Again with the time wasters...

I've always had this assumption that customers who make an effort to schedule an appointment to come down to the showroom to meet the designers are customers who are worth spending time and effort on.  But the last few customers of such that I have been getting are starting to prove otherwise.




 The very first 2 customer that I managed to close a deal with were customers who made the effort to schedule an appointment to meet me, and so when I was once again presented with 2 such customers, I really wanted to make an effort to impress them and get them to hand their project over to me to run.



Both customers were a pair of young couple, roughly my age,  who still had quite a while before they actually get the keys to their flat, they were in no rush, so after our first appointment, instead of telling them...

"I will email you the quote."

.... because that is what I say to customers I have no interest in dealing with, I decided to schedule a second appointment with them, seeing how it has been a while since I actually closed a new project, I was really itching for them.




Both customers scheduled the second appointment at least a month later, normally customers would schedule a follow up appointment a week later, but since they won't be getting their keys until the end of the year, they weren't in a rush, and for that a while, they went silent.




During that period of silence from them, I decided to do up a quotation, a space planning proposal, as well as a Sketch Up of my design proposal for them, all in the hopes of impressing them with my sincerity a month later.




About a week ago, one of them drops me a text message reading...

"Hi Tim, could you email us the quotation instead so we don't have to meet again?"

 .... just straight to the point. There really isn't anything I can do if a customer loses interest, so I  just emailed a copy of my quotation to them, feeling really dejected. luckily I did not spend a lot of time doing their sketch up, so most of my efforts were only wasted on their space planning proposal.



I wasn't too sad about it because I still had the second customer to rely on, I even prepared a Sketch Up for the second customer to see, but today, the second customer drops me a text reading...

"Hi Tim, you will be dropping us the quotation first right?"

... and that text message just made me feel so fucking demoralized, all the time and effort I have put into their proposal, and they won't even confirm the follow up appointment, I wasn't going to just say...

"Yeah sure, I will email you the quotation."

... and then never hear from them again, so I recommended that they actually drop by so I can run through the quote with them in detail and show them my 3D drawings, at least let me show you the 3D drawings I have prepared so my effort won't be wasted.

No response. They even made it a point to turn off the blue ticks on their Whatsapp, so I don't even know if they have actually read my text.

Which is why I just deleted the chat. 

Normally, I would send the quotation out if they ask for it, but I am feeling a little spiteful about all the wasted effort spend on them and just customers like them in general, and they also texted me when I wasn't exactly in a very good mood, with all that had happen on Saturday, the last thing I wanted happening the day after is for a customer I have put in so much time and effort on to suddenly tell me that they wanted to see the quote first, a.k.a "I'm going to compare the price and then go for the cheapest one which won't be you", so they won't be getting my quotation anytime soon, maybe if they actually bothered to reply to my text, I will consider emailing them, but as of right now, I am not even going to bother reminding them about their appointment next month, you don't want to reply to my text, fine, then I'm also not going to treat you as a sincere customer, simple as that.



Never am I ever going to invest so much time and effort into design proposals for homeowners who aren't getting their keys anytime soon, just honestly getting really tired of all this type of customers.

I actually have a third customer who did something similar to me, but with him, it really wasn't because he was insincere, it was more of a scheduling conflict. He was down to meet me a second time, but every time something will get in the way of the appointment, like it's some sort of freaking sign that we were not meant to work together....

First time was due to a last minute cancellation on the client's part, which was fine because he rescheduled a second appointment a few hours later.

That reschedule did not go through because I had to attend a roadshow event, which as it turned out, wasn't even worth my time, was there literally from morning to night and I only got 1 customer who didn't even want to be there, they were pulled in because their cousin was involved in the administrative side of the event.

The third time I tried to reach out to schedule another appointment, I had to be a little careful with my dates because of the possible mobilization that was due to take place in the first half of July, which has forced me to reschedule so many fucking appointments with my existing clients, it was fucking horrible the amount of inconvenience that was caused by it, and then I had to run someone's feet over with my car on the day of the mobilization. But by this time, the client has obviously lost interest at the idea of having a follow up appointment with me, naturally, so I decided to just drop him a text to let him know I will email him the quotation and also inform him that I have prepared a 3D for him for his viewing should he be interested, he passes me his email and thanks me for the quotation.... that's the last text I got from him.

