Stress sucks.  I know, I probably don’t have to tell you that, since you live in the same modern era that I do.  Like anyone else, I do my best to avoid getting stressed.  But of course, I’m not always as successful as I’d like; something about there being exterior factors outside your control or something.  I get stressed often enough that I’ve noticed a common set of symptoms keep cropping up.  Like headaches and lack of sleep.  Or canker sores.

Of course, these reactions aren’t warning signs that I’m getting too stressed.  No, that would make too much sense.  Instead, they’re warning signs that I’ve gotten too stressed.  It’s too late to do anything about it, by that point, so why not pile on the added stressors of chronic pain and discomfort?

Help deal with stress by piling on more stress?  That sounds like a GREAT idea! </sarcasm>

I think that’s one of the reasons I’ve been feeling so down this week.  Work deadlines stressed me out last week (I’m still within my new-hire probationary period, so am especially worried about appearing incompetent), which blossomed into wonderfully annoying symptoms this week.  It’s hard to be in a good mood when every time you go to speak, chew, or swallow it sends a sharp shooting pain through your mouth.

I suppose I should consider myself lucky; canker sores are fairly mild as far as these things go.  I don’t get migraines, for instance.  I don’t have “an ulcer the size of my fist,” as my girlfriend is fond of pointing out.  I just don’t like that my body seems to be saying “You screwed up.  Let’s make sure you remember and feel bad for as long as possible!”

I will say this: my girlfriend introduced me to the wonderful thing that is topical oral painkiller.  For as often as I get canker sores, you’d think I’d have sought out something like this years ago.  But no, I usually suffer in silence and wait for the things to pass.  But no more!  Using the stuff has allowed me to eat relatively pain-free (I was letting my blood sugar get low because eating hurt, further exacerbating the stress issue), and made me a much more pleasant person to be around.

I still hate my body sometimes, though.

Today wasn’t as bad as yesterday, but my brain is still pretty fried.  My afternoon has been pretty chill: I finished one of the layouts I was working on, and there wasn’t quite enough time to start the next one.  Don’t you hate that when it happens?  I’d like to be productive, but sometimes you just reach a good stopping point.  It’s just unfortunate when that point doesn’t line up with the end of the work day.

That’s not to say that my entire day has been stress-free.  No, I freaked out a bit earlier, once I realized that I had to go back and tweak a drawing I thought I had finished, all because I missed one of the conventions our office uses.  I thought I was going to have to re-draw everything, tweaking all the sheets I’ve done so far.  Oh, and my boss jokingly mentioned that I was supposed to be done with this project already.  Isn’t that just great for my self-esteem?

Luckily, I realized that instead of beating my head against the desk (although there was a bit of that nonetheless), I needed to take a step back from the problem, and it probably wouldn’t hurt to eat something as well.  What’s that, I can be taught to monitor myself for signs of low blood sugar?  I can remember that there are easy solutions to problems?  Weird, right?

Okay, okay, it did take me a minute or so to realize I could do that, I’ll admit.  But once I did, it helped a lot.

I’m also trying to not stress too much about when this project was “supposed” to be done.  After all, it’s the first project I’ve done on my own.  My first few weeks here I was mostly doing corrections on drawings my coworker had done.  Sure, it was stressful, but at least I had someone I could easily ask for clarification, where I could just be a CAD monkey.  But this project is different.  I’ve basically been working on it from scratch, taking existing linework and reformatting it, making it fit our office templates and cleaning it up.

As I’ve gone along, I keep noticing things that need correcting, or things that could be done better.  Sure, maybe my innate tendencies towards perfectionism are making me spend too much time on the little details; I’m willing to admit that.  But this is also the first project I’ve done on my own since starting here.  Of course I’m not going to be as efficient as I could be just yet.  So I’ve decided to treat the bothersome “ribbing” from my boss as just that: ribbing.  Unless I get an actual talking-to, I think I’m doing alright.

Let’s see how that goes.

Since we’ve brought up the subject of spending money, let’s look at a less fun example!  Namely, my car.

I have a Subaru Outback.  I’ve had it for the past seven(!) years, ever since my ex-girlfriend totaled my other car on a road trip (but that’s a different story).  It’s treated me well so far, but it’s admittedly getting up there in terms of mileage.  And although I got it used, it now has over 100,000 miles on the odometer.  In fact, it’s probably closer to 128,000.

Now, you put that many miles on a car, and it’s going to start to have a few… issues.  So far, I’ve been pretty lucky, especially given how much I keep up with the suggested routine maintenance (I don’t).  That being said, it does get quite annoying when after one flat tire you have to pay to get all four replaced.  Thanks, all-wheel drive!

But recently I’ve been having a few more serious issues, ones that can’t be easily ignored.  For instance: one of the rear tires started making an oscillating sound, which then progressed to a periodic grinding on cold or wet days, which progressed to a constant unpleasant grinding.  Hey, maybe I just have a piece of gravel or something stuck somewhere and it’ll work itself out, right?

Nope!  Turns out I was due for a really, really expensive oil change.  I took the car in to the mechanic, and apparently the rear brake pad was pretty much gone, and the wheel bearing was also shot.  Now, even I know that breaks are one of the things you really don’t want to mess with.  So I hiked up my big boy britches and, knowing it wasn’t going to get better on its own, prepared my wallet for ritual sacrifice.

