I Keep Forgetting I'm Burnt Out

The birds are starting to chirp in the morning more, that spring is coming chirp. It relieves my stress when I hear it, shifts my focus, I exhale.

Work is still boorish, brutish, garish and I need to find a way to let go and traverse the growth while maintaining the parts of what got us here that need to stay because they will impact how we cross the first finish line. It is the heart of what we want to create for the many people that depend on us.

And me, the burn out, is the only one that is left to get that message across - or so I feel.

I'm depressed. As in: the weight of my burn out is squashing me. Yet, I love what we are providing people and I want to make it all the things. But:

• I often have no interest, motivation, energy to get dressed
• I have sub zero energy in being sensual or sexual
• Work is so all consuming that I don't have enough breathing room to gauge if the above is due to depression or if I've met the relationship's capacity for growth
• Also, sex - orgasm -  is so much fucking work. Ugh. Can we just not? Why is this so important? 

It's the intimacy, the connection, the attraction that's important - and sex - orgasm - is what comes out of that, it's just a fun result. And sure, fine I'm not as attracted to my partner as of late. I'm physically attracted, he's very handsome. He's just also not very manly. He appears to veer towards infant like cuteness as an application of love more than he did in the beginning? He kinda likes to be swaddled if you will. Not actually, but metaphorically. How do I tell him that's a turn off? How do you say "I need you to be more of a kind, loving man, less of an excited, smothering child"? That sounds like something that would hurt to hear.

I feel like this might be something that happened naturally if he was prouder of himself as a man and work for him right now is not a place where he would feel that.

Maybe this place - that has always inspired me and elevated me (and pays me really well) - has become unhealthy for me, for him, and then for us.

Maybe too, he has always hoped that he could cuddle me into submission; perhaps he thought, given time and persistence, he could "break down my walls." They're not walls, they are the roots of my heart and soul. I am very naturally and happily a frank and inward person and I value small amounts of physical attention - small amounts make me happy.

I do want to be the woman in the relationship, I want you to pet my head and tell me I'm pretty, kiss the nape of my neck softly, seductively. I do not want to be a mother. I feel the need to repeat that, so repeat. Sometimes I feel like a mother to him. So awkward.

Also - ALSO - ....

Preface with: I watched my friend go through this with her current partner. She was likely his first serious long term relationship, and he wanted to dream/plan about their life together "we'll get a little home; you'll garden, I'll mow the lawn" and romanticize the ideal, and she was repelled (strong word perhaps but you get it) by it. She'd been through it, we've both done it, we've lived that life and there's not one fucking romantic thing about it. Not a single one.  The thought of gearing up for the fantasy is fucking scary. You don't want to live the lie again.

I feel sometimes that my partner (and me!) begin to fall into that and then I get a shock of reality and I start skittering backwards slowly, as if not to wake the dragon I just stumbled upon. Total fear. I really get what she was going through then.

My partner though, he's really never had this - he is fucking 31 - he should have his own experience with this. I feel like I'm taking something away from him if I say, "So about this life we're about to share... there's nothing glamours about it, it's not exciting, it's just fucking day in/day out. We wont have babies, we wont build anything because I've already done that and I don't want to do it again, it's all for not. I found that out."

But really, only half of that is true. We could build a life style: a house, a home, a love. We could. But he would be giving up a family in the conventional sense. To his credit, he's very aware of this and asks himself this question all the time. He's seen his mother and fathers unhappy relationship, he's seen his brother's marriage disintegrate. He has studied the reality of this conventional life, he knows his choice is unconventional, he has decided he wants to be selfish and not have the responsibility of kids, he sees himself growing old with me. 

But, I guess, in part, I don't trust that he's fully aware of 1) what he's getting into (like, I'm too fucking experienced to care about a lot of things that appear to need caring, and I want to be selfish now too) and 2) deep down, he wants to be with someone he can build a family/life with and have that experience with someone who is at a similar stage of life.

He keeps saying that I can be selfish but then it doesn't feel like I can. We had a chat where he did say that he's actions weren't matching his words. Maybe this is something we can grow through.

I do love him. I can imagine a long life with him. Grown up him though.

Which begs the question, is he imagining a long life with the cuddly, huggable, loveable, swaddling version of me? 'Cause.. that's never going to happen.

Brought to You By the Word: Work

It's probably the root of most of my malcontent and - funny enough - most of my reward and joy. I'm a product manager (aka product owner). I was the first of this title at my office.

In the very beginning, I came on as the 8th employee and worked in support - so, not a professional if you will, but a support jockey. You know, one of those guys.