So about a week later,  I decided to check up with him and see if he was still interested, because I was interested to actually run his project for him, so I drop him a text message asking him if he would be interested to come by our company event to discuss his renovation project in detail, doesn't reply to my text, double ticks go blue means you have read the message and typing out a simple...

"Hi Tim, we are still looking around."

or

"We are no longer interested, thanks for your time."

... would suffice, I will get the message and not disturb you anymore after that, it's really upsetting how so many clients don't have the basic courtesy of informing us that they are not interested when we ask them, they just choose not to reply to the message.

How much does a WhatsApp message cost?  

Probably less than a cent in data charges.

How much was I paid by you for the consultation, the quotation and design proposal? 

Cheaper than a WhatsApp message because I am literally being paid NOTHING for offering those services to you. 

Horrible Day

Had to go to my site this morning after a very last minute call from my Electrician's worker who requested for me to be there.



A few days prior, I had found out that certain electrical points at my site wasn't at the correct location, so I dropped a text informing the electrician that there might be some issues with them, but that he didn't have to send someone down because I could rectify that issue in the future with the carpentry works.




So fast forward to today, I receive a photo from said electrician and in the photo, he had marked out where the new electrical points will be located, thinking he had probably just gone down to do some marking for future reference, I didn't concern myself too much about the picture and just responded with...

"Yup, those are the correct spot for the electrical switches."

... I get a call 15 minutes after sending the text from the Electrician's worker asking me if I was going to go to site today. A little confused as to why he was even there today when I did not arrange any work for them to do, I told him I wasn't planning on going down today, to which he responded....

"But I need you here today to tell me where to pull the wires to?"

.... I thought he was referring to the lighting points because I had requested for them to help me add 2 more lighting points in the toilets, so I told him I will be there in an hour and he hangs up the phone.

I had just woken up at this point, so as soon as I was done showering, I took the car and headed straight for the site. As I was parking, I receive a call from an unknown number and the person on the line goes...

"Hi, is this Tim? I'm a resident living around your project site, just wanted to let you know that your site is currently doing a lot of drilling works and is generating a lot of noise. I don't think drilling works are permitted on the weekends right?"

.... and that was when I realize something was wrong. I apologized to the person and he was really friendly about the whole situation, I, on the other hand, was livid.

This isn't the first time this bloody worker has started drilling holes into the fucking walls without my approval, this is the second time, so the moment I walked into my site,  I started shouting at him to stop and he goes...

"You were going to take a while so I started drilling first."

.... OMFG.

I had told his boss that I was not going to ask him to send his guys down to drill the holes for me,  I told him I was going to cover the fucking holes with carpentry work, but what do you know, he sends his worker down without telling me on a weekend when drilling works isn't permitted, and he even sends me the most incompetent worker he has.

And the worker kept going...

"But you never tell me, you never say properly!"

FUCK! I told your boss! And I could have told you had you fucking waited for me to arrive instead of starting work on your own. What the fuck is the boss doing not giving clear instructions to his workers, also not the first time, in the past, when I gave the boss instructions on how I wanted my wiring to run, he fails to pass those instructions to his workers, luckily I arrived at site just in the nick of time to stop his workers from actually installing the wiring in the wrong location and running the fugly trunking across the entire hallway.




This is the last time I am gonna be using this Electrician's services.








I also had to return back to camp today for a mobilization exercise and decided since the car was around, I will drive over instead of taking the public transport, so I took the car, picked my friend up from his house and we made our way over to the army camp together.




I have driven to the army camp a few times before, so I was a little familiar with the route, my only concern was really how bad the traffic would be because we were warned prior to the mobilization that it is highly recommend not to drive because it might cause a huge jam, and there was a jam as I got closer and closer to the army camp, but it wasn't as bad as I had imagined and within 10 minutes of being stuck in the jam, I was at the front of the jam, awaiting my entry at the gantry.




