Triumph and tragedy (original) (raw)

I haven't posted in a long time again. Ironically, my not writing anything has largely been the result of too many things happening that I'd like to write about. It's 5am and I'm still up as my sleep cycle's a bit dodgy and I'm thinking too much to rest anyway. It's largely the culmination of a rapid and entirely unexpected acceleration in Life In General since May, but mostly it's been the events of the last two days.

It all started a couple of months ago, when, after many promising noises and just as many letdowns, my old boss called. Five minutes later, I had my old job back (on a three month contract - they're short of cash). Work had become so heavy for a formerly hundred-strong-now-one-fifth-of-that company that they needed to hire. I was honoured to find I was the first of all those who lost their jobs to be offered theirs back, and it meant a massive amount to me to regain a vocation of which I'd forgotten I was very proud once.

Fast-forward a month, and I was in the office again. My closest colleague (of whom I'm very fond. He's a good guy), having been under a lot of strain from a huge workload, had an epileptic seizure. I'd only seen it happen to him once before, and was too shocked to do anything then. This time aroud I knew better what to do. This didn't really help the shock aspect however. After about an hour or so, he was conscious enough to be driven home. He had another seizure on the way and injured himself, keeping him out from work for a few days. It jarred me badly to see my friend in the seizure, but I pressed on and ignored my emotions in order to work.

I was still finding my feet in the company again, and having resolved to prove myself as best I could in order to be rehired after my contract expired, I was working silly hours again. I was hardly at home at the best of times, but my colleague's absence soon made that heavier. Under a lot of strain myself, I had difficulty getting off to a decent start. A couple of major projects had to be aborted and rearranged when I found that our R&D department still hadn't cottoned on to the word 'documentation'.

Fast forward a couple more weeks, and I had a visit from friends from the UK. We'd had the idea to host a toga party, and I had a few days left to prepare. Back in the office, our intern had finished writing our extranet. A week before we were due to let some rather large and important customers loose on the thing, we discovered that what little of it worked looked rather shabby indeed. Being the PHP guy in the office, I was asked to 'clean it up'.

Cleaning up someone's code isn't easy, and that's doubly true if they happen to be Spanish, inexperienced and probably rather bored. I had to scrap it completely and re-execute a three-month project. Spotting my chance to prove myself, I worked myself to the bone, even going into the office at 4am to get more done while trying to juggle a much looked-forward to visit from my friends and organise a party.

I finished the extranet, had a great time with my friends and enjoyed the party (which, it has to be said, was a wholly bizarre experience in it's own right) - but I was starting to feel a rather unpleasant undertone of stress which had me on edge. Later at work, I was assigned a new project and carried on pushing myself hard, eager to prove myself again - my work on the extranet had been received far better than I could have imagined and I was finally getting somewhere - albeit at the cost of many hours sleep - but that doesn't really matter much when you're finally getting the praise and recognition you've been chasing.

Fast forward to yesterday. I'd spent the weekend on an impulsive trip to England. It turned out to be a great idea - I had a great time, met some great new people came back feeling less stressy. Of course, I should really have stayed in at the weekend, got plenty of sleep and a lot of rest. Instead, I partied and mountain boarded and leapt around like a loon 'til I felt like I'd burned out my tension. I don't regret going, but it didn't leave me a chance to centre myself again before a crazy work week started.

What followed next is still trying to sink in. On Monday, I pulled one of the craziest work days of my life, working nearly 12 hours during the day, resting for a couple of hours then pulling an overnight migration on a rather important customer's telco platform. My efforts paid off and, despite yet more spazzed software from R&D and complete absence of site documentation (critical considered our customer had loads of customisations), I pulled it off. I'm still not entirely sure how, but I felt elated and finally took some sleep on Tuesday morning. I woke in in the late afternoon and went straight to work, intending to be there for an hour in order to look smug at people, gauge the customer's response and perhaps lap up some compliments if I was lucky.

Smiling, I walked straight into my boss's office and was told I should probably sit down, because he had some bad news. My heart nearly exploded on the spot, thinking I'd screwed up, we were being sued and I'd just killed a multi-million euro customer's prepaid phonecard business. As a result, it didn't quite click when I was told that a colleague whom I'd known and worked with for 5 years had died while I was sat behind a keyboard in the office. He was also under massive strain, and had started to act slightly out of character in the office a week before, even taking out life insurance policies and expressing concerns about his health. He tidied his desk (something I haven't seen him do in, well, ever actually), left it in perfect order and went for a game of squash across the road - where he had a massive coronary and died instantly. He was only 36, and had a son on the way.

I don't think I realised quite the level of shock I was in right away. I was still hyped from the project and totally unprepared for this, so it came as small consolation to find that the customer whom I'd worked for that night had been so impressed that they even wrote a letter expressing how pleased they were with my work, and praising me for my efforts. I'd finally hit my stride and proved myself in a huge way, my company was delighted and I finally felt I'd achieved what I set out to do. But it didn't seem significant any more.

Needless to say, I've been thinking a lot since, and this is one of the reasons (apart from a knackered sleep cycle) that I'm sat up at what's now nearly 6am, writing a livejournal post. My colleague's death brought into perspective many things, particularly causing me to question, for once, whether my running myself ragged for the sake of achieving a career that while well-paid, isn't necessarily good for my wellbeing. Granted, I'm the youngest in the company and hardly likely to die of a heart attack quite just yet, but I'm already leading the kind of 24/7 lifestyle that's been making a mess of my colleagues and interfering with my social life.

However, this post isn't really about that. While I did indeed come to some significant conclusions about my life, I feel it's only relevant here to say that I feel I've matured, very suddenly. The whole experience has been rather cathartic, and now I've had the chance to come to terms with yesterday's event, I feel oddly calm and centred now.

I'm going to miss my respected colleague and friend. It was a tragedy on many levels, and a massive injustice. We toasted him in the manner he would have most liked, in the smoking room with company beer, laughing and chatting in that slightly awkward, emotionally stifled manner many (straight) men have. It was easy to see how shaken everyone was, and through many beers, no work and a long chat, I think we all felt far better about it all. Above all, his death brought back a sense of team which I haven't seen in the office since the very beginning of the company. Realising my colleague's contributions to the company and at what cost, I think we all felt we owe it to him to make a success of our venture.

I for one will go back to work tomorrow, take a deep breath and get back on with work. I think I'm pretty safely assured of being re-hired, I have a month in Toronto with my Adam (my boyfriend) to look forward and I've totally cleared my workload. Whatever project I hit next, I'm going to approach with less gung-ho, more focus and more attention to my own levels of stress. Above all, I'll remember more than ever that I should be appreciating what I already have in life, for a sense of achievement is a fine thing and integral to my own self-respect - but not if it comes at the cost of ignoring the life I'm truly lucky to have.

Goodbye, S. You were a trooper.

PS: Yes, I'm going to get some sleep now.