I took the part time job back then because I was a little bored. My main job at the time was the "Web Master" for small government organization. It wasn't a challenging job but it paid well and fit my family needs at the time (being a mom of two young girls). This part time support job gave me a little extra cash working from home and the product gave many, many puzzles to figure out. It was like candy for me for 4 hours a day, 3 days a week. Exactly what I wanted.

It was a complex product and each support ticket that came in was mathematical word problem of  "how do I do...". I spent the next two years putting myself in the position of small and large business and providing solutions to their specific equation. The software continued to attempt to meet the needs of new customers by tweaking existing functionality - patching and hacking their way - and eventually becoming one of the most flexile products in our space.

Over the next four years, we would grow to gain large enterprise customers and I went from the support team to Key Account Manager to the Customer Success Manager and lastly, into the newly formed Product Team as a PM. Up until two years ago, we were developer centric, which made for some interesting frankenstiened features and overall application. Two years ago, our head of Marketing became the director of Product and I became the Product Manager.

In fact, I was the product specialist. I knew/know our users and product inside and out. I could tell you what every dial and lever was for and list a number of customer use cases to go with it.

I learned to take what I knew and balance it against the technical landscape, the needs of the whole, the needs of our business and to find solutions that would propel us forward in ways that met both the customer, attracted previously lost customers, reduced growing technical debt, should reduce support onboarding needs, lessen Launch Specialist time to launch.

So, in short, if my calculations are correct (so far, so good in our Beta) I will have increased our T:P, reduced support needs, and increased launch revenue by 50% (probably more like 90% because I have reduced the current complexity by that much).

I have potentially taken a multi million dollar app and improved it by... let's be conservative and say 10%.

Now, lets look at the project:

I began with a team of ~4 developers, one senior and the rest were essentially new hires that didn't know the system.

My proposal turns our main functionality inside out and upside down - it's kinda revolutionary. The senior dev understands the use case, likes the idea, and sees an opportunity to end technical debt. He's going to build, he pretty much has to, in an entirely new code base. In short, with this decision, we are now rebuilding the entire application.

My initial estimates from the dev team: 6-8 months. "Okay, let's go then" I say.

I have basic documentation that outlines the project at a high level - but I never write another piece of documentation. What I write is Jira ticket after Jira ticket after Jira ticket.

I spend the next 8 months fighting with my dev team. They don't believe the use cases and pressure me to prove it. None of them know the system or the customer but "they know tech" and because we've had a dev centric operation up and till now, they believe they know the solution better than me. None of us truly understand (or believe) what a Product Team is for.

Of note: by this time of the project, I have obtained my Product Owner Certification but no one, absolutely no one on my team believes this or considers it valuable. No one else on the project has taken any agile training (but they've read about it), and none of us are on board with a process. Everything is ad hoc. I am one product owner and (by this time) 6+ developers - and I'm asking a lot of them. 

One year into the project (already well past our initial estimate) we are half way done. We've got the new core functionality built, we've tested it with users, we even have an enterprise customer using it live and the company hires a new VP of Development (...and Product).

What's left is essentially to make the refactored platform reach feature parity with the existing. At this point, all we have is the core functionality, now we have to add the rest. It must work with all the bells and whistles (that product, me, has decided are necessary. For certain, some were cut out) that the existing product thrives on.

Our new dazzling, jazz hands, fast and loose, get shit done VP is basically a god send. He snaps the developers to attention, brings in agile training, re organizes teams, removes blockers that should never had existed (Dear Developer, you are not the Product Manager or Designer). My team of developers gets some more new senior developers and they're good... they learn the product, they educate themselves against the use cases I provide, they begin to trust me.

Our new dazzling, jazz hands, fast and loose, get shit done VP then finds/makes the budget to hire more Product Managers - because, up and till now I have been the only one working on a project that touches every.fucking.aspect of our application. ALL OF IT. 

Side note: Our director of product and I have both been wary of brining in new PM's because the learning curve of the application is so steep that they would be of no assistance to me given that I would have to stop what I'm doing to train them - and I am already running as fast as I can with ten spinning plates or more at any given time.

So, here we are now. The project is 95% complete and we are taking on beta users - already proving value by taking on enterprise customers our sales team would have turned away previously due to their complex use case. Customers and customer facing teams are excited. The new core functionality completely removes workaround hacks that were mind bending to achieve as well as achieving configurations that were previously just impossible.

My mandate was to get the functionality in their, rough and ready for the next project which was core UI/UX. Make it useable, not pixel perfect, and then we re-skin the UI.

Great. That's what I've done.

However. HOWEVER!!! No one remembers this "mandate" (because, you know, it was two fucking years ago and as I said, very loosely documented).  The new PM that will be leading the UX, who is so fucking smug, arrogant, and condescending, does not know how the previous system worked, what the problems were, or understand how we solved the problems so how could she ever appreciate how revolutionary I have been? How key I am to the future successes of our platform (numbers pending, but I'm hopeful).