Since there was still a vehicle at the gantry at my lane , I decided to wait outside until instructed to move forward, but then I see the sergeant who was manning the gantry ushering me to move forward, so I released my break, moved forward and was kinda stuck midway between the marked out area where my car was suppose to be, the sergeant comes up to my window and ask for both our ICs, so I passed both of them to him.




As he turned his back to check our ICs against his namelist, I decided to release my break a little and drive forward towards the gantry so that my car wouldn't be in such an awkward position, his back was turn from my car, so I assumed it would be safe to drive forward without hitting him, I was fucking wrong.





That slight inching forward caused him to start shouting out in pain and it took me a while to register where his source of agony was coming from, I instantly braked and all the other soldiers who were standing around started swarming towards him and that was when I realized I had driven over his feet and braked right on top of it.





I didn't want to move out of fear that I might cause more damage, but he was groaning in pain because there's a fucking car with 2 passengers currently perched right on top of his feet, so I also wanted to move it to free his leg, but as I was about to release my brakes, this other Sergeant who was standing right beside me starts shouting...

"STOP DRIVING!"

... which of course made me step on the brakes again, and then he starts shouting at me asking me if I knew how to drive a car. I am still in shock and the poor sergeant is still groaning in pain, the last thing this entire situation needs is someone shouting at me and asking me if I know how to drive a fucking car.




Luckily, a more level headed commander came over and told me to slowly reverse my car to free the sergeant's feet, and when he was finally free, I kept asking over and over if he was alright, which was a really stupid question to ask and I can understand why he didn't respond to any of them.




I ran over to check on the sergeant's feet as soon as the car was parked and from what I can see, it doesn't seem to be too serious, the feet that the car was perched on was red but it didn't look broken and the sergeant did say to his commander that it didn't hurt as bad anymore. My particulars were taken down and I was told that I will be contacted should there be a need to.



Needless to say, I spend the entire day in camp feeling really guilty.

It's Vestigial

I have this colleague at work who is relatively unreliable and lately, she has been getting more and more "creative" with her excuses to leave work early.



Being stuck in the same duty group as her, I always have the unfortunate joy of hearing her reasons for either being unable to report for work that day, or having to leave early, she has also never arrived on time, always only appearing after lunch when she decides she wants to come.




If my colleagues in my group have job sites to run, then their absence would be understandable, but she doesn't, all her excuses for having to leave early are always personal reasons like...

"I have a dinner appointment with my friend today, so I will be leaving early."

"My friend will be flying off soon and I want to have one last meal with her before she leaves."

"I have to attend a Yoga class today."

....if you have to schedule a dinner appointment with your friend once on the day you are suppose to have your duty due to an oversight on your part, then fine, as long as you make sure to schedule it outside of your duty schedule the next time, I can understand, but doing it every single duty and expecting me to believe it was all an "accidental" arrangement,  please go and fuck yourself if you think I would actually be that stupid to believe you.




One time, she decided she wanted to leave early during a weekend shift because she just didn't feel like staying till closing, so she validated herself by telling me...

"There are so many people in the office now. Leaving now shouldn't be an issue"

... and then just packs her stuff and leaves, dropping me a message 5 minutes later telling me...

"This will be the last time I leave early, next time I will be sure to stay till closing with you."

... I was speaking to my clients at that time, so it was a really dirty move on her part to make her exit when I was busy and needless to say, by the time it was 6.30pm, "so many people" were all done speaking to their clients and had left, leaving me alone in the office from 6.30 pm to 8.30 pm, and that was when I had to deal with the self proclaimed Interior Designer from Taiwan who had a few loose screws in her brain.




About a week ago, out of desperation, I decided to ask her if she could help me overlook my site while I was away for my reservist in August, thinking that if she agreed, I could maybe share a small portion of my profit margin with her, about $200- $300, which I thought was pretty generous seeing how I wasn't going ask her to run my entire project, just overlook for 2 to 3 days when I was away.



Before I could share with her my intended reward for her help, she goes...

"Yeah, sure, it would be good for me to learn how to run a project as well, then we split the profit 50-50."

