What a depressing week. I’m not sure I should even write about this.
My various bosses and my husband all worry that work is too taxing, and this week was the poster child for that point of view. Every day was worse than the one before it. I managed to completely blow away the development environment for the ground system not once, but three times (I’m at work right now trying to fix it). I’m delaying the testers by messing up their test environment by not following established processes and just plain making mistakes. I screwed up several personnel changes by not finding the parties in question and telling them about the changes FIRST. I delayed getting implementation done for next week’s release by making bad decisions about the use of scarce resources. And I don’t even want to talk about my mobility.
Shit.
There’s a guy here at work I’ve encountered once or twice – young guy, fit, skiier, biker, all that jazz. He’s recently moved to an office near mine. Yesterday he stopped me in the hall – “Didn’t you used to use a wheelchair?”
I told him about the relapsing-remitting thing. With a scared look on his face, he blurted out, “I’ve just been diagnosed with ALS.”
Well, that sucks, too. More.
I’ll try to come up with something perkier later.
Katja, it sounds like young-fit guy may be searching for a bit of help, a helping hand into a community he is only beginning to identify with. Although it sounds like things are exhausting for you right now I hope you find the time to have a chat with him or perhaps recommend your blog and blogroll as a resource.
When I became disabled I felt so alone and finding sites like the BBC Ouch! site and blogs like yours was part of a healing process. Part of identifying with others. I wish him well and hope you also fare well in this hell week of fatigue and office stress.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head; young-fit guy and I talked for quite a while that day. He’s been researching and connecting feverishly in the three months since his diagnosis. He’s also clearly exhausted from the mental effort of concealing it from his co-workers. I really feel for him.
How young is “young”?
Thirty-eight.
To hell with perky.
Perky … hmmm. Yeah. I’ll stick with crusty and curmudgeonly.
You, or me?
Still feeling somewhere between what the cat drug in and roadkill…