“But wait,” the guy at the shop said (I’m paraphrasing), “There’s more!  Do you realize your check engine light is blinking?”

Yes I did, thank you very much.  But it’s only intermittent, so I was hoping to ignore it a little while longer and hope the problem works itself out.  You know, the same way I approach dentistry.  But if you want to take a look while it’s there in the shop, go ahead.

“Yeah, about that check engine light…  Turns out about half your cylinders are misfiring due to an oil leak.”

…Za?  That’s… not good.  Decidedly not good.  I kinda need my car to get places, after all; I don’t know that I’d like having to make the 10-mile bike ride to work every day, especially in the winter.

So long story short, I am now significantly poorer than I was earlier today.  About as much poorer as I planned to be after I built a new gaming PC, actually.  So yay me, I guess.

Sometimes I hate being a responsible adult.

I think I’ve discovered the first major source of stress in my new job. After last week’s relatively gentle refresher, I’ve suddenly been thrown into it with both feet, and I annoyingly find myself floundering.

I think part of it is being asked to work on projects with which I’m not familiar, without a proper tutorial. So that means I’m looking at complicated drawings and often have no idea what I’m even looking at. Not only am I having to interpret often-vague comments, I’m being asked to do so on a project with which I’m not even passingly familiar. And let me tell you, trying to interpret unfamiliar plans after two years away from your chosen field of study is not the easiest.

Being mentally “on” all the time is also stressful. My coworkers, while nice, spend a lot of time talking about things and people I’m unfamiliar with. So whether I want to or not, a part of me is always trying to keep up and interpret what I’m hearing. Names, projects, jargon; I’m trying desperately to make sure it doesn’t all go over my head. Because while I could just tune it all out, that would probably just cause problems in the long run. And that’s exhausting.

Maybe this is all just part of starting a new job, and coming in at the middle of things. It also doesn’t help that I don’t want to appear too unprepared or underqualified during my post-hire probation period. And I understand that the office has been busy, but it would be nice to get a bit more explaining of what’s going on. I’d really resent having to put in time outside of work to get back up to speed on these things, but that might be what ends up being necessary. I just don’t like the feeling of not knowing something that it seems to be taken for granted I’ll know. But I also don’t like making that lack of knowledge known.

Oh well. Maybe it will get better. It already is: I wasn’t feeling nearly as overwhelmed by the end of the day as I was before lunch, although maybe that was because I was exhausted enough not to care. And maybe this is a valid way of making sure I learn what I need to. It’s still annoying, though. I don’t like not knowing, especially when I barely seem to know what I don’t know.

There are four words that, for whatever reason, immediately case me to start worrying and preparing for the worst. You’ve probably heard them yourself, from time to time. It can be the most benign situation, but the panic is undeniable.

“We need to talk.”

Four simple words. Also found in variations such as “Give me a call” and “Come see me, please.” Regardless of the phrasing, the message is clear: you’re in trouble now, boy. When I hear these phrases, my heart starts racing and panic starts to build. I play the coming scene over and over in my head. Am I about to be fired? Did I fail an assignment? Is someone I love angry (or worse, disappointed) with me? Did my dog (which I don’t even have) die? I start with the worst case scenario, and go downhill from there.

I know this response is irrational, as evidenced by the multiple times I’ve heard the phrase and the result has been benign. But that doesn’t stop the reflex. It matters even less who says it. I don’t even know why I have such a visceral reaction. I know that as a kid I was always harder on myself than other people were. Maybe there’s some sort of internalized guilt, a fear that my carefully-crafted veneer of competence is going to be revealed as a sham? I don’t know. But it’s kind of annoying.

Or maybe it’s cultural. Throughout various forms of entertainment we’re told over and over that when someone says “We need to talk” things are going to go poorly for the person they’re saying it too. And it’s too bad, since it really can be a useful way to get information. But for whatever reason, those four words always seem to bring with them portents of doom.

Sometimes I wonder if I need to be a worse person.

Why do I say this? Well, it’s Wednesday, and I have to work this evening. It’s also the evening of fighter practice. As such, it’s one of two evenings I’ve listed myself as “unavailable” to work. And yet, I’m working. Do you see the conundrum?

The last time I tried to do something about this, I was told that “the needs of the business” needed to be respected, above my needs, apparently. I was also given the impression that my availability (you know, the thing that says “I CAN’T WORK”) was merely a suggestion, to be followed if and when it was convenient for everyone else but me.

And I don’t know what I can do to make my point. I could call in “sick,” but my somewhat overdeveloped sense of morality makes that problematic. And for whatever reason, I feel compelled by an odd sense of loyalty to a job that doesn’t reciprocate. Sure, I may be somewhat responsible for this situation; I obviously haven’t effectively insisted on my availability from my end. But if anything, that just makes me feel worse. Because now my brain is convinced this is somehow my fault, that if I was just a better employee with less demands, without a life outside the business, everything would be just peachy.

I don’t know what to do. I can’t afford to rock the boat too much, since I need this job (or at least the paycheck). But I hate that it feels like my own good nature is being used against me. I’m being asked to sacrifice, without any payment in return. I’ll hate myself if I cave and work, and I’ll hate myself if I lie and call in. My own morality is being used against me.

I don’t know.