Last week was the worst week of my career to date. Given that I tend to specialise in projects that have already gotten into difficulty or are at a high risk of failure for various reasons, this is really saying something. Nothing else has even compared to this in levels of pain, stress and all round depression. It was made much worse by my wife being away on a trip for most of it and giving me no-one to offload onto or stop me working late.
To give you a little background and set the scene...
I recently (around 5 weeks ago) damaged my back again. I have had problems with it since I broke some ribs a few years ago in a bike crash and despite regular physiotherapy, widespread osteo-arthritis is gradually winning the battle. My long history of dangerous sports has left me with three damaged vertebra, 2 crushed discs and minor nerve damage in a few relatively inconsequential places.
At the moment, I'm taking high doses of very strong painkillers, muscle relaxants and anti-inflammatories and offsetting the drowsiness effects of this little cocktail with caffeine - the students friend. This strategy, although unsustainable in the long term, will allow me to get the job done until the physiotherapist can sort me out - hopefully in the next few weeks.
So, the worst week ever...
The current job involves daily crises of the sort that would make many tear their hair out, but like constant bad news, one becomes desensitised very quickly and focussed on the big picture. Even sudden and unexpected requirements to spend £20k start to look pretty routine when my budget alone is £2.1Million and we have so little time to finish the job. The real problem isn’t the daily crises, but the fact that staff start moving in 6 weeks and there is still so much to be done.
Monday started pretty routinely at the usual 5am with an emergency over network provision in work-benches for the tech-centre staff (mechanics to everyone else) and the sudden realisation that they have to be able to play music at their benches. Personal radios apparently aren’t allowed, so a multichannel radio, CD and speaker system had to be hurriedly designed and priced by the AV team. Issues (challenges?) abounded that day and my back was particularly bad, so I upped the dose of painkillers to cope and got on with the job. That night, I worked until after midnight and fell asleep at my desk, finally waking up at 03:00hrs and crawling off to bed, before another 05:00hrs start. If this had been the same all week, it would have been a cakewalk.
Tuesday started blearily until the caffeine hit and the drive to work was marred only by a fool in a BMW who tried hard to run me off the road - twice and with distinct malice. Hmmm, a severe dose of Porsche jealousy I think and thank God for German brakes and caffiene induced reactions of greased-lightening. For some reason, one of the construction managers screamed blue murder at me and feeling that I and IT in general was getting targeted, I documented this latest episode (number 18 to date and the second that week) for management and started off the process to try and save the working relationship. Couldn't have the necessary one to one as the chap in question and I are far too busy to take an hour off and work out our differences during the working day.
The building had suffered some flooding after the recent flash rain storms and that was still causing problems with flooded risers and frogs(!) wandering around at will. Half a dozen more crises occurred during the day, ranging in seriousness from £2k to £50k potential exposure. Worked again until after midnight and again fell asleep at my desk waiting for a printout to appear!
Wednesday was supposed to be the early start necessary to have the 1-2-1 with the construction manager, but I slept through my alarm and didn’t arrive at site until 07:30 - by which time he was too busy and I was trying to head off the management team from making yet another set of requirements changes only 7 weeks prior to staff moving in. Bad atmosphere all day and the unpleasant realisation that the 25 IT racks around the building must be earthed to the main building earth - meaning special earth cable must be run to all sorts of fiddly places and in areas where the cabling had been completed and the ceilings put back up. In a word, bugger. However, this is my first building site and I'll know for the next time. Stopped working at about 21:30hrs and had my first early night.
Thursday morning, I managed to crawl out of bed with the help of the pain killers and get to the office by 06:30hrs. I finally managed to hold the working relationship meeting with the construction manager in question and to my amazement it went remarkably well. All sorted, and we were nice to each other for the rest of the week. Management were terribly happy not to get involved and all seemed right with the world, for about an hour.
