Mar 19

 Recently everything has been a blur. Work. Sleep. Work. Sleep. Exhaustion. Squeeze some human bit in there play a chilled game. A not so chilled game. Try to be a human. For a bit. Sleep. Work. In no standard cycle. Hours here and there. Sometimes days disappear in sleep. And then. 48 hours of uptime with a 4 hour sleep in the middle. Burning. 

I Should count myself somewhat "lucky" that my hydration salts are giving me just the tiniest bit of margins in order to immediately... take the piss with it. It is. A fragile dance. And I get it. I am being stupid. 

But trying in the midst of it to pace myself. Ah ha ha. Listening to my CFS self. Ok. Stop. Drift for 30 minutes. You have to breathe a little. You are already red lining with a system that can't fucking red line anymore. And. You are doing the impossible. But. Try to listen.

So that's what I've been doing.

Andy has fallen back into a major anxiety dump pattern with me. 

And the AI project has been I think its fair to say, the absolute worst example project I've ever endured under the mountain of dysfunctions that work is.

The techical side of this - building a multi step AI agent - is enough of a technical challenge. It's decent. Professional. Serious. No one is under any illusion that this is a real bit of work.

Add into that more technical challenges. Building an enterprisey system to sit around it. Services. Authority spheres. Caches. Database management.

Ok. Full on.

And thats just the pure technical.

Then you add in. No one can be bothered with a spec. No one can be bothered scoping out expectations. Data samples. Any fucking questions at all. Too hard. Even though the bar is very very low. And when, after repeated, multiple requests to at least for the love of god, give me a spread of sample documents. They're wrong. Not client driven. Just guesses. That were wrong.

A project that spent 2 months in limbo. Because. The usual schedule bullshittery. Tell a client we're working. When we're not. Do something else. Because of an inability to say no. And correctly schedule. Instead. Everything clashes. And then you lie about it. And hope someone, somewhere ( me ) makes it all work anyway.

Then we have the education bit. No one knows anything about it. Whats a token. How does this work. So I have to educate everyone attached to it. In the basics. Spoon feed them. That. is a job in itself. 

I have to put myself in the shoes of the client. And imagine. What they want. I have to analyse then that self made requirement. Create some idea of a plan. An architecture.

Any question or expectation I have is met with minimal to nothing. Or errors. The level of expectation on everyone else is meh. The expectation on me has to be perfect.

I have had to wear every single role hat you can imagine. Even down to. This is how you manage your microsoft account. These are your budget options. Plans. Again. This is a job in itself. Administration. But. Let me do that too. Whilst I DBA your server. And build a multi tier architecture.

And then. There's the existing problems. On an old system. That can't even cope with the blue sky expectations. A server. That is sitting on out of support versions. 14 years old. A database. That has not been looked after. Monitored. Bloated with excess logging. Slow. Littered with bugs.

Which I have to fix. Before I can even start "my" work.

And then. Techical debt. Our immature, not experienced enough, promoted above his capability developer. Who I have to compromise with. And warned everyone about the bad architecture decisions. So that now. We have multiple different techs. Frameworks. Versions. For a single system. Causing a large amount of technical friction. Because. Andy can't say no. Wont give someone a boundary. Expects me to be his anxiety sink. And adapt. And say yes.

Which makes my work harder.

And after all of that.

After doing six impossible things at once. And delivering a robust, super cool, high functioning piece of enterprise art. That now answers questions the client couldnt be bothered asking themselves, has defensively accepted a wide range of nonsense inputs because no one could be bothered - or feared the consequences - of asking the client. After achieving that. With a pretty bow on top.

Finally. A little response.

Can it be blue instead.

Can that text be higher.

I want that value displayed instead.

Yet another insult to injury. No spec. No awareness. No clue. And after everything is done. Eh. I like blue. Can we have it in blue.

Enraged.

But I get it.

I am part of the problem.

