For the first time in my career, I
burst the tyre.
Sure, there have been
countless times when I had to push hard, wearing off the threads faster than usual. I could not get a good grip, slipping and sliding precariously round the hard corners, losing valuable time, but still I always made the laps.
This time however, it was spectacular. Like Kimi Raikkonen in so many unfortunate cases of driving flat out, I spun out of control with debris flying all over. Halted in the gravel, the checkered flag permanently unreachable. The race is over.
What am I talking about? I now know what, not fatigue, but
complete and utter burn-out in the brain means.
Back in February, I was air-dropped into a project in crisis. The core of the problem being an
outright design flaw, there is essentially no technical solution to accomplish the job that way in a stable and performant fashion. No bloody way. The most unfortunate thing is, a violation of Software Development 101, the technical solution was hard-written in the very requirements. Meaning, there is no way to back out other than to deliver.
To confound the situation with a formula of exponential product, all these were by and large only happening in the
production environment. Heavy 4-processor (hyperthreaded) servers and a variety of other fast services, compared to the main-con's development environment featuring a Pentium3 (really
!!!) server with a pale reflection of the remaining network services necessary to complete the entire project setup.
This being the customer's production zone, their security policies and procedures weigh in at elephantine scales that makes one feel like one of those imperial physicians of old trying to diagnose the empress' illness via a red string connected across the room. The level of access we got promised us what I consider the most severe levels of
deproductivity I have ever seen.
And did I mention I was introduced into the project 2 days before project sign-off?
Yes, the approximate past three months have been extremely eventful with new problem after new problem sprouting nearly every time we put up a formal application to deploy a copy of the programs that was "guaranteed" to be working and stable, and hopefully fast too. I guess I need not describe the expressions and sentiments of the customer, main-con, and our own bosses on each occassion.
These were, almost needless to say given the environmental circumstances, results of efforts that lasted
way beyond the normal 8 hours of a working day. 7 days a week. Dinner (and possibly supper) in non-ideal locations. My developer colleague chalked up I think S$200 worth of taxi fares a month. You do the math and consider the time we usually left.
And yet again, to worsen the situation, I had been scheduled for reservist. I managed to obtain a partial-deferment due to another schedule for training in Seattle occurring around the same time. That resulted in a hectic stretch of 3 days spent in the Police Coast Guard, followed by an afternoon back in the project to fix an defect before packing my luggage that night to rush to the airport the next day. 24 hours worth of flight transitions found me in Seattle, of which I probably barely clocked 24 hours sleep time for the
whole week I was in USA, before another 24-hour back-trip. No, I do not think 24 is a lucky number. In-flight entertainment have no redeeming qualities of interest.
On hindsight I should have planned a light snowboarding trip right away the training. But, oh but, my anxious self could not tear myself away from what the rest of my colleagues were trying to support with shaking knees. Even with taking a day off to rest from that spinning journey, I went back to office the next day feeling absolutely no sense of recovery. Not a bit. And the news awaiting me? More issues, in other parts of the project, need to be addressed.
At this stage we have practically re-touched every aspect of the project. In other words,
everything that was previously written and constructed had to be fixed one way or another. Was there
anything that actually worked prior to my arrival?, I really had to ask that. Is there anything resembling a normal working life? Rejecting four separate social invitations, and even that of my mother's birthday dinner, I'd have to say "nope".
It should come as no surprise then, that all these "last push" efforts only resulted in more situations that prevent us from ever obtaining agreement from the customer that the project is a working deal. What was the direction given to us? Push on.
Until that fateful Saturday (yes, another weekend) when my chest ached unrelentingly. This is a problem I have been putting up with since last year, but never in a manner I felt as threatening. That time however, it would not go away. So I decided to drop work and head for the hospital. While the diagnosis that day did not conclude me having any cardiac danger, my family has a history of heart disease, so I was motioned to spend the following days going through the series of medical tests to reveal my level of coronary risk.
While the tests utimately put me in a very good medical picture, those days of supposed "rest" I had actually brought out another problem of mine; that beyond the bio-medical jurisdiction; the state of sleep and the world of dreams. What do I mean? I suffer from insomnia. My mind likes going
hyper when I attempt to sleep. Or even if I do fall asleep, I may still be solving the real-world problems in my dreams, or sometimes pseudo/dreamy problems. Regardless, I would wake up feeling I had transitioned from one workplace to another. Mental rest: nil. The dreams during that period were not nightmares but undoubtedly unpleasant and distrubing, and
exhausting.
And I think that was the last straw that did me in. Back at work in the morning, I experienced for the first time in my life the inability to comprehend a single word my colleagues were discussing. I could hear the words they spoke, but I couldn't process any useful information.
"What the heck is happening to me???"
In the frustration and agitation I blew it, and went breathless, choking in the mucus and tears I was generating with reckless abundant. A second trip to the hospital was in order.
Now, I have seen an initial psychiatric consultation, and put on prescription for some mild type of anti-depressant. (actually it's way past my bed time as i write this, but I have to record this else I'd never get it done.) I am "out" of the project (partially, for obvious reasons), with my company planning for me to take an extended time away from work to recuperate.
I was originally intending to write an assessment and evaluation of this incident, but my body tells me I save this for a later post. So be it.