Through the Looking Glass

I spent some time yesterday cranking out half of the recent double-whammy in Memoirs of a Rogue. At the beginning of that entry, I mentioned how I was writing one reflection, and the other would come at a later date. It's one day later. Now I will venture through the mirror and point out exactly what I meant by "my gaming life and real life were reflections of one another", because taking it in context of that singular blog entry doesn't quite work standalone - any interpretations made without this second reflection made available are off the mark.

In fact, as bad as my WoW rant may have seemed, it was the lesser of two evils.

Yes, I'm going to rant about work again, but not without reason. How can I put this into words? "Tolerance", I suppose. That's a word you often hear being used alongside "building up". For instance, people who get into drinking often build up a tolerance to alcohol, working in wintry conditions can build up a tolerance to cold over time. In my case, it seems to be reversed.

Flash back a few years to when I started working at my current company. There was a project or two that fell behind for one reason or another and it was really no issue for me to make up that on my own time. Hey, I was new to things - "I'll make up the time now and learn from it later".

Flash forward about two years from then. Working late again...except hold up - didn't I learn from my earlier experience? Looking things over I realize a few tasks where I underestimated the time to complete something and fell behind. And then there were some things that were missed in the specification - "Hey, these things happen now and then".

Flash forward to last year. By now we've identified there are some problems in the process. We collaborate with the design team, and through our new architect work out the project to deliver the end of the year. Everything was thought out, the schedules were timed correctly, and things would be smooth sailing. Reality checks in, and suddenly we're so in the red that we almost get told to work our winter holiday. I'm sensing a trend here, but my project lead brings up the valid point that he wasn't around from the beginning, so he was unable to work outside of the given timeline. We end up working two months solid without break in the new year. I cling to the thought that things will pay off in the end, I'd been with the company a good while now, and that I'd see some changes enacted - "Things will get better". Strangely enough, I took that same approach with my WoW guild, and what happened next there?

The exodus. Just as the members flew off my gaming guild, the staff began to vacate my workplace. The first to go was the one I'd put faith in to make things better - the architect, who was doubling as manager for the current big project this year. One week after his departure, our developer lead also threw in his resignation. Then our president of sales, the QA division, lead designer and more of the dev team. A handful of people, but to a company that's as small as ours (the president likes to use the flashy word "agile"), it was quite a blow, considering we had two major deliverables coming up.

And that perhaps should have been my stop as well. However, things still weren't so bad, and I figured I could weather through. I think the fact that I was promoted to a team lead role (and the increased salary) helped factor in my rooting. But was I prepared for all the extra work and responsibility that went with it?

A popular saying is "natural born leader". Well, I'm a natural born follower. I can pick up the reins and steer the ship dependably when it's required, but I lack the motivation to keep it going full steam. In fact, if you never came up to check on me, I'd probably end up asleep at the wheel. An exaggeration there, but I just don't have the drive to give orders - I'm better at carrying them out.

I ended up managing both projects, and analyzing the gaps we still had, led the team of devs through some mild overtime for two weeks - we were still behind schedule, and I reasoned it would be better to work a little extra over an extended period to avoid the crashing crunchline at the end.

Here's where the poor leadership appeared. Despite that extra push, things didn't work out - the specifications had glaring holes that had to be filled, there were concepts that worked in R&D, but didn't when applied to the real problem. We were back in the same seat from the year before, and the year before that, and two years before that. We were working the straight days again during the week from early on until midnight - we lost most of our weekends (I think we grabbed two saturdays somehow).

I detailed how I was close to quitting earlier this year, and I hit that point quicker this time. The worn tolerance, I'd say - each time it happens it's becoming harder and harder to get through. Last year I had a breakdown.

This year I had an anxiety attack.

It wasn't fun, and for someone as stressed out and with a racing mind like mine, it was scary as heck. I was getting through a Tuesday morning, thinking on the future - I wasn't so sure where things were going, wasn't sure if I could make it through, and worried that maybe I should quit and move on. I was on the can when I felt the sharp stabbing in my chest. I panicked, thinking it was a heart attack and went the whole nine yards into hyper-ventilation. Spent the rest of the day pretty much waiting in the hospital to get checked out to ensure that everything was alright (the paramedics had taken an EKG, and my blood pressure - and everything was normal). Analysis came to the conclusion that I did not in fact have an attack of the heart, but one from stress and worry. I took the next few days off.

But things continued to grind. And again, on the one day off I had for the week (I traveled back near my parents for my mom's side Christmas, which was the earliest it's ever been this year) I had an attack. Not as intense as before, but it lasted a good while longer. I find out there that it's somewhat genetic, as a few of my cousins have had the same thing. Yay for my genes.

I was still uncertain though. I wanted to stick around in hopes things would get better - but in both real life and gaming I ended up being abandoned. I resolved to put my cards on the table and pulled my boss aside one Friday. I told him I couldn't keep it up, that the team couldn't keep it up. Our life had become work and we were paying for it mentally and physically. I ran through things with him that day, and we settled on completing what we could, expressing the issues with the client and extending the delivery date with the promise of a better product in the end. We still had to work late to accomplish what we had, but we didn't have to give up on the few remaining hours of sleep we were getting at that point.

And he bribed me with a bonus. Man I cave in too easy. I'm the new owner of a very nice new sports coat with matching hat and gloves - convenient since I've been wearing the same worn coat for over ten years now, and it's holey.

Things have settled down again somewhat, and I'm hoping we can just work things out right in the New Year. Next time, it'll probably take buying me a car to keep me around, heh.

 

Yare yare. Calm down there, spunky. I'm not dying over here.

The main cause of anxiety attack is (surprise!) anxiety.

anx

 

I agree with TG, you should take a very long break from work.. that thing will kill you someday!
And I hate to say it but "I told you so!" Your boss eased up things for you guys, he will do almost anything to keep you, although, you'll probably die before getting a freaking car *innocent look* (God forbid).

You better be having a good long vacation for christmas!