The Hangover

First off, let me just say that I've never been this hungover in my life. And I didn't even drink very much. Getting older sucks.

I took Monday off, and I'm glad I did. It was a good day to stay home. Joey and I had a good heart to heart on Skype.

That day, after much anxiety over the issue, I finally called a psychiatrist. I was actually afraid to make the call, but Joey gave me a little kick-in-the-ass encouragement and I actually started to feel better about getting some help.

But then I couldn't get a hold of the guy. We've been playing phone tag all week long. He called Tuesday when I was at work. My cell phone gets such a crappy signal at the office that it didn't even ring. I noticed later that I had voicemail. So I called back and left my office number. Same thing happened on Wednesday, except the doctor said in his voicemail message that my office number had been cut off by their answering machine, so they didn't get the whole thing. I called back and left it again. Then I didn't hear back. I called again on Friday, and the secretary told me the doctor isn't in on Fridays. So I guess I just have to try again next week.

Missing work on Monday was both good and bad. It was a nice and needed break, but my coworkers made some bone-headed decisions that I had to deal with on Tuesday. For a "lead" programmer, my coworker makes a lot of mistakes in his code. I spent much of Tuesday fixing his bugs. Wednesday morning he worked on the code by himself before I got there, creating more bugs. He and I spent most of Wednesday cleaning up the mess. We managed to finish that project, but did not finish another, so our budget went down to 2.5. It was frustrating for everyone.

On Thursday, I gave our weekly demo to a packed house. All of the regular meeting rooms were booked, so we had to hold the demo in our work area, and attendance was easily the highest it's ever been. People were standing way in the back, and even sitting on the floor up close. We've never crammed so many people into our little area before.

The demo was awesome. I gave a great presentation, if I do say so myself, and people were excited about our most recent software updates. There were many ooh's and ah's as we talked about what we'd done during the past week.

Immediately after the demo was a stand-up meeting with the leadership team in which we got completely reamed. It was a huge frustrating downer, and very anti-climactic after our great demo. After that, we had difficulty staying on task during our retrospective and iteration planning because everyone was so distracted by the comments from leadership.

Thursday afternoon and much of Friday was filled with more irritation at my coworker, who thinks I'm "right on the cusp" of being at his level, even though he continues to make rookie mistakes by not paying attention to detail or following the simplest of processes.

At some point during the week, I don't remember which day, my other coworker, the one I've always thought was an unqualified idiot, talked to me about how he'd spoken to our consultant on my behalf regarding how we handle promotions and raises. He thinks I'm easily at the same level as the lead developer, and he thinks it's unfair that I continue to be paid at a lower level despite my skills and experience.

I was surprised by this, I never expect anyone else in my department to stick up for me. But it wasn't totally out of generosity, he's mostly concerned for the team and for his own welfare. He wants a promotion and raise of his own, and he feels that addressing how we handle it as a group will benefit us both. And, he doesn't want me to quit because he knows it would screw the team. He's right about that.

But I've already started looking for other jobs. It might take me a while to find something, but I'm going to keep looking until I do.

By Friday, I was completely brain-drained. I had made plans to be social Friday night, but I was losing enthusiasm for that as the day wore on. But one of my friends convinced me to go out, tired or not. So I did.

It was a night out with some coworkers from upstairs, including my boss, which was odd but fun. I like people so much better outside of the office. We planned to have dinner/drinks then see a movie, but there was a mix-up with the movie times that caused us to see the movie first (at the beer theater) and then drink.

I had a beer before the movie, on an empty stomach, pizza and pie during the movie, then margaritas afterwards. I also took a shot of Petron right before we left, which didn't hit me until after I got home. I never drank any water.

We watched The Hangover, which was absolutely hilarious, although I'm not sure it would be as funny if I wasn't drunk and hanging out with my buddies.

When I woke up this morning, I had the worst headache of my life. (Ironic, right? The Hangover gave me a hangover.) I got up and drank some water, but it made things worse. After about 20 minutes, I got sick and threw up. Nothing but water and stomach acid, burning my throat. If I can't keep water down, then I can't take any pain killers for the headache. So all I could do was go back to bed.

Finally around 4:00pm, after repeated unsuccessful attempts to get up, I was able to bring myself upright, drink some tea and eat a little bread. I feel much, much better now, but my whole day was wasted with recovery time. I didn't even drink that much last night. I guess it was just that I started on a empty stomach, and I didn't drink water. And I'm getting old. I can't drink and recover easily like I used to. It's sad.

Tomorrow I'm being social again. I have plans to meet the girlfriends (with one boyfriend in tow) for brunch, and one friend is trying to talk me into seeing a matinee afterwards. I'll probably give in because I'm a sucker for movies. :)

I haven't been this social in months. I've spent nearly every weekend being a total hermit, which I enjoy because the work week is so draining, but it is nice to get out sometimes. I just miss Joey. I wished he could have been with me last night. He would have enjoyed the movie, and it might have been fun to have him hang out with my coworkers.

He's out on a mission right now. I think he's supposed to be back tomorrow. I haven't heard from him since Thursday morning. I hope he's safe.

Anyway... now that my stomach feels better, I'm actually hungry for the first time all day. Time to scrounge up something to eat.