TGIF!

[selenay]

(Posting via email - hence any formatting issues)

Yesterday was the most stressed that I've felt since the run-up to the
launch of the Massive Christmas Tracking Project in my old job. I don't
think I slept properly all week. There were a lot of wobbles through the
day, times when I was trying to respond to five IM conversations at once and
wanted to tell three people to go away, but thankfully it's done and 85% of
the Zombie Project went into production.

The other 15% is the bit that's not done yet and we're still trying to
figure out how we can even make it work. None of the other stuff is
dependent on it, though, so the deployment was unaffected.

We had a slight issue around security settings on a table that the DBA
managed to fix this morning. One overnight processing job blew up this
morning because an index had not been setup on a new materialised view,
which was easily fixed by smiling nicely at the DBA.

So, the stuff is actually there on our production server. Sadly, most of it
has not been tested yet so we don't know whether it's going to blow up yet.
The business analyst for the project is sick and my boss is working from
home so that she doesn't infect us with her lurgy, so the testing will not
happen until Monday at earliest.

I'm already feeling a bit more relaxed, though. After a day from hell I went
out last night with my knit group and a night of food, laughter and knitting
helped a lot. Hopefully I can catch up with some sleep over the weekend and
feel much more able to cope with everything next week. I enjoy my job a lot,
but I wish that I wasn't quite so much of a perfectionist because a lot of
my stress was pressure that I had put on myself. It always feels like the
success (or not) of a project reflects a lot on my professionalism and I
want to be bloody good at my job. Finding the middle ground between caring
about how well I do my job and getting crazy obssessed by it is something I
fail at totally.

Due to all the extra time that I put in yesterday, I'm leaving an hour early
today. I shall probably be hitting the Gap for a new pair of casual trousers
and then possibly slumping in Starbucks for a while with hot chocolate. Then
I'm conflicted.

On the one hand, I could buy some grociers and then order pizza when I get
home so that I don't need to cook.

Or I could get some takeout from my favourite sushi place, except I really
want some tempura based things with it and that doesn't transport well
because my house is so far from everywhere.

Or I could eat my sushi at the restaurant and pick up groceries on the way
home, except I'd be eating alone.

Or I could do what I usually do when faced with these options, which is to
feel guilty about not wanting to cook and therefore buy my groceries, go
home and eat toast because I have no energy to cook. Hey, at least I
prepared the toast myself!

Comments

[tejas.livejournal.com]

Buy groceries and also buy something prepared at the store, like one of those roast chickens (my grocery store carries them, maybe yours does, too?) then pop a potato in the oven when you get home. It's almost like not cooking. :-)

Congrats on the move to production! Here's hoping testing doesn't reveal any major catastrophes. Just little ones. Cuz you know there'll be some. :-)

[sugoll.livejournal.com]

Possibly this comes a little late, but: screw the "feeling guilty". You've worked hard. You deserve a break. If you didn't give yourself one today, then do so tomorrow. Consider this an order. :-)

[selenay]

I decided that I still felt too guilty for the chicken route. So I bought my groceries (although I did spent some time in Starbucks with a book and some hot chocolate) and then made wonton soup with some filled wontons that I froze a couple of weeks ago. Not too much more work than toast and very good :-)

I may be going out for dinner tomorrow instead...

[tejas.livejournal.com]

There you go. Still a nice quick meal.

[selenay]

I'm giving myself a break tomorrow, sir :-D I've invited a friend out for sushi tomorrow night, so I won't have to cook and I'll have a nice evening.

Tonight I had wonton soup using some wontons that I made and froze a couple of weeks ago, which was fairly lazy but at least I don't feel guilty about it!

[selenay]

It's lazy, but I'm trying to remember that when it's cooking or re-heating something that I've made and frozen, it's not a bad thing. I mean, it's home cooked and not processed so I there's no need to feel guilty about it. Really.

It's hard to persuade myself of this sometimes :-D

[tejas.livejournal.com]

Oh, please. Don't tell me you're one of those who feels there's something wrong with life being easy? :-) C'mon! It's one thing if you can't afford to eat out once in a while. That happens, but your *time* is at *least* as valuable as disposable income. And given that this was something you *already* cooked at home, there's NO reason for guilt. If it's processed stuff you're trying to get away from for health reasons, that's great, but you can still eat out without getting processed stuff. It just costs a little more.