After a long and challenging weekend, I was hoping that things would start to settle down so I can catch my breath. If I believe in horoscope, I'm sure the prediction would be that I'm going to be very busy at work this month, be careful not to mess anything up. I can't believe what I see in horoscope for Gemini today: "It's a pretty easy day for you, really -- even the intense stuff feels lighter to you! Use the extra time or energy for personal stuff, or just enjoy the experience of being alive. It's easy for you!".

Only I wish it was true. After months of hard work, system go live is scheduled to be early October. As usual, people are starting to finally feel the heat and beginning to panic. I just wish people are smarter when they were strolling along thinking that they still have couple months to go. I mean it's obvious that there are things to get done, if you don't do anything about it, they are not going to go away. You will still end up having to do it anyway, except the later you start the more pressure you have. Sometimes it seems so ridiculous for me to see it so clearly what is wrong with something, and yet when push comes to shove, there is a lot of resistance of getting started. It's kind of like my college project, you always think you would be able to cram it all together in the last week, sometimes you think you are smart enough that you could complete a programming project 2 hours before it's due. People are just naturally procrastinators.

As pressure builds up, my boss is sending the whole team to the site, and work like a slave trying to get things setup so they could go live on time. I have not seen my co-workers in a few weeks, sometimes I feel like they are going to be down there permanently and never coming back. Mike & I are the only people still left in headquarter. We're scrambling dealing with all kinds of issues. That's probably one of the most screwed up resource allocation I see firsthand, however at the same time I see there is no way around it. I asked a "stupid" question the other day, "Pete, what is Steve etc going to do when they are down in the site?" Pete smiled and said, "I don't know, I just know that my boss said people needs to be down there, we need to show effort here (by showing up in the site with no clear purpose), feet need to be on the ground." I sigh and did not say anything. Pete looked at me and said, "You are still too young, you will learn that things do not have to make sense, logic does not always work (in a big corporation)." I wanted to ask back then (with all these people gone, how are we going to handle all these things, we don't have enough resources.) I swallow my words because I know it does not matter, when a decision is made three levels above you, no matter how stupid it is, you could only do the best you could.

Unfortunately, things take a turn for worse. On Wednesday, Mike told everybody he has to leave work because his mom just passed away. The big boss came around as I was talking with Mike and telling him very sorry about your mother, condolences etc. He said "Mike, gosh, I'm really sorry about your mother; you go and take care of your family." Then he looked at me with this uneasy smile, he padded me on the shoulder and said, "Jason got broad shoulders, we should be fine." I know Mike has got to go and take care of his family; there is nothing we could do about that. With Mike gone, it only leaves me all alone here by myself and I need to take up 5 people's load. Does it make any sense? absolutely not. A good leader would say "geez, that's a very tough situation, Jason I'm sorry you have to take all that load, if you need anything just let me know." Anybody with less grit would probably crumble under this pressure. I'm looking at it as you've been dealt with this card, are you going to sit here and whine or are you going to make the best out of a seemingly bad situation.

All day today I'm sitting quietly in my office, IMs, Emails, phone calls nonstop. Surprisingly at the end of the day, I feel that I could take on 5 people's load without breaking myself. I'm stressed so thin but still I'm in one piece. I padded myself on the back and got myself out of there in a hurry. I am smiling now because no matter how crazy things get, if you keep your cool and try your best, your brain has the capacity to overcome a lot of things. The most important thing facing a tough situation is do not start going negative thinking that you cannot handle it, keep your confidence and a can do attitude. What is the worst that could happen? the worst thing is that you messed everything up, you will never know your own potential if you don't stress yourself out of your comfort zone. Deal with it instead of feeling sorry that you got a screwed up situation. I even managed to take care of few things I have put off for a while that I needed to do. It's a highly productive day for me so I'm happy. A little secret I can't tell my co-workers is that I actually feel that I'm more productive since they are not here to create distraction for me. :)

It turns out the daily horoscope is pretty accurate. I really enjoy the experience of being so "alive". I can't say that it's easy but it's not un-doable. I think when one day my brain is starting to go; when I actually for once have a problem that I could not find a solution for, it's probably time to retire.