50/50 profit is normally shared by 2 designers who have contributed equally to a project, one person who closed the deal and came up with the design proposal will get 50% and the other person who runs the site from start to finish will get the other 50%.

I am the one who closed the deal with my client.

I am the one who came up with their design proposal.

I am the one who will be running a majority of the project site.

So.... ummm.... Excuse me?
Are you fucking insane?

The project will take about 6 weeks to complete and out of this 6 weeks, I am only expecting her to help me overlook 2 to 3 days worth of renovation works, where she will probably only show up for 1 day seeing how her track record at work has been for the past few months, and she expects 50% of the profit, girl is crazy if she thinks I am alright with arrangement.

Of course I was not agreeable, so I went to enlist the help of my senior colleague and he was able to relate to my issue because he is also Singaporean and has to go through the same shit every year, when I offered him monetary incentives for his help, he goes..

"Don't need, since the site is so near to our office, it won't be too much of an inconvenience for me, I will help you overlook the site for the few days while you are away, then I will update you via Whatsapp with the photos as well."

... such a generous heart, and so I offered to buy him a meal in return, but that request has since become invalid because I have decided to push the project forward and am now in the midst of attempting to complete everything before I actually go back for my reservist, I would still offer him a meal for being so agreeable to help me for free though.

So anyway, yesterday was my duty day as well and since I was on site for the first half of the day, I was only able to reach the office at about 11.30 am, about an hour late, and lo and behold, unreliable colleague was still not present. I was late because I had to go to my site, she was late because, well, the only early she knows is leaving. 

I am not a confrontational person, so I have never really confronted her for her tardiness, which has in turn cause me to have a deep seated resentment towards her as evident from this post, which was why when a customer decided to walk in to the Showroom yesterday, I almost snapped at her when she came up to me me and requested for me to serve the customer like it was solely my responsibility to handle the walk-in customers when she was also on duty that day, I was pissed off at her response, so I told her at a volume that was a little louder than usual...

  

"Why don't you serve ? You are also on duty today!"

... I made sure to say it as jokingly as I could, but there is definitely a hint of anger in my voice when I said it, which made me feel really bad afterwards. I guess my response did not come across as harsh to her because when she was finally done with the customer, she sat right across to where I was sitting and started sharing with me what the customer wanted to do, and about a few hours later, tells me she is going to leave early at 8.00 pm because she had a Yoga class to attend, she left at 7.00 pm.

She did tell me she was contemplating whether to quit or not and after leaning of her desire to resign, I have started to view her as a vestigal employee, like an appendix, like it's there, but what is the point of it being there.





(Update)

Just came back from a company meeting not too long ago and good news is she has been transferred to another group, so good luck to that group who got her.

---

Was playing a little Overwatch earlier and nowadays when I get called out by toxic players for being bad at the game, I will never respond back simply because I just don't have a good comeback to the constant...

"Noob!"

... and a lot of times, I only get upset for a minute and then I am fine afterwards, but I have to say, it is really gratifying to sometimes respond back and just anger them.



For example, I was playing a game earlier, and the team only had an Ana, I doubt she would be able to heal the team on her own, so being relatively okay with playing Mercy, I decided to pick her and I started healing away, things were going pretty well at the start until things actually went to shit when everyone started to die one by one.




The problem with players dying one by one is that they start rushing into the enemy point alone the moment they respawn, which means by the time I am within proximity to heal them, they are already dead, and as a healer, this can get really really frustrating because it's not that I am not playing my part well, it's just that I can't really do much if the other players want to rush into the enemy's point without waiting for their healers.



Needless to say, we lost the game and of course someone in my team who was playing a Pharah had to do the inevitable and started blaming the healers...

"Noob Mercy"

"Noob Ana"

.... this Pharah player was pretty much useless during the game because every time I was on a look out for her in the sky so I can fly towards her, she wouldn't be there, and its only after I have died and respawn would I see her from across the map, getting killed by the enemy team and falling from the sky. 

