Today was a bad day. Bad as in I had to leave work before I totally lost my composure. I feel like the guy in one of those “how do you get two chickens and a fox across the river one at a time with out the fox eating the chickens” puzzles. Only I’ve got two foxes and one chicken. I can handle the grief of Michele’s death. I can handle the grief of my mother’s death. The two combined takes me right up to my limit. I have no freeboard left for anything else.
Only I have a job, and that job, like all jobs, comes with a ration of stress. We are in the final eight days of our design. Originally we were to hand it off on June 19th, which slipped to the 26th, and has now slipped again to the 30th. Ordinarily having some extra time to tie up lose ends would be welcome, but in this case it feels like we are prolonging the end for no real gain. Certainly, I’m not enjoying it. I am burnt out on the endless slog through the minutiae that is this design. Adding to my stress is the knowledge that our current tasking ends on June 30th. There is a possibility that the next tasking won’t be in place by the following working day.
In other words, at a time when I have no spare bandwidth for stress, my job has become more and more stressful, the duration of the stress keeps getting extended, and after it is all said and done, it may really be all said and done. Now I don’t expect the project team to be let go after the 30th, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a delay while the ever so fine wheels of politics grind slowly forward.
On a scale of one to ten I would rate today about a minus three. I’m looking forward to a time when things will just suck again. I know that all of this will pass and I’ll be able to move on, but for now it seems unending and relentless. Venting about it here, be it maudlin or haphazard, has helped. Now all I have to do is beat the cats, yell at the neighbors, and smash something to feel better.
Just kidding… I would never beat the cats.
They know where I sleep.