February 21st, 2007
I’ve been completely stressed out lately. Stressed to the point of being overwhelmed. Overwhelmed to the point of near-paralysis.
I spent a rather eye-opening hour with the shrink last night who pointed out how connected my home-related stress is to my work-related stress is and how it all is just merging with my Winter-related depression and weighing me down to the point where I’m allowing myself to live up or down to whatever expectations certain people have of me.
I don’t know if I can explain this. It all seems so circular.
So, at work, my top thought is always that I’m going to lose my job, though that’s not necessarily the case. That, of course, is the result of my last job and looking back now, the jobs before that where the threat was always made present by the higher-ups as a form of possible punishment. So, the more negativity that MJ and FW present toward me, the more MJ hovers and tells me that I’m not doing my job correctly, the more FW unprofessionally berates me in public and tells me that he and MJ are worried they are going to have to finish my work, the more anxious it makes me — especially since I am currently already highly anxious due to a very high-anxiety-producing deadline looming. I just want some sort of validation that my job is not at risk.
On top of that I just bought a house, right?
A house that appears to have some “issues”. The beadboard in the kitchen appears to be drying out from what little heat I’m using. The paint is bubbling and splitting. It looks horrible. Cracks are forming between the ceiling and the slanted part of the wall in the rooms upstairs and the hall. The paint between the wall and the linen closet in the bathroom has split. The wall where the wood and the drywall meet beneath the stairs has distinctly separated. I’m starting to see where seams and boards are in the walls and ceiling. Oh, and there’s two small cracks in the paint in the bathroom over the shower/tub, which I suspect is hiding an army of mold spores beneath it’s plastic sheath.
My father wants me to talk to the people I bought the house from and make them come fix it, though I doubt I they are liable. And someone told me some houses resettle every Winter.
However, I’m so miserable because I worry that there’s something wrong with the walls that I don’t want to do anything like finish unpacking or hang pictures or window treatments because that would be a waste of time because I’d just have to undo that stuff. If I hang stuff, it’ll have to be unhung when the walls have to be fixed after all.
But my mother has decided to come for my surgery next month, which means I need to get the house in some sort of order or she’ll be disappointed, but there’s just so much to do and I just don’t know where to start. I need to hang the shelves I bought for the office to finish unpacking, but the curio cabinet I bought and haven’t put together is in the way. The curio cabinet is in like 1000 pieces and it just looks too hard. I don’t want to do it alone but I don’t have anyone to help but I don’t want it still sitting there when my mom comes.
And on and on it goes…
And part of the house comes back to work…why unpack and finish the house if I’m going to lose my job and have to move. Traditionally I take years to finish unpacking and hang every thing up and then it’s time to move. Everyone who knows me knows this. Which is why my mother keeps asking if I’ve hung stuff on the walls, I’m sure.
And some of the stuff I keep putting off saying I’ll do it when it gets warmer. I have a ton of boxes from the move. They’re all broken down and against the wall in my garage. I want to put them in the rafters of my garage, but it’s friggin’ cold outside. Who wants to spend that long outside? I’m waiting for a warmer day.
Anyway, my job isn’t at risk. I still have an immobile deadline. MJ and FW are just unprofessional, nasty people; I think no matter where you go, there’s always one or two of those. My boss is entirely understanding, if conflict avoiding. I hung some curtains up last night and even unpacked a box. I’ll have to see how I feel about my Susy Homemaker list when I get home tonight, but I’m o.k. with the stress I feel for work. It’s just regular deadline anxiety and not “I’m going to lose my job if I don’t meet this deadline” anxiety and that’s o.k.
Maybe I’ll be able to crawl out of the overwhelmedness and depression and stressful paralysis and start posting again.
Tags: work, anxiety, job loss, depression, overwhelmed, stress, paralysis
February 2nd, 2007
I apologize for not at least popping on and saying that I survived the norovirus and that there was an epidemic at my workplace. I have no idea who the carrier was but a bunch of us came down with it all on the same day, but that Thursday afternoon we were all quite ill. There’ve been some trailing illnesses but it seems to have completed its course through this office now.
But that’s not what has kept me away.
Let me explain about the Daylight Savings Time “issue”. Remember how panicked everyone was about Y2K? No one knew what was going to happen to the computers; everyone was afraid that they were just going to meltdown or something because they might not be able to handle the wrap from 1999 to 2000 because they were missing those first two digits and the computers wouldn’t know if it was 1900 or 2000? Yadda yadda yadda….
O.K. So, many of those ancient computers also had the Daylight Savings schedule hardcoded into their OS and bios because that stuff never changes. It’s the same formula every year, right?
Wrong. Last year, the President and Congress decided it would save so much American dollars in heat costs if we moved Daylight Savings Time up three weeks in the Spring and back one week in the Fall. For Windows users and anyone or any business who’s bought a computer or hardware or software in the last 5 years that’s considered still “supported” that’s not a problem because basically the software company is responsible for guaranteeing that when the time change happens, everything still works fine and dandy and that your software actually manages a time change and probably not one in March and then another in April. 
