These days
I've gotten into an intense cycle of days. I like the cycle, I think. There was the week of hell two weeks ago, where we had two products being released by dates that had already been announced (thank you not, product management!), and every time we test built them we would find something wrong, and we would say BLEAGH! and build them again and something else would be wrong and BLEAGH and build and BLEAGH! Designers say BLEAGH! Developers say BLEAGH! Production operators say BLEAGH! Product management bursts into flames and we all scream BLEAGH!
Honestly, it was the most exhausting and tense week ever. The hilarious part is that this week, the products having been done and released by late Friday of hell week, everyone was sitting around sort of limp and grateful, clutching cups of coffee and giggling at each other in meetings and saying "aren't you glad this week isn't last week?" We have two teams within my department and each one has a morning meeting to go over the current projects, and we got into this silly competition to see who could get through the morning meeting the fastest. Record? Team A, five minutes. The group down the hall came by to see what the hell the ruckus was about when one team tried to sabotage the other team's time by coming in to the conference room with questions. Cheaters! A ruckus ensued (mostly involving hysterical laughter and thrown Sharpies), and it alarmed the poor webdev people.
The cycle of a single day is that I go to work and do my work, and usually my workday involves the solving of a very large puzzle. I love puzzle-solving, so doing it for a living is awesome. Some days I get to work early because I just figured out where a certain piece should go and I can't wait to start adding it to the design. But I've found, interestingly, that this is far more exhausting than, say, my academic career, where I ran around a lot more. I think it may be because at the end of this process, there is a concrete thing that is made that is mine, and it will be released into the world, and people will use it and hopefully be glad. I feel a sense of ownership, and I put more pressure on myself. I don't think a single project that I was ever involved in in academia, interesting though they were, ever became anything except an excuse for more meetings.
And then I get home, and I work out and it feels so good because I can feel all the pent-up pressure leave my brain.
Gloat warning: my arms are looking pretty damned fine!
And then I want to get on the computer, but I am just drained, so I get out my embroidery and watch silly TV shows. I miss my online social life and I think I'll probably pick it up again, but right now I'm mentally in another place. I like it there, but I think I'll get bored with it at some point and fire up the home computer more often.
Also? Tonight, I am having my first curling lesson. I am very excited to learn the sweepy thing. I hope I don't do a face-plant while throwing the stone.