I wasn't really angry at the Pharah player for blaming the healers, I have been blamed many times by badly coordinated group for being a horrible player and I have also been praised by well co-ordinated groups for being a great player, so a lot of times, when other players start playing the blame game, I won't respond, but for some reason, I decided to respond back to this player, and rather than stringing out a whole paragraph of how he was pretty much useless throughout the whole game as a Pharah player and then explaining my reasons for not being able to heal him, I just wrote a sweet and simple...

"Noob Pharah"

... and that was enough to warrant a "Fuck You" reply from him, sadly, before I could respond back to him in kind, he had already left the group, but not before being pointed out for being a bad player by someone else in my group.

So now, I have learn that there is no point in trying to explain yourself to a toxic player about why they are the problem,  it's so much easier to just give them a taste of their own medicine in the chat with the same chidlish insult, that will be more than enough. 

I think she's a little crazy....

Something weird just happened and I am writing this entry at work because everyone from my group decided to leave early either for work reasons or because they are just straight up unreliable.



About 20 minutes ago, someone came in asking if she could exclaiming she wanted to use our toilet, I noticed she was trudging in with her shoes on, so I politely ask her to remove her shoes before she came any further because everyone is suppose to remove their footwear at the entrance.






Normally when someone comes in with their shoes on, and then gets told that they have to take their shoes off, they will always apologize immediately, walk back to the entrance with haste and remove their shoes before entering again because once they realize they might have dirtied the floor with their shoes, they will feel bad, and immediately apologizing is pretty much a natural response, but the toilet user who came trudging in with her shoe really gave almost zero fucks, the only fuck she gave was when she took off her shoes, but instead of placing her shoes at the Shoe area like everyone does, she just left it on the floor where she was standing, which is in an area where shoes aren't allowed, and heads towards the toilet, asking me what this company was, what was my profession, and upon learning that she had just walked into an Interior Design firm, proclaims that she used to be an Interior Designer back in her country of Taiwan before walking into the bathroom.

I mean good for you, whatever. So she uses the toilet and I went back to my table to continue with what I was doing, thinking that when she comes out, she will grab her shoes and leave without saying anything, she was really uncouth when she came in, so I was not expecting any..

"Thanks for letting me use your bathroom."

... when she came out.




A few minutes later, I hear the toilet bowl flushing, the toilet doors opening, which was soon followed by a yelp, curious, I turned my head and see the Uncouth Lady walking out and telling me.....

"Your toilet door is so small, this would not have passed the building regulation in Taipei."

This isn't Taiwan, so once again....

She walks up to my table and request for a piece of paper, so I pass her an extra floorplan I had lying around thinking she was going to sit down and write something, but she grabs my file that has all my client's information inside and starts to use that as a clipboard, which is completely redundant because the file isn't sturdy enough to function as a clipboard, and more importantly, rude, because that file is filled with my client's information, there are important documentation inside, you don't just grab a file with unknown content inside and start using it as a writing board.



But she does and she walks towards the toilet door and start scribbling random words on the paper I had provided for her, and then she asks for my measuring tape and at this point, I was just really confused, so as I passed her my measuring tape, I asked her...

"Where are you from?"

... thinking she was maybe some supplier that had been send by the boss to inspect the toilet door.

"I'm from Taiwan."

I was asking for a company name, not your place of birth.



She takes the measuring tape, starts measuring the door and from the way she was fumbling with the measuring tape, I could tell that she really wasn't an Interior Designer, I really have no fucking idea what she was doing, but she was so full of shit the entire time, telling me things like...

"Do you have a 3 meter measuring tape? Do you have a 1 meter measuring tape? You should have those measuring tapes in your possession as well. You know the 1 meter measuring tape? The paper one? we Interior Designers need to own those type, so when we measure, we can tear off the measurements."

Never heard of that in the 4 Interior Design firms I have joined.
Never heard of that from my 3 Years I spend studying for an Interior Design Diploma.



The Smell of Bullshit that is emanating from this lady is intense.




Once she was done sharing her insightful advice with me, she decides to sit on the floor and carried on with her version of measuring, which didn't last long because as soon as that measuring attempt was over, she gets into a prone position and starts scribbling Chinese words on the paper and tells me....

"My name is Circle, I am from Taiwan."

