Commitment, Indulgence, and Stress Reduction

I have long considered myself a hobby writer, in that I write more for pleasure than with any notion of ever making it my profession. In my youth, I did harbor that fantasy but certain realities about that industry and my own personality made me realize that I was never going to make a living at writing. In a lot of ways, that is more than fine. I get a great deal of pleasure out of writing. If I needed to rely on my writing to pay the bills, the joy would probably be completely sucked out of it for me. (I usually end up despising anything that I feel that I 'have' to do.)

Over the years, I have found myself spending less and less time writing for pleasure. And I am the worse for the lack of it I think. Blogging is the only semi-regular outlet I have these days.

Since I periodically belong to the Writers Digest Book Club, I frequently get mailings from them advertising online workshops. I usually just delete them. I've told myself that I don't have the time or the money to commit to such things; or, I tell myself that those workshops are for people who have professional writing aspirations, which definitely is no longer a goal of mine.

I got one of those emails earlier this week. Something stopped me from deleting it. I re-opened it and glanced at it every day for four days. Then I thought about it.

I'm not taking any classes for my degree right now. I'm not taking any professional development courses for my job for the next few months. Work and home have been bombarding me with some minor stressors in the last couple of months. Writing centers me and helps me work through stress. Also, the cost of the class is currently not a big deal for me.

So, viola! I am now registered for a twelve week online workshop on Fundamentals of Fiction Writing. I've ordered the textbook. The class starts Thursday. YIPPEE!!!

Sunday night blahs

Sorry, all. I'm a bit whiny and exhausted. Late last week I picked up a spring cold. I called in sick on Friday, but I feel somewhat compelled to drag myself in for at least part of the day tomorrow.

I haven't been getting enough sleep, being all snuffly and achy. I'm not even all that sleepy right now. But, I know that I am tired. I walked past a mirror earlier this evening and I look like a creature from a George Romero movie (re: "Night of the Living Dead"). I have HUGE dark circles under my eyes.

Work is very stressful right now. A project that I have been working on for almost a year is about to implode. Apparently, the person who put the requirements together was smoking crack, big time. The product we bought to go into production with just isn't going to cut the mustard at this point. On one level I know that it is not my fault. On the other hand, I feel like I should have recognized the issue long ago.

Maybe my body is wallowing in this illness as a means of avoidance. I need to communicate the issue with management, but I REALLY don't want to. A lot was riding on the successful completion of this project. Now, it's kind of a bust. Throwing more money at it might save the situation. However, the person who initially started this project has left the organization, and management was glad to see her go. They'll probably chalk this failure up to her more than me. On the other hand, a lot of people were counting on this project/product being delivered. We needed the tools that it would have given us to improve a lot of processes. Now, we'll probably have to continue to limp by with the inadequate tools we're currently using for at least another six to nine months while we wait for new budget allocations and a project refresh.

At least I'm getting a little chuckle right now as I can clearly hear Han Solo in my head, "It's not my fault!" I just hope my upper management agrees (after the initial knee jerk explosion that usually comes with the presentation of bad news).

Why, oh why, doesn't night time cold medicine make me drowsy?

Riding the knife's edge

It's been a while since I've really vented here. Since last summer, I've tried to stay away from pure ranting. So, my apologies, in advance, to the Power of Positive Thinking Princess (if she happens to check in).

For the last couple of months, I have been trying to lead a huge project at work which involves replacing an organically homegrown, undocumented, critical application server with a commercially supported appliance. Lots of things that 'just work' on the homegrown system are proving to be problematic on the new system. It wouldn't be so bad if I was leading an actual team who were accountable for the success of this transition. As it stands, my 'team members' seem to view any effort that they put forth on this project as (more or less) helping me out. They come to meetings when they feel like it. They address their assigned tasks when it's convenient. Our upper management (two levels up from me) began calling these meetings in July when I was making no progress on 'my project'.

The eight other people who were 'invited' to these meetings seem to feel that the meetings are there for me to report MY progress. Sometimes, someone will volunteer to help me with a task. Sometimes, they'll actually deliver on their offer. Tasks that obviously can only be accomplished by someone, other than me, are never delivered in a timely fashion. And, our management (who attend these meetings) never call these folks on the carpet for their lack of contribution.

There are a ton of issues getting our applications to work through the new appliance. I do not understand how most of them were configured to work through the old, homegrown, server. The folks who administer that server never documented what they did to get the stuff working. And, now, they don't seem real anxious to assist in getting the stuff to work through the new appliance.