The night before I had thought to do a partial water change on the hot tub and set up a siphon to the now empty water butt. I had forgotten to switch off the siphon and at 08:15hrs my neighbour (a huge environment supporter) called me to tell me that I was wasting thousands of gallons of water as the butt had overflowed and water was running down the drain. He was convinced it was coming from the mains tap and didn’t notice the strong smell of bromine - or the fact that the water was warm and steaming faintly! Ready to call the Thames Water grass-up line, he demanded I return home immediately to turn off the tap. Great, driving from Surrey to Reading through the middle of the rush hour worried that I might have done something to damage the neighbours foundations by flooding him out. When I arrived, the tap was off and the overflow had stopped as the hot tub was now virtually empty. I realised what I had done and went next door to explain, wherupon I was treated to a host of accusations tantamount to being called the environmental and neighbourly anti-Christ - and after the dozens of favours I have done them - ungrateful bloody people. Unable to give a good account of myself (being in excruciating pain and far more worried about the damage I might have done to his fence or house) I left feeling genuinely upset that people I thought I had a good relationship with (and even gone to Glastonbury 2004 with - where I put up ALL their crappy tents while still limping badly from a recently broken leg!) actually held these monstrous opinions of me and not even the common decency to come and talk to me about it. They even accused me of sabotaging their hedge the previous year - and I LIKED that hedge. Depressed and feeling really sick, I got back in the car and returned to the site. Almost immediately, one of my suppliers' project managers came to me almost in tears after I knocked back a change authorisation for works because it was £1600 over the agreed price. Her problem being that she had already had the works complete and her bosses were giving her a serious kicking for allowing the works to continue under pressure from me - when the paperwork wasn't signed off. Actually, I cared nothing for the £1600 overspend as my main target for the day was a £13,000 reduction in price for another part of the project. Cards were placed on the table and I got the £13k while rolling over on the £1600. I even agreed to write a note to her bosses explaining that the whole thing was my mistake and she didn’t deserve the bollocking they most surely had lined up. Again, management were ecstatic and although the negotiations were stressy and I was full of painkillers it looked like it was going to be a successful day. Then I got stung by a wasp. Wasps are attracted to the hi-viz jackets we wear on site and you get used to them buzzing about and then leaving. This one just flew up and stung me on the right arm, and I'm badly allergic. Within about 2 minutes I had the arm immobilised 3 piriton tabs down my gullet and started flooding my system with water. On an empty stomach, 3 piriton virtually negated the effects of the sting, but reacted badly to the pain killers and for a few hours I had to sit down unable to focus, talk, hear properly or co-ordinate my legs. This seemed like a good time to get some email done and after a while I was able to drive home, albeit slowly and very carefully through the back lanes. I finally get home at 18:00 and while chatting to the chap that washes my car while my back is done in, he suddenly passes out on my driveway with no warning. Like an old man, I gingerly sat on the floor beside him and put him into the recovery position. 18:00hrs on a road used as a rat run by commuters and not a person in sight I can ask for help, typical. While trying to dial 999, the bloody phone rings (office, more crises, can’t talk, emergency, bye) and I have to redial. Before I get the chance to hit "send" Marc turns over and after shaking his head gets up and heads off to sit in his van. Surreal indeed. I got him some water and after he had calmed down, I offered to drive him home (although frankly I was in no better a state than he was!). Thankfully, he declined and drove off. I waited until I was sure he was home (he only lives about half a mile away) and then got back on the phone to sort out the latest crisis. I pulled another late-nighter and took a degree of comfort from the fact that I work from home on Fridays.
Friday morning, I lay in for a couple of hours and waiting for the pain killers to take effect. My arm had blown up like a balloon, my breathing was laboured and I felt very sick indeed (bloody wasps!) Amazingly enough, apart from more management politics and moving of requirements without informing IT; Friday was largely uneventful. Thank you God. This has truly been the worst week of my career to date.
Oddly enough, because I sorted the working ralationship, almost flawlessly dealt with a little over 20 show-stopper crises, and got the £13k refund, the client thinks I had a great week.
How little they know 
The doctors have prescribed me an epi-pen for the next sting and advised that I carry anti-hystamines at all times. Still, could be way worse.
I have a pain scale that I use to classify whatever hurts. The worst ever was actually a bloody clot in my right kidney after an economy flight back from an Orlando business trip. This felt like a spear had been pushed into my side from the back and was being slowly pulled out through the front. Even the worst of the 8 broken bones (some of them 3 and 4 times each) doesn't even compare to a blot clot in the kidney.
Where 1 is a headache and 10 is the kidney pain, this week rates a solid 8. But it's over now and i'm stronger for it.
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