It started Friday after a tenuous day at work. Working for a company that focuses on client-based services always has its ups and downs. Luckily, the company I currently work for keeps me primarily shielded from most of the negative aspects (thanks Pete). Sometimes, however, I am expected on phone calls with clients to explain systems or with third party companies to accommodate integration. Mostly it goes over smoothly. Lately, with one particular project, it has been anything but simple. The project implementation has changed dramatically due to the limitations of the third party. Last Friday was my rage-inducing limit. Everything I worked on for the last second weeks was nearly invalidated because they were not able to accommodate something we initially agreed upon.

I can usually roll with changes, but this was week after week of disappointments for this particular project. So when the work day was over, I just had to melt for a little while. I explained the situation to my wife the best I could. Because she doesn’t fully understand the ramifications she said, “That must suck.” Which is tough to hear because I know she sympathizes with the generality of my frustration but not the specifics.

Friday Night, my wife was also going on an overnight trip to Disneyland with the 8^th graders on a school trip. 11pm Friday until 5am Sunday. Great. Our daughter was being taken care of by her Grandfather, so I had the weekend to myself. After dropping Jasmine off, I return home and flip on the computer for a bit – only to be hit by a barrage of change requests for a freelance job I had been working for the last month. It was supposed to be a one week project for 25 hours, and had been delayed by the client and the company subcontracting me. I was now in over 35 hours, only billing for the original 25, with over a month dedicated to their knee-jerk reactions. By the time I was notified of an impending change, I was expected to have it done immediately.

I do not like to work this way. My primary job does not work this way except for extreme situations. This company I am sub-contracting temporarily for seems to only function that way. I decided to get the work done that night. I was working until 4am on the project. Yet, the designer had incorporated changes that were completely unrelated to the original designs I was provided. So having worked until 4am, the project was still not completed. I went to sleep and then woke up directly at 7am and couldn’t fall back asleep. I checked to see if they had received my changes yet and then began working on my own project.

At 11am I was getting very frustrated with my personal project. I was starting from scratch on a new framework and I kept hitting speed bumps. The stress of the last day had finally hit its boiling point. I swore off computers entirely. Shut everything down. And was pretty much set to quit my job and become a lumberjack. Seriously. I did this in college. Not exactly. It is difficult to do your hobby for work, and then do your hobby for a hobby. In college I got a B.A. in English because I was working a programming job full time, and my hobby was programming.

So I went insane. I took my camera, my car keys, and threw on some shorts and began driving. I found the even-more-run-down areas of my town and started taking pictures. I went to Goodwill for an hour and tried on some $20 suits and found a 9600 baud modem. I then went to used car lots to browse around. Found a pretty nice Volvo and started checking it out. It was already sold, it turns out, but I wouldn’t have bought it anyway. I was just wasting time.

It wasn’t until 3pm that I realized I hadn’t showered, had no deodorant, was wearing my I  NY sleep shirt and was basically talking to myself since 11am. I called up my friend Peter and told him I was going insane and needed to get away. So I went to his house, after dropping by Safeway for some deodorant.

We spent about an hour catching up then went into the living room and watched a little TV. That’s when I discovered he had a solved 5×5 and 4×4 Rubik’s Cube sitting on his shelf. I asked him about it and he admitted to a bit of a fascination with them. So I made him teach me how to solve a 3×3. Well, mostly. I think after two hours I got the gist of it, if not the practicality. I could solve one row, and maybe half of the second row before completely destroying it. It was fun playing with the Rubik’s Cube and I need to go buy one for myself. I will learn how to solve them. It’s all algorithmic after all and even though I hated computers right then, I am still a programmer at heart.

We went to dinner and Fry’s Electronics because no trip into town would be complete without it. I searched for a mouse and maybe a Bamboo Tablet. Then I realized I didn’t hate computers. I was just stuck. And running off 3 hours of sleep. So I dropped Peter off at his house and headed home. I kept the computer off and went to sleep.

I picked up the wife at 5am and fell back to sleep. Woke up at 11am and turned on my computer. I finished the initial framework for my personal project and was completely rejuvenated. I mowed the lawn, cleaned up the house and read a few chapters of my book by 2pm. I had to wake Jasmine up at this point because we were due to pick up our daughter.

Anyway, I think I went insane for a bit. It is probably not a good idea to go around sleep-deprived when you are already in a stressful mindset. I will avoid this in the future. Yeah, that’s a good idea.