Our IT group at work used to have a phrase for when there was too much going on and too much emotion running high….

“Too much thinking, not enough drinking.”

The phrase kept running through my mind today as I came back to work after a long weekend away.

I walked into a company that has officially gone private.  This changes things from a systems perspective. Fun!

I walked into a project that is going well, but …. yeah, there is a but.  But, we hit a glitch.  A glitch that was discovered last week, but they wait for me to come back to sort it out.  It was kind of a “oh, fuck – how did we miss this?”  How did we?  From my investigation which involved me reading through six technical, functional and mapping specification documents (yes they are as exciting as they sound),  I found that no one really stood back and thought through the process that they are getting ready to program software for next week.  The upside is we found it.

The downside? Guess who was tasked with fixing the problem?  Yep, me.  Got dumped on me at 7:30am this morning.  By 3:30pm, I had it sorted out.  Now, I have to present it to the team in Singapore some night this week.  Why?  Because it is they own the process I’m changing, I have to convince them that my way is the right way. (Which, of course, my way is the right way!)

I’ll be taking that call from home with a beer in my hand.  I have found that is the best way for me to deal with that team.  Drink while doing it.  In the end, I’ll still have to shove it down their throat – but at least I’ll be doing it with a beer in my hand.  Something fun to look forward to!

The problem with me going straight into analysis mode for almost 8 hours is I cannot get out of it.  I start analyzing EVERYTHING.  I cannot shut my brain off.  Personal, professional, business….nothing is off limits from my brain when it happens.  Did I handle situations right?  Did I misread an interaction?  Should I have done something differently?  My brain – the thing that gets me through my day, that makes me successful, is my worst enemy when it hits this point.

I can’t get it to shut off.

I can’t even get it to switch gears into another mode.

Garbanzo says my brain is turning into his brain when this happens.  He thinks it’s funny.

I don’t think it is.  I think it is just it gets stuck.  I blame the caffeine.  I had way too much of it today.  (I mentioned those technical specifications I had to read, right?)

It doesn’t matter how it started…..it just needs to stop.

Maybe drinking will help.

I’m off to go find out.