So, our problem is that we have this fabulous Interface Engine that runs on some ancient form of UNIX is on ancient RIS box and the software for the engine, the version of UNIX, and the RIS box are not supported by anyone, which is probably why they’ve been running pretty much problem-free for about 10-years — our secondary Interface Engine is Windows-based on an IBM server and there are daily challenges; not to mention upgrades and “hot fixes”, etc.
O.K. So we have this looming deadline of Daylight Savings Time where we don’t know what’s going to happen to out old Interface Engine and the consensus is to get all of the remaining interfaces and programs off of the old box before then because the time change is hardcoded into the OS and bios and get them onto yet another new Interface Engine, also Windows-based but more stable. The good news is that this isn’t technically new development because there’s already a road map, right? We just have to take the old code and rewrite it. The analysis and logic has already been done for us; the hard part is re-interpreting the old code into the new code — the old interface engine did somethings easier than the new interface engine and vice versa.
O.K. Now, you know I work with crazy people, right? Two of these people believe that they are the only people who are capable of doing anything correctly and completing anything. Of course, they’re way of doing things is the only way to do things as well — that last one fits all three. Mind you, none of them exactly do things the same way. Madness and harsh words usually ensues at that point.
So, I was assigned MJ’s usual pet project and when I was, she sat me down and talked to me about it, about how careful I had to be about it all, like I’ve never done this kind of work before. Did I mention that I’ve been working here since April 2004 and was in Hospital IT for six years before that? Oh, and I’ve been working in IT since ‘94. Let’s not forget that I have a BS in CS.
Anyway, since then, at least once a week, she’s been checking on me, reminding me of how important the project is. O.K. Let me explain. This is the patient demographics for every patient in the hospital and this particular interface goes from the admitting software to the secondary interface engine which will then pass it to the ordering software and also half a dozen other software packages, including medical records. I’ve got the big picture of how important this is. Every little field has to be correct from the patient’s id to the patient’s name to his insurance to his next of kin to his allergies and diagnosis. It’s a patient care issue if it’s not right. I don’t want to be responsible for something happening to a patient because I coded something incorrectly. I get it. Stop harassing me already. I stress myself out over the whole thing I don’t need someone else hovering over me.
Then of course, I had my Gallstone Surgery scheduled for February 2 — yes, you might notice that’s today. You might notice I don’t appear to be knocked unconscious on a surgery table either. There’s an explanation for that. I was scheduled for the surgery and to be out for 2 weeks with the idea that I would work from home.
But the Friday before I came down with the Norovirus, I got a call from one of my other projects that had gone stalled sometime last summer. The person on the phone suddenly announced to me that she wanted me to turn on the demographic feed to her application on the following Monday and that they were planning to “go-live” with the application, interfaces and all, in 2 weeks. Well, I had a complete meltdown in my boss’ office. In my opinion, they had not fully tested any of their interfaces before it had stalled — I suspect it had lost direction after their project lead had been shipped to Iraq. I was told to basically let them “hang themselves”, but in my opinion this would look bad on me because I had written the interfaces.
Fortunately, by Monday, things had changed. They decided not to turn anything on and had postponed the “go-live” to February 6th. However, I was then bombarded with minute by minute requests to make changes to their interfaces as they began actually testing and I couldn’t get my work done on my Daylight Savings Time projects. I was becoming very frustrated because just as I’d get started back on what I wanted to work on, someone would ask me to do something else.
That is when MJ came and asked me to take out some changes I made to an interface in the secondary interface engine for the stalled project so she could put that interface in production for another project that day. It was the morning of the norovirus. Probably I was already not feeling well. I was feeling frustrated. We were in my cubicle and I commented to her that I was feeling frustrated that I couldn’t seem to work on the Daylight Savings Time project because of the other thing. And that is when Drama Queen FW butted in from across the cubicle aisle from his own cubicle and very loudly announced to the whole frickin’ building that “We’re all frustrated but we get our work done.” This started a back and forth and he basically said something along the lines that he and MJ were worried that they were going to end up having to do my work that they shouldn’t have to do. I told him that I never said I couldn’t do the work, just that I was frustrated.
I didn’t talk to him the rest of the day, but what he said ate at me…it still eats at me. Now it’s pissing me off and you’ll see why.
What he said gave me nightmares the whole weekend of my norovirus. You know, I have a fear of being fired because I was involuntarily terminated from my last job and they made up claims that I couldn’t do my job anymore by changing my job description and they assigning me things I couldn’t do and not training me. So, now I’m afraid that if I miss these deadlines, I’m going to lose my job. It’s eating away at me. I’m terrified. It’s making me ill. It’s almost all I think about…and I feel like MJ and FW are somehow setting me up to fail. I just don’t know how, but I feel like they’re doing something behind my back to make me look bad on this project.
Anyway, the Monday after the Norovirus, I moved my surgery. MJ had made more than a few comments about how she didn’t think we’d be able to get everything done if I was out for two weeks in February, so I moved my surgery to March 16th, after Daylight Savings kicks in. So now no one can say that my surgery affected anything. I’m here, I’m visibly working. And I’m working long hours — 9 and 10 hour days. I’ve even been working on Sundays.
