Of Cocks

Today will be remembered as the biggest screw up of the year. With some great lessons learnt. This morning I met again with a customer who was not satisfied with the samples I showed him yesterday. So today, I brought him a whole new set of samples and what a shit load of crap happened.

This guy, a male in his forties. A typical Chinese businessman with great negotiation skills, very spontaneous with tactics due to his vast experience in the market. This guy can simply walk his way out of any negotiation. He made me agree with whatever he said. I had no say. He is the boss.

To cut it short, he chose the materials and kept bargaining his way to the best deal. There was when I made a huge and silly mistake by under quoting him 35cents per square feet. 35 cents can easily work out to a few thousand dollars but thankfully, it was a smaller area so the difference were in hundreds.

By the time I realised something was wrong. I was already in the lorry and had to report back to office on my offerings. I did some calculations and knew immediately I screwed up big time and I'm sure to get fried both ends. Only which is worse, the customer or the office people. I reluctantly texted back office and immediately received a call upon confirmation. Office people kept their calm and faxed a new quotation with the correct price to the customer.

Customer called me and asked me what the shit is going on. So I apologised and said I made a mistake earlier on and quoted him the 'supply only' price. Although only verbally and with no written contract by both parties, he accepted the offering at that particular price. He replied,

'that's you and your office's problem. Nothing to do with me. I'm only responsible to accept or deny your offer at the earlier price you gave me'.

I can only comply with his terms and said I'll try to arrange things out. He even thanked me for my mistake. I must be a real joke.

Damn. He was well aware of my error and took it as an advantage against me. I can only wait and anticipate for a soundful when I return back to office. Being caught in that situation was really intense. I really had a bad morning. One cock up followed by another.

Office said fine. We must then offer him at that price and faxed him the quotation he was well awaiting for.

I returned back to office, seriously got fucked up. Why wasn't I paying attention to the 101 prices I have to remember. Why didn't I study the invoice book. We don't pay you to be blur. Why did I keep calling back office to confirm the price. Can give customer more confidence in you or not? If I kept calling back, what good am I? if I don't call back, I get the price mixed up and this shit happens. I could only stay quiet and calm. I have simply no one else to blame. Time to own up.

My whole day was turned upside down. I told them to dock my pay for a lesson. They said it's okay since I'm gaining experience. That's one consolation.

Didn't know what I was doing the whole day. My mind was in a great mess. I can't even talk to the office people like I used to. Picked up the invoice book to learn how to fucking write.

6pm. I made my way to Sultan Garden, stayed there till i was chased.

Lesson learned
Tomorrow will be better.