I feel that she looks at me as a "cute example of a start up who 'done real good'" for a non professional PM. Pat pat pat on my head.

She's a very shiny PM, I'll give her that. She's got all the buzz words, documentation, workflows, expectations, boundaries... yeah, she's got it all. And she's right, I have no experience with any of that. Her existence has shown me up as the hired muscle. And, it would appear, that she loves that type of reflection. Maybe? First appearances strongly suggest this.

To add insult to injury, our yearly kick off motto is

"What got us here wont get us there."

Lovely...

If you're in a similar business and position, I know you might be saying, Girl, you gotta get up and show your value, this is on you! No one can take this away from you if you do the work!

and you would be right.

What I would like to say is that... my god, I am so tired and coming super close to being defeated. Mentally and emotionally. I feel like I might just take the loss and hand her the moon flag with a "fuck it, take it" and she can cross the finish line with all the glory having run the final 100 meters of a marathon.

I'l be on a stretcher somewhere with people saying "well, if you had just maintained a different pace and had better sneakers and nipple tape and told the people not to change the route.... It's a good thing she was there to save it for you, hey?"

And I'll just respond, "Yeah, thank god for her" and avert my eyes.



I started this project when we all knew and accepted we were "a scrappy start up" and now, that's no excuse.

I'm not saying I'll let myself go out like this, but that I feel like this needed to be said; whether or not I will have what it takes to raise myself, in a manner that I can be proud of, is the question I face and have no idea of the answer to.

But everyday I wake up, I humbly accept that I made every wrong decision at the same time as taking every next right step given the circumstances, and that only a handful of people (which does include our founder and CEO) will ever know this.

---

Most importantly though, at the end of it all, this platform that I have come to love, is going to be kick ass. And in my heart of hearts, I will know that I just answered the biggest support ticket ever. Building upon what our founder created, I have given our customers (the foundation of) what they need to live the lives they want. That makes me happy.

You're Doing It.

Sometimes it's scary how fast my manifestations reveal themselves. All day yesterday I just kept seeing all the places where I had exactly what I was looking for - right down to the financial freedom and being in a position enough to fork over all the dollars my youngest daughter needed for things like highlights. The fact that she'll be close to to me this weekend, flowing in and out of my life with ease and joy and that I have a room for her to stay in, and that I'm here for her as she needs me.

It's scary, somehow, that everything I need is simply at my fingertips. Why? Why is it scary?

If you could have everything and anything that you wanted, would you want that? What if everything that you wanted was just so super simple and it was yours. What if what you really wanted was just ease and you realized, once you looked, that you had it. There was no real strife.

What will my body and mind eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if not adrenaline?

The key to my manifestation was not asking for those things, but asking to see when I had them. I had/have them all - right now. Every now.

When ever I have asked for those things in the past, I imagined them to be something I was not familiar with, something else that I thought/think I want even though I know that this is not how it works. I was still doing it from a "I would be happier if and when (I'm a well paid writer). Which just incites pain and loathing of my life today.

Perhaps the fear for me is that if I have everything that brings me joy and ease, then I become complacent when, in fact, I still want to strive for more. Maybe I'll never be a recognized author, and maybe it wont bring me the joy I think it will, but it's still something I want to try (like how others want to parachute out of a plane) . I'm curious about the book(s) in me and the process.

So, I suppose my balance is seeing (living) the ease and joy of today while feeling the reach of following curiosity and potential growth; bending towards the sun because that feels as good and natural as feeling the strength of my roots in the ground.

True, but embarrassingly optimistic 

I Can See When...

What kind of life do I want? I want a life that is magically cohesive.

(I can see when) The things and people  I love flow in and out of my day to day with ease and joy.

(I can see when) The work I do day to day feels accomplished, successful, and appreciated.

(I can see when) I feel that I am able to help other people achieve success; I can get out of their way and watch them rise.

(I can see when) My best self is always at the ready.

Things I create bring joy and ease into peoples lives.

(I can see when) I have a home base that sings the song of my soul along with me.

(I can see when) I have an peaceful balance with my mind self and spirit self

I have financial freedom and room to share and explore

I know how and when to speak up for myself

(I can see when) I am strong in speech

(I can see when) I am strong in heart

My body is healthy

My spirit is healthy

I experience the reverberation of quiet, simple joy

(I can see when) I feel at ease.

