I’m terribly depressed, and I’m not entirely sure why. I mentioned this to Vicki, and she started listing off dozens of reasons why I should be happy with no signs of stopping until I conceded the point. And I have to agree with every one of them. I should be happy. And yet, I am not.
There is one thing hanging over me right now – a Functional Spec that I promised would be done by Wednesday, and which I haven’t done nearly enough work on. The more I’m working on it, the bigger a job it looks. And the more impossible seems the deadlines both for having the Functional Spec and even more important, the code that I’m spec-ing. And with my project manager and my current product manager, that’s not going to go over well. Before, I might have been praised for giving information that would allow the schedule to be adjusted, but with these two I’m not sure. I feel like neither of them trust me, and because of that I don’t entirely trust them.
But I’ve been in bad situations at work here – hell, I survived a year and a half at SunGard without cracking up. Oh wait, I didn’t – I spent two years in therapy around that time. So never mind Sungard. But I did survive a year at Gandalf, where my boss’s boss thought his whole department should be shut down so I had to spend half the time writing long descriptions of what we were doing and how much we were saving the company.
So anyway, I don’t know why I’m so sad. And being sad isn’t helping write the Functional Spec.
It’s just that sometimes it helps to count your blessings. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t feel what you feel.
My suggestion? Take up a new hobby to get your mind elsewhere, even if for brief periods of time.
I used to be really into radio controlled model planes, and in late ’06 when I was feeling much the same (like yourself, with no apparent reasoning behind it) I got back into RC after having been out of it for many years.
With all the changes, it was almost like taking up a new hobby again. I joined 2 clubs – an indoor one for the winter, and the outdoor one for the summer.
The opportunity to throw everything to the wind a few times a week, get out and socialize with others who enjoyed the same hobby, and do something I really enjoyed completely revved me up, and got me through the rough point.
Well, crap. Having a maresnest of a project and bosses who are not sympatico would send me into a panic.
I hate that you’re sad, but you feel defeated at the moment, so that’s normal. Once the project is done that feeling will pass. (If it doesn’t, we’ll deal with that too).
My only piece of advice is try to take the project one bite-size step at a time. (It’s unsolicited advice, so feel free to ignore it. But don’t, k? It’s good advice!)
Hey, at least you’re still employed, eh? Yeah, I get depressed too at times (and could have cause to be on a major downer right now), but let the small things amuse you and try to look at the upside of the bigger things. I’ve looked at life from the angry side, and that side led toward madness, so let’s not do that then. A lot of how I feel seems to be based on whether I try to look at things and their possible outcomes optimistically or pessimistically, and trying to shift that may be key.
Happiness and depression are two different things. You may have many reasons why you should be happy but are still depressed.
Have you ever been tested to see if you suffer from SAD? You might want to check out the three links at the end of the first paragraph in my blog entry at http://gordon.dewis.ca/2007/12/22/gledelig-jul/
Mark’s suggestion of a new hobby might be worth exploring.
Hang in there, Paul. 🙂
I frequently feel overwhelmed by large projects, which often makes me shut down and avoid it as much as possible because thinking about it makes me anxious and unhappy. I (ideally) deal with it by breaking the project down into small chunks, tackling the things that seem quick and easy, then moving on. Sometimes even that is hard to do.
Hang in there.