And guess who’s on vacation? FW started a week long vacation Wednesday. MJ is taking most of February to go skiing.
WTF?
But, guess what? She’s going to help me with my testing, but only if my code is really “clean” and I’ve made sure everything is perfect before I start testing with the applications.
She had a meltdown when I told her I’d be ready to start testing next week. She gave me a long lecture again about how everything has to be perfect. Then she told me we don’t have much time, only a month. Then she started again on how necessary it is to have every field correct. She said she’d been working for two weeks on one translator and it wasn’t working right yet with the system, so I couldn’t possibly be ready to test.
But then yesterday when I discovered some incorrect code in her interface after she told me to use it as an example for something I was working on, she had another meltdown. She refused to believe me when I said it wouldn’t work the way she thought it would once she fixed it. I knew this because I was using it in my own code.
I think she just makes things harder than they have to be sometimes.
Oh, and the stalled project has moved their “go-live” to March 6th now. They’ll be doing some serious testing next week.
Anyway, for the next month, I’m going to work my ass off to get my projects finished. MJ told me yesterday she doesn’t think “we all” will be able to make the deadline. I plan to meet the deadline as best as I can. I don’t want to be the one holding it up. I certainly don’t want my work to fall on MJ or FW. So, if my posting if few and far between, you know what’s up.
In the meantime, you can keep up with me and my Project 365 photos here.
Tags: work, my life, project 365, choices, norovirus, stress
December 20th, 2005
I’ve talked before about my fear of flying and how I hate to travel. I suppose the anxiety I feel about travel is really porportional to the distance and time and effort involved. Personally, I’m not particularly fond of going anywhere. I prefer to stay home; though I don’t mind being at work.
But really, there’s a lot of stress involved in going anywhere in particular. There’s the matter of dressing appropriately, make-up or no make-up, making sure you leave enough time to get ready before you must leave your house to drive somewhere…there’s more stress if you’re going somewhere you’re unfamiliar with and quite frankly that’s often true now that I’m in Maine. There’s the stress of making sure you arrive on time. There’s more stress if you’re the first one there. There’s different stress if you aren’t the first one there. Then there’s the stress of having to converse with people while worrying about saying the wrong thing or trying to be funny and when is it appropriate to leave — wouldn’t want to leave too early or stay too long.
And that’s just the stress of going somewhere social.
Taking a trip is a big ball of anxiety-ridden stress for me. First you have to make the travel arrangements, whether it be airplanes, trains, buses, or automobiles. Personally, I feel better if I have the tickets bought and paid for as early as possible. The fact that the bus station doesn’t do reservations is making my stomach hurt as I type.
Then there’s the packing — what if you pack wrong for the weather or don’t have the right clothes for an unexpected social event? What if you don’t really want to read that book you packed once you get there? What if you change your mind about your jewelry after you leave? And what will the security guy think when he searches your luggage — really, once I had a security guy comment on what was in my suitcase which was half-filled with WWery snacks. I kind of wonder what they’ll think of my copy of The Dark History of Christianity and my Paranoia magazine this year.
I started packing on Sunday for this trip. All I have left theoretically is the bath stuff.
But the real anxiety starts the day before the trip. I start feeling like I should be leaving and getting to the first stop of the trip. I just want to get there, wherever there is. I just want the whole thing over.
If it’s a 2 hour trip to Boston, I have to keep myself from leaving four hours early. I begin to worry about being late and not finding the place or something happening.
If it’s something bigger like a multi-leg trip across the country, I just want to get to each stop as quickly as possible. I start worrying about missing flights or buses overbooked or not finding the right terminal or being in the bathroom when they announce boarding of my plane. The whole time I’m travelling, I’m checking and double-checking and tripple-checking my tickets and itenery, I’m going over what needs to be done in my head, and I’m growing anxious that I can’t get to the next step because I’m waiting for the plane to land or waiting for the plane to board or waiting for the time to leave my house.
Add in that fear of flying, that feeling that one should not be flinging oneself through the air in a big metal box, and it’s just a stomach-wrenching, acid-churning, migraine-inducing event that I want over as quickly as possible and it doesn’t end until I have my luggage safely back in my possession and am comfortly installed in my hotel or at my friend’s or family’s house…
And then the whole time I’m on the vacation/trip, in the back of my mind, I’m already going through the list of things I’ll have to do on the journey back home — what time do I need to leave where I’m staying, what time does the plane/bus/train leave, how long will I have between stops to get to the next terminal…and on and on and on.
Some people seem to enjoy travelling. Those people always seemed so relaxed. They have brought DVDs to watch and books to read and don’t appear to be in a whole lot of hurry. They can nap without worrying that they won’t wake up when the plane lands or the bus arrives at the terminal. They chat with strangers without concern or paranoia.
I envy them.
I have 13 hours and 26 minutes until I need to leave my house for the bus station.
Tags: fear of flying, stress, anxiety, travel