.... she kept writing gibberish in this atrocious handwriting of hers, walks up to my table and plops herself on the empty seat next to me before continuing with her writing. When the paper was covered with random Chinese words with no space left for anymore scribbling, she requested for more paper, to which I responded with...

"I'm all out of paper."

... because I just wanted her gone, she doesn't really care and just grabs one of the floorplans I had on my table and tells me...

"I haven't seen floor plans in such a long time"

.... and starts scribbling her name on it all over again and whatever she was saying out loud, random phrases like "Taiwen of Taipei" and random Chinese words that made zero sense, when she realize that I might need the floorplan, she looks at me and says...




"Later if you need this, you can just erase all my writings."



... if you think I might need it later, then stop writing random gibberish on it !?! Not only did she not stop, she even proceeded to write her email down, her name again for the fifth time, her Instagram account again and when I looked at it, she tells me...

'Those numbers are actually my phone number, it's so much easier to remember my email that way if I just used my phone number, this here is my full name, this is my Instagram account name, this is my email and here is my phone number, just add the country code before you enter my number so the call can get through." 

I really didn't know what to do at that point, what am I suppose to do with all that information, why are you even sharing all that information with someone you met less than 10 minutes ago, she doesn't even ask for my name card or anything about me, just kept yapping about really random topics, like her friend being in Malaysia while she was in Singapore and something about taking the Public Transport in Taipei, her train of thought was extremely random which made me a little worried because at that point, I just realized that she might actually be a little bit crazy.




I really wanted her to leave, I didn't want to force her out because I was actually afraid that she might lose her shit, so I entertained her for a while and she continues to give me even more advice she had spun using the shit she harvested from the bulls like...

"Every Interior Designer should have 3 pencils, a red, a green and a blue. The Red one is usually 2B and the Green one is HB."

... like all the advice she had shared with me, that was automatically filtered as Complete and Utter Bullshit.



She gets up from her seat a few minutes later and starts walking around the Showroom again, asking me to take pictures of the Showroom to send to her email...

"Take a picture of the toilet and send to me, the flooring here as well, and that flooring, and the feature wall, as well as this platform area."

 ...I didn't respond to her request because I had zero intention of sending her an email. It's really quite ridiculous how she was expecting me to just help her take photos and send them to her via email like I am obligated to do it. I told her if she wanted the photos, she should just take them herself, even though photography isn't allowed, I just wanted her to leave and I thought the quickest way was to let her take the pictures she wanted, to appease her to leave, but then she tells me that her phone did not have any battery left.





Not even a minute later, her phone suddenly has power again and she tells me that she wants to do a video walk through so her boss back in Taiwan can see what we did with our Showroom, she hands me the phone and then asks me to record the video for her and my aim at this point was to just have her leave the Showroom as soon as possible, so I took her phone and walked briskly through a portion of the Showroom as I begrudgingly took the video for her...

"Can you slow down? You are walking too fast."

... I didn't care, when I was done, I handed the phone to her and she doesn't even let out a word of thanks, instead, she goes...

"Did you make sure to record until the toilet door?"

She wasn't really pleased with the video I had shot for her, so she gets up and starts snapping photos of the place, she started at the toilet, moved on to the flooring and kept talking to herself, constantly referring to herself as "Boss"...

"Boss, if the office is designed like this, I can just call this place my home."

.... and she kept laughing every time she made a comment, like she was telling the most hilarious joke in the world.

When she was finally done with the pictures, she returns back to my desk, takes out the Map of Singapore, lays it on the table and then asks me where she was, asking me where the nearest MRT Station was and after telling her that she needed to take a bus to reach the nearest station, she goes...

"Need a bus to reach? Didn't you tell me it was within walking distance?"

... No, I didn't...

"So will the MRT Station be before or after the McDonalds?"

... What dafaq are you talking about?

I kept reiterating to her that she had to take a bus to reach the nearest MRT, but it just won't register and finally, FINALLY, she tells me...

" I will just walk there."

... and leaves the Showroom.




It was so fucking weird and before she left, she was telling me things like...

