Stress and Mr. Boom Boom

I’ve got to be honest. Tonight I’m feeling a bit cranky. I feel the need to whine, complain, and otherwise vent. I hate it when I feel this way, as if I’m overwhelmed with life and feeling generally pretty negative about it. We all have our moments.

The trouble is that while intellectually I know that everyone feels this way sometimes – and that if I just whine I’ll feel much better afterwards having just gotten it all out of my system, I still always feel guilty for whining.

If there’s anything about working in the HPS community, it’s that as bad as life seems sometimes, you’re always aware of someone, or several families, who are struggling with issues way more important than the petty things that weigh us all down.

Today was just one of those days. It wasn’t that I wasn’t efficient. I wasn’t having trouble concentrating. I can’t say I felt fabulous, but I didn’t feel really bad either. I just plugged through my list of things to do all day long, yet it seemed like at every turn I was thwarted.

I got to work early only to spend 30 minutes trouble shooting my computer because it was running so slow.

I’m the only one in the office right now, and it seemed like every time I started to work on something, another problem would come up. Someone would call wanting back issues. An advertiser would call trying to figure out who to ask about technical specifications for an ad. Someone doing research called wanting to know where to find some statistical information about the industry. A public relations person called wanting to tell me about a new hotel. It was as if every time I turned around today it was something else.

I’m already behind and it feels like no matter how hard I try I can’t catch up. I spent two hours today making phone calls on a research project that’s supposed to be finished tomorrow. There are still 16 calls to make in the morning I never managed to get to – yet no one will believe me that it took two hours to call eight companies. It did though! I’d call a company, and it would turn out so and so is the only person who can talk to the media but they’re in such in such an office. So, you call the other office, get them, and they actually can’t answer the question, so they transfer you to person number three. That person can help you, but not this minute, so you’ve got to call back, or send off an e-mail with what you want. It just takes time.

Some of the people I contacted (we’re putting together a mini directory of companies that offer a specific type of service) acted as though they were annoyed I was bothering them – yet they’ll be the first ones yelling if they’re left out of the directory and all their competitors are present.

All the while, as I got further and further behind, in the back of my mind I was thinking of a tidbit of information I heard yesterday that has me very worried. Let’s just say I’ve got visions of my workload doubling in a few weeks and I’m not a happy camper. I doubt anyone will be offering any overtime.

I really shouldn’t get worked up about it yet. I don’t even know if it’s true, or if alternative plans are being made to compensate. Yet, I’ve got visions of being back where I was this time last year and I cannot live that way again. I just can’t. I don’t know if it’s HPS or normal old age, but I can’t work 70 hours a week, week after week, anymore. (I haven’t had to for months and it’s been wonderful to have a 40-hour week most of the time.) I did it all through my 20s. I worked multiple jobs the whole time and I just don’t have the stamina to do that anymore. I also can’t afford to work too many hours above what I’m being paid for – if I’m going to be that worn out all the time, I need to be making some money on the side.

Frankly, I’m not freelancing for the kicks. I honestly need the money and I can’t afford to be dragging work home at night to keep up. I don’t get paid for it, and I’ve got other things to do – like work on HPS stuff.

The HPS work is so important, and when you do something, anything, the HPS community is so appreciative. You feel like you make an impact. You feel like your time spent there is meaningful and valued.

Besides that, it’s one of my ways of coping. I can’t just sit around and wait for the cure to materialize. I have to do something – it keeps me sane.

Sometimes working on HPS things can be very stressful – but true stress is to know that something really important in HPSland needs to be getting done that you’re supposed to be doing – yet you’re being kept from it by your day-to-day life doing things for people who will never really appreciate it much.

Yet, I’m not the sort of person who can just say, look – you’re paying me for eight hours a day and that’s all you’re getting. That just doesn’t work in journalism. It isn’t professional. It truly bothers me when something isn’t being done right or as well as I think it ought to be done. It eats at me.

So, I can’t win.

I worked through lunch.

One of my HPS projects right now is planning and ordering the things we need for our booth at ATS. I finally got my hands on the show manual, but my home computer is so old it won’t run. So, I needed to print out the order forms I needed at work. Of course, this meant skimming through 186 pages of a PDF file trying to find the five pages I actually needed – and when I found them I couldn’t get them to print. By now it was the end of the day (I had meant to do this over lunch) and we’re about to get stuck with late ordering fees. I got the forms for ordering electrical to print, but not the furniture or carpet forms and I can’t explain why. Finally, I had to catch my bus. So, there’s another project not finished.

By the time I got home my joints were killing me. My head was throbbing with a headache.

I walked in the door, tossed my purse and tote bag on a chair, and stretched out on the couch with the TV remote. I haven’t seen the news in days now. What is going on in the world???

Suddenly I heard a thunderous boom, boom, boom from next door. My favorite neighbor spent most of the evening with his stereo cranked up and all his doors and windows open, as if the entire neighborhood wanted to hear his music. I couldn’t watch TV, take a nap, listen to my own music – but at this point I felt like I was going to explode.

This is not the time to ask someone to turn down their music. If you feel like you’re at a point where you really could just scream at someone, it doesn’t come out, hey, do you mind? Could you turn your music down? It comes out Heather-cursing-like-a-sailor blankity, blank, blank….for the blanking time this week……..well, I knew I’d lose it. I just felt it in my bones. I was on edge and not feeling one tiny bit polite or diplomatic.

So, I ate out (which isn’t good for my budget). It got me out of the house and I ate a salad, which is probably healthier than what’s left in my kitchen right now. I then went for a long walk. I need the exercise anyway.

I walked to Radio Shack and ordered a set of wireless earphones. The store didn’t have exactly what I wanted, but they ordered them for me. They’re supposed to fit cupped around your ears. Supposedly, they reduce outside noise and enhance the noise of whatever you’re listening to in them. I should be able to plug them into my computer or TV or stereo and hopefully block out some of the thud from next door.

I don’t think they would have helped tonight. Tonight Mr. Boom Boom was louder than his typical level of noise. But, on an average night it’s just the base I hear that grates on my nerves. If I can block it out perhaps I’ll manage not to get in an all out war with my neighbor by the end of the summer.