haha, so I just passed out at work (panic attack), and none of my officemates even fucking noticed

I have been seeing a doctor on/off since two years ago... I've been taking medication for it too. This is the first time this has happened since I was seeing a doctor about it..

then again, things at work have been REALLY stressful, although, in anticipation of accomplishing a lot of things that would make the team look great. I've been trying really hard to keep up the pace. I've been losing sleep due to nightmares about being fired, because my manager has been purposely hard on me -- not meant personally, but meant to keep me on my toes, and make sure I grow and stay competent.. which, frankly, is something I need and really appreciate, given my previous contract manager gave me NO feedback, and was very passive aggressive about his disapproval of my work performance, despite the fact that he could have, you know, said something early on and prevented being disapproved... but whatever.

Also, I'm still feeling at a loss here because of Liz.. and, I haven't talked about this, but I have a friend in New Orleans STILL unaccounted for..

So there's a lot of shit going on. A lot of depressing stuff, a lot of stressful stuff, and a LOT of fun stuff... DJing in SF two weeks ago was a blast and amazing time and turnout; Decibel Festival this weekend, and hanging out with friends visiting from Austin. seeing old friends from here and Vancouver.. getting a lot of DJ gigs from networking just this past thursday alone... but its all anxiety anxiety anxiety... good and bad.

Also, alluded to on another thread, I got REALLY pissed when someone blatantly stole my lunch today at work (cafeteria closed, salaried employees all out of office for "morale event" in downtown Seattle.. just take a guess what that is.), and left half a bag of pita chips by the kitchen sink. Just petty shit that REALLY got to me (especially given where the perpetrator works, for fuck's sake.) That, and many things software related broke today, and no one's around to do anything about it.

Hmmm, TMI?

Eastside inhabiting software developers at my company were bitching about all the cars from your morale event clogging up I90 this morning, so I told them that's what they get for not living on the Seattle side of lake WA & driving to work. My walk to work wasn't much affected by the takeover of a stadium by a big pack of windows geeks.

By the way, I hope you beat the dork who stole your lunch. That sucks.

hope you're feeling better!

It's a nice example of how ONE BAD HIRE, in a supervisory (day shift lead analyst, in this case) can make for a staffing problem for your entire organization. Derrick being promoted to shift boss over the rest of us long-timers (turnover on this contract is 90%, except for the day shift, generally) caused 2/3rds of the competent, experienced staff pool to go out and find other, more worthwhile employment. The story goes that if you keep your personnel at a level of medium happiness, they'll stick around, because a new employer might be more of a risk in the comfort factor. Not when you hire Derrick as a shift boss. He yelled at each and every person who ever disagreed with him, on even the most minute issues (we're talking about yelling at people to NOT CLOSE WINDOWS when all they've done is minimize the console, seriously, rude, condescending yelling across the room) - and somehow I'm the only person left on the analyst pool who's been here for the long stretch. Why? My employer covers my tuition for grad school 100%.

The lesson is, Fuck That Guy, outlast his incompetent & unprofessional ass, and take EVERY SINGLE FREE RIDE you can possibly get. Then meet the girl/boy of your dreams and take off to another, better town.

At some point, I will have to actually be the man I claim to be. Until then, I only have to be 45x better than the Derricks of the world, and that's not really difficult.

The rest is all in the details. Sweat one or the other.

Tom, sorry you had to deal with that cocksucker... I can't say i've ever dealt with anyone nearly that awful. I have no problems with the members of my immediate team at all right now, nor the company I work for, in general -- except certain social nuances of lack thereof. I just don't like the fact that I could have a possibly near-fatal spasm of some kind in my office, and the other guys in the room will be all "why is he contorting so much? I wonder if he'll be ok. *turns back to screen to concentrate on work*".

I think most of the issues with the passout thing earlier were mainly non work related, and just a buildup of all that anxiety I mentioned above, plus lack of sleep.

When I sense semiexhaustion|anxiety|overtenseness coming on, I've learnt (after *years*) that what helps is *not committing to any time & place* (and obv not initiating any such) for a week or two. The schedules of regular work accounts for much of my use of time anyway, so agreeing to too much all around can mean that the "me time" disappears (or, worse, is taken when I should really be getting some good sleep). Of course, this may baffle or annoy family or friends, but I've learnt not to care too much.

Not sure this is any use to you at all, just mentioning. Take care.

*and the internal voice says "Hey, Matt, take yr own damn advice fer chrissakes you penis"