"One day when I am back in Taiwan, I will get all the basic things an Interior Designer should need and send them to you."

.... so I guess I have pencils and paper measuring tapes to look forward to in the future.

Flake Off!

I got stood up by a client today and I have to say, I was a little irritated with how nonchalant the customer was when she told me she couldn't make it down.



Nowadays, when I don't have any duty to attend, I won't make my way to the office. In the past, I would because I was still considered new then and was suppose to go down everyday to learn from the seniors, but now that I have proven my worth by closing 3 different projects, I'm guessing the boss isn't very stringent about my daily attendance anymore.


Today was one of those days in which I didn't have any duty, my only reason for heading down to the office today was to meet this client that had confirmed an appointment today at 2.30 pm.



So I left home at 12.00 noon, ate my lunch and then waited in the office for the client, thinking by 2.30pm, she will open the doors to our showroom and ask for me, 2.30 pm goes by and there wasn't any sign of her, I thought maybe she will be 15 minutes late as most customers usually are, but then 2.45pm rolls around and there was still no sign of her, I felt something was amiss but decided to give the client the benefit of the doubt, but then by 3.00 pm, her sorry ass still wasn't showing up and at that point, I knew something was up, so I decided to give her a call.


In my head, I had envisioned 3 possible scenarios.



1. She doesn't pick up the phone at all. Fuck customers like this.


2. She had forgotten about it, apologizes and reschedules another appointment.


3. The one I hate the most, she tells me her requirements on her phone and asks me to email her a quotation based on those requirements. Time wasters like this can honestly go fuck themselves, if I am feeling generous, I will give them a half fuck quote that will exceed their budget, if not, they can wait till the cows come home for my quotation.



So the phone Rings and she picks up the call...

Client : Hello.

Me : Hi, is this Jaey?

Client : Yes, this is her.

Me : Hi Jaey, I am Tim from Interior Design Firm, we were scheduled to meet at 2.30pm today, I was wondering if you are making your way over now.

Client : Oh, I am a bit busy so I won't be able to make it today. *doesn't sound apologetic whatsoever*

Me : Okay, so would you like to reschedule?

Client : I will arrange a time and get back to you again. *code for not interested, not gonna get back to you ever again*

... it's so infuriating how irresponsible these customers can actually get, as if informing me last minute you can't make it isn't bad enough, let's not notify the designer, who might have pushed aside all other commitments to make time for you, at all and make him wait for half an hour. If you can't make it, inform us, don't just keep quiet and not show up, what the fuck? Do you think the designer's timetable revolves around non-paying customers? Fuck off! To think I had to travel an hour for the fucking flaker.

Thrown in the towel.

About a week ago, I had some commitments I had to attend to and could not show up for my Duty at the Showroom, so I decided to enlist the help of one of my colleague to help cover for me on that day and in return, I will take his place during his Duty.




The day arrives and he covers my duty while I went to attend my thing, and the very next day, I covered his duty so he could take a break, things went pretty well until about a day later when he suddenly drops me a text, requesting for the same arrangement to be made, seeing how he was more than ready to help me when I asked for it, I naturally decided to return the favor and just help him out.





So the day after my original duty ended, I had to return back to the Showroom the next day to cover for him, and after having to report to work only once every 3 days, the thought of having to go to work 2 days in a row sounded like torture, but I was able to find solace in the fact that I will be getting a pretty long break away from the office after the 2 days since he will be covering my next duty for me, essentially leaving me with 4 duty free days.





Tomorrow is the day he is supposed to be covering my duty for me and I was more than ready to just sit back and relax at home, do a bit of brainstorming work for my clients and not worry about having to attend my showroom duties, that was until I saw him getting removed from the Company's group chat.





The only reason why someone would be removed from the chat would be because they have tendered their resignation and I have known for quite a while now that he has been really conflicted about continuing on this career path that wasn't generating any income for him, I was already expecting him to quit, but I was not expecting him to actually quit the day before he was suppose to cover my duty.




If I were to look at the bigger picture, his financial issues are definitely more pressing than covering my duty, but it would be nice to at least tell me beforehand...