When, and if, this project ever goes live, these folks will no longer have to support a MAJOR application server that impacts everyone in our VERY large organization. You'd think that they'd be more than forthcoming in order to get rid of this albatross!

Speaking of albatrosses, once we cut over to the new appliance, I'll be the sole support for the new appliance. Someone else on my team went to the same training that I did. HOWEVER, the woman has only been out of college for a little over a year and is relatively incapable of troubleshooting the appliance if an application doesn't work through it. So, while the homegrown server is antiquated, there's a team of about 3 or 4 guys who, more-or-less, can troubleshoot an issue if push came to shove, since most of them are experienced server administrators.

So, folks, in a nutshell: I'm EXTREMELY stressed right now.

That said, I had registered for a class that starts in a few days. Tonight was the last night that I had to pay for the class before my registration would have been canceled. As much as I really wanted to take the class, I feel like I've been riding the knife's edge the last few months. As 'my project' gets closer and closer to going into production, I could not envision taking on the additional stress of a rigorous class right now. So, instead of paying for the class, I logged onto the registration system and canceled my registration for the upcoming term. I'm bummed, but I don't feel like I had any other choice. (And, crap, I already bought the really expensive text book!)

Afterwards, I decided to surf a few of the local hospitals' job sites. The Fates must have felt my pain! The first site I hit had a job ad for an Information Security Engineer position just 25 minutes from my house. So, of course, I applied.

Wish my luck! (Man, wouldn't that turn my frown WAY upside down?!?!?!)

Delayed stress, but I won't look a gifthorse in the mouth

My big project at work was scheduled to go into production next Saturday (the 15th). But, of course, several gotchas came up at the 11th hour. So, in our team meeting yesterday I proposed, and everyone accepted, that we delay our launch until the first Saturday in January. I still have a boatload to do (hence the reason for the delay), however, I now feel that I may be able to address most of the issues that have come up before we launch. I'm sure that our user population will still find issues that we haven't found in testing when we finally do launch. However, I couldn't go forward when there were known issues staring us in the face.

One thing that we did agree to that should be interesting: Any known issues that we have when we launch will be documented on an internal Wiki server. So, basically, our response to unresolved issues will be: "Yeah, we know about it. We'll fix it when we can. Get over it." So, as long as we 'advertise' that we know there are problems, we should be fine, right? I guess it is the nature of technology. Nothing's perfect. But, if we admit that we know about it, maybe the user community will get that warm fuzzy feeling that we care and plan on addressing the issue at our earliest convenience.

All things being equal, I was SEVERELY stressed this week, and my back is revolting in ways that it hasn't done in many months. Fortunately, I have a massage scheduled for today. Hope it helps!

The "duh" of physical therapy

I'm having a pretty stressful time at work right now. The huge project I am in charge of is about to be cut over, and all 3000+ staff will be forced to use it. No pressure not to F it up, or anything. Today, a mere week before launch, a major gotcha came to light. I plan on recommending that we delay launch for another three weeks while we address it appropriately, and not slam together some half-baked response that will merely cause more issues. (Foolish of me, I know.)

This evening I had a physical therapy appointment. My PT, who I've been working with for over a year, postulated that stress could be a contributing factor in the myriad muscular pains I suffer from. I nearly laughed myself off the table. Then I sarcastically tapped my head and said, "Hmmmm.... Stress might be a factor in the multitudes of seemingly unrelated pains throughout my body? (pause) Wow! (pause) I NEVER considered that before!" He and I have a great relationship, so we had a good time with the whole thing.

Did you know that oranges are often times orange?

Work vs. A Day Off

I have been really looking forward to this holiday, especially since I decided to take Wednesday off as well. I initially had planned to bake a pie and work on my final project for school. Now, I also have to deal with a plumber, who is putting in our new garbage disposal. And, I am going to pick up a second pie that I pre-ordered, because I knew I wasn't going to feel like baking two. Plus, I kind of want to go to the big liquor store and pick up a nice bottle of wine. I have a feeling that I am going to be more exhausted than if I had gone to work.

I had a boatload to get done today at work. And, amazingly, I got most of it all done. As a matter of fact, I was kind of feeling like I was in a productive groove. If I hadn't had an appointment I needed to leave for, I probably would have worked late. I am feeling a bit stressed by my big project, which is scheduled for cut over to production on Saturday, December 15. On the other hand, I have been doing a pretty good job at tackling the hurdles that have come down the pike on this thing, and THAT has been noticed by upper management.

Life really is a balance.