Mar 17

 Yesterday was a stressy day.

I got up with a general unhappiness about work. It was clear shit was way out of hand again. Andy was back to really just throwing shit at me. And he was dropping the ball management wise. Again.

To add insult to injury at the start of the day Andy dumped more shit on me after deliciously ironically me explaining to him I was unhappy with the situation. Shit was out of hand. Long pause. Here's more shit.

The clouds darkened.

Oh dear.

He also had the wrong end of the stick with what we were supposed to be doing next week. Which. I think to be honest was half wishful thinking and half bullshit. I was, to explain a lot of systems to the devs next week, apparently. No. At no point had we discussed this in the last couple of months. We were laser focused on one thing, one project. Maybe I never spoke to you about it he said. I had ranted at him about siloing, he agreed something should be done. But no plans were made. All shoved aside in the frantic tailchasing of pursuing the next piece of bullshit.

This comes on the back of a bunch of fucked up priorities work wise that have caused headaches - something released into test, but now never to go to live. After much arm twisting Andy admitted it was never going to go live - the client had never wanted it to go live for this. So. A waste of time then. I thought he said, we needed it for the other thing. No. That's also not what you said. He specifically wanted a comparison going. He's either covering his ass for fuckups, or is just being stupid. I think it's more the former.

Meh.

By the end of the day I was stressed to hell. Too much stuff. Too many clashing deadlines. I worked late, decided to park it.

Leave it til next week to worry about. Except me going down there had been bumped to Tuesday. First thing next week for me. So. That doesn't leave you any space to leave it til next week.

Which means at the very least I would need to work today - my day off, just to sort out the mess of scheduling if nothing else.

I proceeded to low level stress about what to do, which things to juggle, which things to cut. 

It bled into today. 7.30am there I am trying to a) calm down and b) organise shit better. In the end, 8.30 am I sent Andy a message, this is what we're doing, 1, 2, 3, Tuesday is called off, this first, then that, then the other. Also btw fuck this. Not only doing more time. But then even more time. Just to sort shit out that he wont.

Not cool.

I went back to sleep.

And then the migraine came.

By midday it had landed, grumbling across the top of my right eye. Fuck youuu buddy. Ok. Three aspirin, back to sleep.

The aspirin did nothing. Uhhh.

3pm the doc phoned me for my appointment. I got out of bed. Head thumping. Thoughts leaking out of my ears. I apologised trying to get my thoughts together to explain the butt situation.

We can make another appointment the doc said.

Ah ha ha ha ha ha.

No I said. I will power through.

That sorted - the upshot was to just got straight to the hospital, I was overdue a checkup, problem was back, if the GP referred me it would and I quote "just get buried and lost in the pile".

I went back to bed and hoped the migraine would clear.

5pm. Thumping. Spear through head. I kept blipping. Even though still. Not moving. The world would occasionally lurch. 

8pm. Thumping. This... isn't... going away.

I considered this was now my life. I went back over past experiences - only one truly long migraine that was a 12 hour malarkey and another 12 hour grumbler after that. Hmm.

10pm. The stabbing had subsided. Somewhat. Grumbling.

So here I am. Friday evaporated. Unhappy. I am not terribly unconvinced that shitty work has had something to do with it.

Throughout the whole migraine malarkey my body also was shouting out its usual red lights. Chest pain. Tinnitus. Bullshit. It did cross my mind at one point that this was many things together. And once again, my capability to keep up the good fight was being very sorely tested. 

My life is like a succession of miseries and tests. Incredible.

Slowly nursing myself back to somewhere not abjectly horrific at the moment. My mind is also set to back peddle my hours back to work as fast as possible. And that it was a stupid mistake to let myself get sucked into a commitment for more time. My own fault. Andys first manipulative attempt to get me to do so - how you doing for money, do you need more money, I wouldn't mind if you wanted to work more, ok, I just want  you to work more way wayyyy back in Autumn last year should have been the warning. That should have been also the point that he stepped up and did something either schedule wise or resource wise. Rather than continuing to a) kick the can down the road and b) twisting my arm to do more.

If he had tackled that problem back then, we wouldn't be where we are today.

But. This is the recurring pattern. Abysmal foreplanning.

He tried yesterday to cajole a, well, we'll hire another dev, do this, do that, for a looming deadline of next week.

No I said. Rather fucking obviously. It doesn't work like that. Those kind of plans and decisions you're making all have a 4 to 6 month lead on them. Those plans work for summer. June. July. Not next fucking week at 9am.

Thats his problem. He has no real concept of time. Or scheduling. Or how to manage that.

He makes good noises on the surface. But never follows through.

I also explained that to him.

The person you only ever talk to is like the helpful secretary on the front desk. Agreeable.  Calm.

But that person is not the one that decides what happens. Or influences the outcome.

In the back is a 300lb anxiety monster that will freak out, get bullied, cajole, throw shit around, run away and generally put shit off. That's the thing running the decision making. And it sucks.

All of Andys positive pronouncements can be made through that light.

Of course we will pay you ! - Doesn't pay you -

Only good things will be coming ! - 1 year later, same old problems, same old stresses, no favours done

Eh meh.

I have reflected once again, that when you step back from it all, my ailing health and the dregs of normality I get out of life, are being all consumed by Andy and his desperate need to keep me going and utilise me as much as he can, rather than me actually trying to live, and manage my health and yada. It is horribly exploitative. It's something he cannot help but do. And it's something I have to manage better, and enforce my own boundaries whilst simultaneously teaching Andy about his own and keeping him honest.

In a very real way, it feels like I am burning the last days of my life just to feed the fires of bullshit for Andy.

Crap. It needs to stop.