"Hey, this might seem sudden but I have just resigned from the company, thanks for covering me on Monday, but I won't be able to cover your duty tomorrow as agreed, know that it is not intentional, so sorry about it."

... if he had the initiative to actually apologise and explain it to me personally what has happened right after it happened, then fine, I would have been happy for him that he has finally told the boss about his conflicted feelings towards the job he has been having for months, but he didn't.

I know it wasn't his intention to actually take advantage of me, but it would be nice if he had a sense of duty (no pun intended) and delivered what had been agreed upon not even 3 days ago, or at least have the initiative to apologize to me and tell me he won't be able to cover my duty the next day. I mean he didn't even tell me that I had to go back to work the next day, had I not noticed his removal from the group chat, I would still be oblivious to the entire situation.

I wished him all the best for his future endeavors but this really isn't the final impression he should have left me with. Irresponsibility isn't a very nice color on anyone, now I can understand why Little Miss Clit Face was pissed off at me when I left ID1 without personally informing her 4 years ago.

I'm not the other interior designer.....

When I was first presented with my third clients, I had every intention to do their project for them, at that time, I still didn't have any projects on hand, so my hunger for projects to run was still quite strong.


Discussion with them went well and we spoke for 3 hours during our first appointment with every subsequent appointments lasting equally long.



Prior to my third client's confirmation with me, I had already closed 2 different deals, being a newcomer in the industry and a complete newbie at project management, the last thing I wanted to do is handle multiple projects at one time, in fact, after I got my very first project, I was ready to completely focus all my energy on that one project, to get it perfect so it can be something I can be proud of, but then a miracle happened and another client of mine suddenly calls me up out of the blue and decides to hire me do renovate their home for them, an opportunity I am really grateful to have been given, until I realized the only reason why they picked me was because I had grossly under quoted them on certain items due to carelessness of my part because I am an idiot.



And then a week later, my third client gets back to me and request for me to amend the quotation for him and his fiance to look over and consider. I was really honored when he told he he had shortlisted me and another Interior Designer, I really was, but I really really had no interest to do his project for him, for his sake and for mine because of how encumbered I was mentally to have to come up with 3 different interior design proposals simultaneously.

They also didn't really make it very hard for me to not want to close a deal with them during the third appointment, with their constant...

"The other interior designer we found were offering us this item for free."

"The other interior designer was actually offering us a lower price."

"The other interior designer actually charged us lower for this item."

.... a customer comparing me to "the other interior designer" or "the other design firm we found" is slowly becoming one of my pet peeves.



If the other Interior Designer is offering you a better price, then go get the other interior designer to do your renovations for you.

I was trying really hard to get them to settle for the other Interior Designer over me because I could tell from the way that they were trying to haggle for my final price to be lower that any additional cost I will have to bill them in the future will be met with a similar response.




Well, my attempt to get them to pick the other Interior Designer was unsuccessful, they were persistent and they actually managed to guilt trip me into lowering the overall price for them....

"We actually came down to see you for a third time, that should prove our sincerity. It's not my intention to make things difficult for you, but my wallet is also bleeding from this decision to pick you."

... and in the end, I gave in and gave them a $2000 discount.



That was 2 weeks ago and right now, I am facing the very exact situation I had predicted would happen, after informing them of certain additional cost that will be incurred from their decision to add extra carpentry works...

"Wow, that is quite expensive, could you maybe just waive off the extra charges?"

... the extra charges was roughly $200, and he was requesting for me to waive it off like it was spare change. Of course I couldn't waive it off, it was way too much money for me to simply waive off, especially after I had given them the huge $2000 discount, so I told him that it was going to be difficult and he goes...

"But the other interior designer was offering to do that item for us free of charge, I am not kidding."

I can't even anymore with them, I was actually ready to enjoy a slice of brownie from awfully chocolate when I received a text from my client sharing with me his experience with the other interior designer who is throwing in all kinds of free shit, it's like suddenly, all that anticipation I had for that brownie just disappeared. I still ate the brownie, but it didn't feel like an amazing brownie anymore.

I am not the other Interior Designer! Stop bringing that person up!