Day 8-10: Post-Its From the Edge

So it happened.

I was out there. Right at the precipice. Rocking ever-so slightly heel-toe, heel-toe on the lip of the volcano. The depths about to suck me in.

Another 24 hours of sleepless workfullness having come and gone. 18 cups of coffee, 4 diet cokes, and incalculable amounts of sugar.

All for another project, never to be used, I am sure.

Then slept some. A mistake to be sure. Through my sleep I kept getting wicked cramps in my legs - like someone was pulling my achilles tendon from the top, forcing my toes into a pointed position. The flashes of pain punctuating the restlessness of the slumber.

Then I woke up.

The buzzing feeling was still there, but now it was screaming shrilly in my head, over and over again. *Fire* *Fire* *Fire*

"You must evacuate the building, please proceed in an orderly manner to the exits."

"In the event of a water landing, your seat cushion will double as a flotation device."

"For your safety, please keep you hands and arms within the vehicle at all times."

I feel so oddly misshapen, bloated, drained of all energy. To borrow a phrase from another burnt out associate, A dried out husk, attempting to function. Jabba the Hut with big blinking eyes. Immobile. Impossible.

Went to the gym in some misguided attempt to try to feel normal. 5 minutes on the bike and I was out of breathe and feeling dizzy. Normal has left the building. All I am left with is my self-loathing and my hysteria, multiplied and gaining strength by the minute in its synergy with fatigue and sleeplessness as this impossible situation drags on.

So I cried. I sobbed. Wracked through and through with the absolute hatred of it all. Pampered partners posing in "command the troops"/land on the aircraft carrier photo-opps with the toiling associates and paralegals for benefit of the client electorate -or- insisting on tasks being done on unreasonable timelines and then questioning the manner and time in which they are done, simply because it delays their bedtime -or- such partners questioning the fact that the indentured serfs they have hired do not sleep ("You were up all night? But why?" Finishing your avalanche of work, asshole). Then there are the serf-politics: food, food, food. Control issues. Who gets to order. Executive assistants bad mouthing associates to other partners, just because they can. People jockeying for position and attention of aforementioned partners. Concern about career advancement.

Politics? Seriously? This is just a matter of survival folks.

At about 4:30 the other morning, in an odd twist, people started to apologize for cursing. We punctuate every other phrase with "fuck" or "bullshit" so that is kind of odd. But anyway, the response was: "No apologies. Profanity is welcome here. In fact, we are in a situation that is beyond that really. We are in need of words that are beyond profane."

And yes, we are.

We are in need of words that are beyond profane.

I keep searching for them. Though maybe all that will do it justice at this point is silence because there just are no words for this.

Inhuman; Insane; Incalculable personal psychological damage. They begin to describe. But they just really do not accurately capture the essence of this process.

I sobbed to co-workers. I sobbed to my sister. I make everyone feel bad. They just want to make things better. They can't.

I ended up on a project yesterday with a partner who after 45 minutes wanted the work product, he thought it was taking too long. I would just like it noted, that, for the record, he never gave me a timeline, and that he has no fucking clue how long things take because he doesn't ever do the basic things. I don't think he knows how. He is so fucking helpless he asks other people to do things that are well beyond their job descriptions - whether he does so because he doesn't realize it isn't in their job description so they wouldn't know how, or that he just doesn't care and just wants someone else to get it done - it is still pretty classless. Obviously, we all pick up the slack when necessary, but the patronizing way in which he asks - he doesn't acknowledge it isn't something you always do. But anyway, I apparently was trampling on his 10 pm bedtime deadline, and so he comes in 45 min after gving the assignment, taps me repeatedly on the shoulder (THERE WILL BE NO TOUCHING!!!) and asks "Is it done yet?" I reply with, No, I am working on it. To which he replies, "Well then what are you doing?" In an accusatory tone as though I had just been sitting around drinking a pina colada and shopping on Amazon. So then he says, "Well just give me what you have, you can send me the rest as you finish it." I print it out. He questions how long that takes (there are 8 people sharing a printer by the way). He then questions why there are no cites. I try to tell him that tracking down cites takes some time and that a lot of the stuff he wants needs to be processed. He isn't listening. He barks: "Just get me the cites."

I started to cry. And so it goes. So from then on, if he needed something, he sent someone else in to get it from me because he didn't want to look at me.

Whatever.

That was really the moment. That was the point when I knew. When I felt it for the very first time. I felt it truly, through and through. I *am* going to quit or I *am* going to get fired. Either way, I am out. Is it going to happen now? If I had the guts, I would do it now. If they hadn't so grossly miscalculated, they would do it now. Either way, we can't live with one another anymore.

I look at myself in the mirror and I am wholly unrecognizable. I hate what I see. It frightens me.

A lifeless dried out husk. Rotting from the inside out and the outside in. Nothing of value left for anything.

The worst part is: I feel like death and I have not even had the worst of it here. There is someone who has slept 2 hours in the last 80. When he asked for time off to sleep last night, he was met with dead silence. Ultimately, I think they allowed him 4 more.

Fucked up. Just a fucked up situation. In every way.

Yes, relying on the cacaphony of blue language is the mark of a lzy writer. But you know what? I am lazy and tired and I don't care who knows it.

I got nearly 12 hours of sleep (more or less) last night because I took a sleeping pill. I was determined to make a go at it if I could. I don't feel much better. Better than yesterday, yes. But still awful.

I need to get out of here.

Soon.