This post was rescued by doing it in Wordpad. I clicked Post, it took forever and then came up "Cannot Find Server". Well, here it is again, folks. My tale(s) of woe.
I had two episodes of overload, one not so serious and the other a wake up call.
In college I pulled an all nighter to try and finish a lighting project. I was not and am not technically savvy and all the shop classes in the theatre department were difficult. Lighting was a reall bear. Between all my other classes and trying to design a lighting project for Virginia Woolf I overextended myself and almost passed out one morning in class. Not so bad, I'm here to tell the story.
10 years ago, in January of 1995, I was promoted to a management position at my current place of employ, The Foundation Center. I had risen through the ranks fairly quickly and my boss at the time thought it would be a good fit. It was one of the absolute worst times of my entire life. I hated it almost from the beginning and instead of asking for help I tried to struggle through on my own. I was working seven days a week including full days on Saturday and Sunday. No one knew I was coming in but all that work wasn't helping. I just kept falling farther and farther behind to the point that in May of 1995 I woke up one day and knew that if I went into the office something very unpleasant would happen. I packed a bag and went to LaGuardia airport. I was going to go back to Minnesota because my sister's wedding was in a month anyway and that seemed a good plan. I got to the ticket counter and the clerk said a one-way ticket to Minneapolis would be approximately $800. I remember distinctly saying to myself (and out loud) "I may be falling apart but I'm not crazy" I walked away from the counter and decided, since US Air was just a terminal away and they had an hourly shuttle to DC that I would go there and decompress. I went to DC and took the subway into the city getting off at DuPont Circle. I went to a bookstore and looked at guide books and found a couple of guest house addresses. I walked to the first one, they had a room and I signed in. I called my boss and left a slightly hysterical phone message, I called one of my sisters in Minneapolis and I called a friend in DC. She still remembers my phone message. I said, "Hi, Kren, I'm in DC. I think I quit my job" I cried, a lot, slept for the first time in weeks and woke up actually feeling like I could survive. I was hungry for the first time in weeks. I ate (something I had not been doing) and then played tourist. I went to the National Zoo and saw the Pandas. I went to the Folger. I wandered all over and realized I had made the right decision. I stayed in DC for two days of complete relaxation. I came back to the city and almost everyone at the office was very supportive and understanding. There was one person who initially was supportive but as time moved on she became difficult and unpleasant. My initial plan was to come back in a much diminished position (my boss asked me to stay the summer) and help clean up the mess. I agreed but as weeks turned into months and other opportunities came along I decided that it wasn't such a bad place after all (I also met Anthony during this time and thought maybe a move back to Minnesota wasn't the best idea), as long as I wasn't doing what I had been doing. The administration wanted me to stay and we worked out a position and here I am, 10 years later still at the same place but in a different position. It's something I'm completely comfortable doing and I can continue for a long time. If I had stayed in the original position, I don't know what would have happened other than I would have had an even worse breakdown, I imagine.
End of story. And now I must get back to work (again).
