Infectious smiling. Unavoidable. Undeniable. Purely enjoyable.
Butterflys fluttering gently around the insides. Landing and flapping happily.
Work unbearably mundane when compared to the possibility of life.
Hope so heavy. Weightier than water. Deadlier than danger.
Intensely interesting. Unbelievably unique.
I wish to know so much more.
Yesterday I became a GTO. I don’t even really know how. It just sort of happened.
So what is a GTO in this sense? Well, it sure isn’t a pontiac. It’s a General Technical Owner. It means that a certain project or subsection of a project is completely mine. If it goes wrong, it’s my fault, etc.
Again I will reiterate, I’m not sure how I fell into this. It’s not really a bad thing, if anything it is a good thing in terms of my career. It’s like being a mini-lead programmer. Seeing as how my current lead is one of the most amazing and highly respected programmers at the studio, I really don’t mind playing second fiddle here.
Yesterday the managers came to me and said “We want you to lead the demo. Would you be willing to do that?” and I said without even a moments hesitation “Sure. I’ll do that.” Just as the words finished coming out of my mouth my brain locked up in a WTF? moment as I realized what I had done.
It’s some sort of sick compulsion. I don’t know how to turn down responsibility. It’s like a part of my brain cackles and rubs it’s finger tips together while whispering Stress. MORE STRESS! in an evil tone.
Of course the saddest part is as much I as I don’t really want to do it in retrospect, there is a much larger and louder part of myself that really does want to do it. As much as all of my friends tell me not to get caught up in the management and politics of working here because it will take all of the fun out of my job, a part of me absolutley craves it.
I want to officially lead again in the future. My true skills are in developing and growing technical talent. I can freely admit that I am not the best programmer in the world, but I can turn people into the best programmers they can be.
Well, that’s sort of what I want to do in the future. My actual goal would be to start a central debugging team. We would be involved in the setting up of all projects and doing general reviews of coding methodologies used in projects. My team would lay the groundwork for cross-team debugging tools and features. When a team hit the wall and were searching for a panic button, my team would be the group that responded to the panic button. We would be the fire fighters, the medics, the SWAT team of coding.
You’re either SWAT, or you’re not.
The word tired quite simply isn’t a big enough word to describe how I feel right now. Exhausted barely even scratches the surface.
I think I may suffer from an as yet undiagnosed disease that I will dub Awakeaholism. So let me start by saying, “Hi. I’m Sean. I’m an Awakeaholic. It’s been… I’m not sure how long since I’ve had a good night’s rest.”
You see, I’m awake a lot. Even when I don’t want to be. I have no real control over it. Sometimes I just can’t stop being awake for extended periods of time.
Take last night as a perfect example. Around 10pm I started thinking “Gee, I should go to bed and get a good night’s sleep to start the week with.” Then I watched the hours tick by. 11pm. Midnight. 1am. 2am. 3am. 4am. Around 4:30am I went to sleep. My last thought was “*insert explitive of choice* tomorrow is going to be hell.”
So what happened next? I woke up just after 6am (just a little before my alarm). I’ve been up ever since. Even when I “woke up” I wasn’t tired. All day since then though, I have been tired. Not the kind of tired where you can sleep though. I know tonight I’ll go home, beyond exhausted as I am, and still not be able to sleep. The later the night continues, the more awake and alert I’ll become.
Time to go home for the day I think. Maybe I’ll just go straight to bed and see what happens.