An Unlikely Rescue

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I’ve wanted to write about this for a while. A lot has happened ever since Mr Designer parted with his ex-partner. And I never thought that there would be a day when the former would serve as a back-up for the later. Now that I have met his ‘secret team’, it shed lights on so many matters. It showed me a completely different side to Mr Designer.

Yeah, back to the incidence, satisfied with his ex-partner’s new designer’s designs for an earlier advertisement, I took a risk and asked only them to design our buntings. Their rates were the lowest, and Mr Designer would still get his 30% commission. I was convinced that they would meet the deadline and produced quality designs, judging but how fast the young chap worked the last time. Come Friday (the morning after the due date), I came back from a seminar and found nothing in my mailbox. When I sms his ex-partner, he replied that his new designer was on MC. He didn’t even realise it until I asked and Popeye expected it on Monday morning. Taking it lightly, he said perhaps he would send it during the weekend or on Monday morning itself.

I was really pissed, I gave them 3 working days! The other supplier told me they couldn’t do it in 1 day, and they don’t work weekends. Hence, I made an SOS call to Mr Designer. He did tell me earlier on to give him smaller jobs, he’d do them himself. Bigger jobs would go to The Team (I’ll share more on this in another entry). I bluntly told him that from experience, he took way too long to deliver. He assured me that won’t be the case anymore as he has access to The Team’s assistants, provided that he gives the company’s owner 15% of the profit from the job. He said he had wanted to tell me that for a long time but couldn’t do so until then. The week before, after he introduced me to The Team, he finally told me about him and his ex-partner’s separation. He smoothly related it to the fact that he had to delay paying the small amount he owed me as his ex-partner hadn’t paid him. That went on to their misunderstanding on the profit percentage and salary (nothing was in b&w) and lastly, he didn’t want to do any more job with the guy. Hmm… smooth.

I didn’t really get his peeve with his ex-partner until I met ‘his multi-skilled secret team’. Now I understand his complaints about him having to design alone when his ex-partner was busy rushing here and there. He was chasing way too many businesses in a wide range of expertise, without dedicating a team to work on them should they materialise.

So, I gave Mr Designer a deadline on Sunday noon. When he called me to ask to delay till evening, I wasn’t surprised. I even started to wonder what made me ‘blind’ again. I thought that he would disappoint me, as usual. Since my internet at home was down, he printed the designs and personally brought them over to my condo. I was watching ‘Juarez’ then, a movie about the rapes and murders of Latin factory workers. It had been a while since I last concentrate on a movie until the end. The seemingly normal plot was unpredictable and the pace was really good. Mr Designer asked me to finish watching the movie first, no hurry.

When I finally went down 20 minutes later, he was already seated on a new bench at the foyer downstairs. He looked relaxed. I was relieved and surprised when I saw the designs, he actually delivered them within 1 working day. And he was like the only person who didn’t mind working weekends; in fact they are no difference from weekdays to him. Oh yeah, I was alone so I didn’t invite him in. Not even when he had to use the washroom. It turned out that he has a cousin who used to live at my condo. So, he knew there was a washroom near the poolside. He himself wouldn’t take the risk to come up to my place anyway. And I found it refreshing meeting him downstairs, without getting into his car and taking off somewhere like always. It was already around 11pm.

On Monday morning, after I’d already printed Mr Designer’s designs and submitted to Popeye, his ex-partner emailed his young designer’s work. I was shocked with the outcome. The feminine colour choices were totally off. The text wasn’t complete, let alone catchy. The buntings didn’t even have proper headings. Popeye would have chewed my head off. Man! Thank God I had a back-up plan. I can’t believe that Mr Designer actually saved my ass that time. Yeah, after all that he’d put me through:)