 5 minutes of being in there. 

Funny thing is I have seen this brand before when I was getting my first pair of Nikes for my very Fitstop class back in December last year, thought nothing of it then because I haven't personally heard of the brand before and it was so expensive, and then now that I have been with the gym for more than half a year and been seeing so many people there wearing this brand, suddenly I am getting FOMO and decided to splurge money on it ot get myself a pair. 

They do look really nice and is very light as well compared to my Nike, but I have read not so great things about their durability, so we shall see if it can withstand the test of time. 

Since I was already at IMM, figured I would have lunch there before heading home, so had a solo lunch date at Yuen Kee Dumplings, then bought some sour plums at a nearby food stand which was super expensive, 300g of plumes cost me almost $30, granted they were pretty good but I felt like I got scammed because they charge by weight and the shopkeeper was definitely overselling by constantly telling me add more because it didn't look like it was enough.

That's all for June.