I continue to deliver. So. Why should the system change ? It's not broken. It's working just fine. It can functional on the lowest possible input. Read minds. Do 10 jobs at the same time. And still deliver. Amazing. Lets do that again. The machine that does everything.

It is my fault for letting that happen and not saying.

No. Fuck off.

I thought. I had been clear. No. Fuck off.

When Andy said 5 years ago he would just shut the company down if I died. Or couldnt do it anymore. And I told him that was not the adult approach to a business. But it exposed that direct absolute dependence.

And. So. Again. I paid. In blood. To be patient. To help and support a transition. Away from me. To minimise me. Not only because its a primary business risk. But also. To start a better set of processes. To have people be respomsible for their work.

We were doing better.

I Was doing far less.

We have some capable people in place.

And yet.

Here we are again.

Utter bullshit.

I think the problem here is. This project. Is literally. The client. Andy. Me.

And it exposes that Andy can't do this. If anything he has got worse. This. Should be no real surprise. We are all older. And slower. It makes sense he has got worse. Its just being human.

But the cost to me. Is then even higher.

So.

I am having a think about it.

About what to do.

If I was comfortable with money

I Would leave today. No questions. No doubt. Gone. Zero desire to look back.

I even asked the machine overlords about it. Told them to be brutal with me. No sugar coating. No sycophancy. Tell me I am wrong. Tell me I am an idiot.

They were brutal with me. The situation is unsustainable. The shrink said the same. Jesus everyone in my life says the same. Its unsustainable. I am not wrong. But I am also failing. I am part of the problem. Letting that happen. I am an idiot. Do something about it. 

The machines think I need to do something.

Leave.

Attempt another effort at, This Is Very Bad, And I'm Not Doing This Again. You Must Do Better. Or Fail. I Will Not Save You.

The machines think I am stuck in a binary. With poor modelling of my choices. I am failing in myself. To navigate it correctly. They are telling me I am wrong. And an idiot. Not because the situation isn't diabolically shit. But because I have a choice, and I am letting that happen. And I shouldn't let that happen. 

That's the brutal analysis.

So I am thinking.

I don't know.

I need to step away from the fucking seagull levels of twittering. Can it be blue ? Can it be higher ? Show that value in the left bit, not the right bit. FUCK. OFF. CUNT. HOW ABOUT. DO WORK. UP FRONT. RATHER THAN DO NOTHING. EXPECT ME TO DO IT ALL. THEN OFFER MINOR FUCKING NITPICKS ABOUT MY FUCKING CHOICES. HOW ABOUT. GET OFF YOUR ARSE. DO THE HARD WORK OF CONCEPTION. AND I'LL FOLLOW YOU.

But I know this.

It is far far easier. To get someone else to build the Taj Mahal that you couldn't even conceive of. And then when its finished say. I think I want a rug in the entrance hall. The Entrace Hall. You didnt' even know what a fucking entrance hall was until I built one. And now you want a rug in it.

FUCK OFF. CUNT.

As you can see.

I am.

Annoyed.

So. I need to step away.

And not think about work. Even if they start screaming. And crying. And anxiety dumping.

Turn off the phone.

Come down a few notches. And only then. Think. Because. Trying to think in the midst of a storm. Only gets you stormy plans, and hasty shortcuts. No one draws up a plan in a storm whilst at sea. You do that. In calm weather. With a cup of tea. Not tied to the mast in case you go overboard.

This. Is a piece of distilled wisdom. I am aware of it.

So. First.

Step away from the enraging environment.

Allow yourself to calm and regulate.

Then think.

But.

As a brief heads up.

I am thinking about if its possible to maybe odd job for people I know. A few friends. Maybe. They have some technical things I could help with. Maybe. They just need a brain to hire. Because. I'm useful like that. Even CFS clapped out. I am still. Sharp.

A penny here. A penny there. Not much. Perhaps.

But maybe nothing exists. And I would have to cast my net further.

But. That's too much planning. In stormy seas.

Pilot the boat out of the storm first.

Sigh.