July 26, 2007
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irrational stress
It’s strange, at first I felt so much less stress. Nothing seemed to matter as much as it did before because of the simple fact that in two weeks I wouldn’t be there to face it. It’ll be somebody else’s problem.
But now two days before my last day I feel more stressed than ever. The last few nights I have slept barely at all and although I haven’t gotten much work done, I feel as if there is some great impending deadline is approaching upon which my entire future rests. Really I am so stressed, tense, worried and as far as I can tell for no good reason.
Part of it is how increasingly apparent how enormous an undertaking maintaining all of my code is going to be after I’m gone. I’ve been trying to clean things up, document things, make things run a little smoother, get things through quality assurance, finish up the last few projects, and have meetings with everybody to explain everything. But it is increasingly apparent that even if I worked twenty-four hours a day these last few days I wouldn’t come close to completing all or even most of what I would like to do or what I would need to do in order to make the transition seamless. My former coworkers are just going to have to deal with it and they are going to hate me for it. It’s not really my fault, but it is certainly my responsibility and not one I am likely to meet to the best of my ability and that just makes me feel awful.
I guess I had better get any references out of my coworkers I can *before* they are forced to face a nightmarish post my presence transition period that will sour their memory of me.
I don’t think that’s the only reason I’m stressed though. Probably uncertainty about the future is a bigger cause though I try not to think about that all that often.