---

My boss (the CEO one) messaged me yesterday evening wondering if I was free to have a chat next week "about product." Given the current state of our department, my performance, the rise and fall of my undying desire and force to achieve a goal, the environment around me, the state of our exploding growth, the requirements of my role.... this conversation could mean a few things:

"You've done a great job with what you had to work with and the uneducated skill and historical knowledge, we thank you. However, what got us here wont get us there so we need to replace you with a pro"

-or-

"You've showed drive, skill, intelligence (that appeared to go un noticed but, if fact, wasn't at all), and against numerous odds you have imagined and built the strongest version of our software that will sky rocket us to success, and for that we thank you. We see a place for you in a more senior role. We only ask that you take _______ training."

-or- 

"I know it's been hard Ravy - but please - hold on. We're almost there. I see you. I hear you."

---

Given any of the above, what do I want for my life? 

Dearly Beloved...

Yesterday's post was like a poop that got cut short, the one you have to pinch off because some one is knocking on your door and you're not one to let a knock go unanswered.

I'm working from home today - what a fucking a relief. No vomit!! To just be able to focus and work on one task to the next... hallelujah.

I'm going to put my feet in some foot callus soak (provides 2 weeks of gorgeous and gross foot peeling, it's amazing!) whilst I work on one thing at a time, uninterrupted.  AND, I'm gonna get some laundry done.

The cacophony that is that fucking work place - Jesus. No wonder I want to vomit at the thought of going there. I have fun and everything, I love the people I work with, but it's madness.

We're moving into a new office space in a few months. We've completely outgrown the office we have, where we take up two floors of a building and we're like ants going up and down stairs and covering the walls and floors with busy, busy work. So, we're going into a bigger building and we'll all be on the same floor. Our new office is currently being professionally decorated. Yeah, that's what I said.

We were a start up, now we're a grown up. Our current office looks like a boys apartment, a boy who's mother came in a some point and tried to class it up a bit but failed under the weight of the task. I've never really cared or noticed this fact too much, which is to say I happily accepted it. But now that I've seen the mood boards for the new office, I figure I will gladly take a grown up apartment for a work environment. And hopefully, some grown up quiet space.

I'm feeling me here

In other news, I had yet another chat about my asexual behaviour with my partner. Just checking in to tell him, "I'm super kinda sorry about this, but it's how I feel and... that's that." I reminded both of us about the conversation we had before we moved in, the one where I said "I don't want to feel like I'm married. I want to be able to feel single and independent;" you know,  as if I am a super busy business woman who has adult children she stays close to while single handedly conceptualizing and managing the  rebuilding of complex software system for an emerging start up. So I don't have time for a full time lover, only a part time lover who I can call for dates and stuff.

And you know what? It went well. Really well. I told him that I end up resenting "us" if I can't "pretend" (yes, that is "crazy" person air quotes) that I live in my own apartment (that has a real live warm body to curl into when needed) and not feel like I have some....

wifely obligation to feed or sex another human!

 I'll go berserk. I really will.

He said, "Look..." he's happy and he loves me a lot a lot. He loves what we have. Sure, he has desires more than I do, but he can manage that on his own (it's not like we never have sex, we just don't have new relationship sex). He said he'd thought about all of this and walked through the whole "Ohh, look at that girl, she's hot. What would it be like to be with her and to be having crazy sex all the time?" and on the other side of that conversation was dismay that it wouldn't be me that he was spending time with and what if this "other new sexy time girl" didn't let me him be independent?

So, we both like the independence. If and when I drag him on a home shopping adventure, he hates it the whole time. He, also, does not want to be married, but he does appreciate the comfy home he gets to live in and the warm body.

He also, and this is new to me, does not expect that I should want to have sex with him when he hasn't put any effort into the days and weeks to woo me. What a fucking novel experience to have with man/boy! Trusting this though, that's a whole different day and post (which I think I've already written at some point).

So, there you have it, my basket of things that feel like problems, that are all apparently solved by working from home (check the time, I wrote this before "work hours," nice try though), but are more just the uncomfortable stages of this relentless thing we call "life."

And, for you, at the end of all my first world society problems, I have delivered an un-pinched poop.

That feels better

Still January? Still Shitty.

What does it take to not want to vomit at the start of every day? The day will be fine once i get going. I'll land at the gym on time and my body do what I ask of it while my mind thinks of all the ways this might be killing me, and then after I will feel resplendent and grateful for the work. I will make it to work with time to spare, shower comfortably, sip coffee and smoke my vape in the washroom while I get ready - greedy with the last bit of alone time.

Then, I will sit at my desk and open my computer and face my life. One hundred and fifty billion JIRA tickets, the acrid smell of a two-year-long project (IT'S A REFACTOR!), BETA customers, feedback, launch dates, the "design review" (YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG! from the peanut gallery. WHAT THE FUCK! LETS JUST GET THIS DONE from the PM). The New Girls and all their 'infinite wisdom'


So, yeah...


Why the vomit?