Irreversible Damage

They say you are two steps away from hitting skid row. I think I’m teetering over the top of it from a thin wire. My coping mechanisms have been slowly wittled away over the past few months that I don’t have much energy to muster but to get this out of my head. It’s late, and I’m sure to not sleep for the next 48 hours and have already been up for 20 of them.

I believe in communication. I believe its the foundation to ensuring that conflict gets resolved whenever it arises. And believe me, no matter how hard you try, there is always going to be something that will arise. And then? It’s a standstill. A game of chess. A test of will and power against the opponent. For what? To win? What’s the prize? To Lose? Why is it this way?

That being said, many people have issues with communication, and conflict, myself included. I’d have to say I’m far from where I’d like to be, but its a daily assessment of my values each night before I try to attempt to get some rest, as short as it may be – going through each and every situation that I was faced with in the day. It’s best not to push them aside, as one can learn many things from these daily interactions. You can either change the dynamics of how you would approach similar situations in the future, or you can continue doing what it is that you do. Some people won’t like it. Some people won’t tell you they like it. I call that a failure in communication. Expression of how one feels and views things in life is one of the foundations of building a bond between another human being – whether it be in forging a business relationship, or a partner, whom you wish to spend the rest of your living life with. Not everyone thinks the way I do however.

Typically, walls go up. Blame gets spread around, and negativity flourishes with one of the parties building sort of a shit-list to use as ammunition when the other party communicates, which is then viewed as a pre-emptive strike, a low blow, or a kick to the nuts. The other end, wondering what’s happening, cries out in hurt, anger, and frustration, attempting in such a short period to figure out what caused this action to occur, while an onslaught of reasons, pent up ideas, and well executed words come barreling out, on paper, text, or via their vocal chords. The only choice for the person on the receiving end is to raise their defenses, the natural mechanism that exists in every creature on this earth. Fight, or flight. Kill or be killed. The next thing you know we’re dropping a bomb killing innocent people. Fighting a war that started over the inability for two parties to communicate well with each other and take the high road, to stop, assess the situation, and attempt to understand the other ends viewpoints, ideas, or feelings.

This happens every day, all around the world, multiple times per second. For me, it’s been 2 times in the past 4 months.
One, I lost my lover, my partner in life, and my best friend. Being humans, we do things that irritates others, sometimes hurting the others feelings, or assuming that the other party would be better with your viewpoints. I cared for this girl. I loved this girl – I still do, and won’t stop. The uncanny connection that commenced from the moment we set eyes on each other, with her spending every day of her life looking at me when I didn’t even know it for a good half a rotation around the sun joined us together like a high powered weld. I treated us as equal, a first actually in all my life – with no desire to change the other, only wanting to see them succeed – c’mon – have you ever met anyone who cares for someone and wants them to fail? There we go. Some say I’m too intense. Some say I’m an asshole. Some say I’m mystifying. Now, with her not in my life, I’m devastated. The laughs, the voices, the feelings, the walks, the tough, the aura, the energy, the bond – broken, with one side’s walls up, not willing to see that as humans we are all our own person, always have, always will – but we utilize ourselves to become another being, one that exists in the world of the other person, making minor adjustments to our mannerisms, viewpoints, attitude, and realistic goals. Our high hopes that we once had when 5 years old never fade from our original body. I made a commitment to this girl – and I’m not one to break my promises. To do that would a a direct reflection of who I am in this world. I remain true to it, thick and thin, with the door open, needing a knock to open it up further when they are ready. I hope for 50 more years on this planet.. My pyramid walls are crumbling.

My next stress relates to the usage of computers. I went through IT burnout in 2004, paving a clear path out of the industry and to focus on starting up a retail business in relation to pets. I went to the interviews, got tickets for staying so long, and found a winking star that captivated me, and allowed me to flex my inner energies, outputting it into various creations as a consultant. Each opportunity that arose, I spent considerable amounts of time architecting a rock solid solution, that would meet not only needs, cost sensitivity, but take advantage of the many technologies that were available to us at the time, making sure that it wasn’t going to be phased out in the next year from the next latest-and-greatest technology. This wasn’t a day job. This morphed into almost every waking hour, and also took over subconscious dreaming, where I would awake with the plan at 4am. So needless to say, it became my life. More so than the personal activities that I also did – hobbies, other weekly commitments, relationships. This allowed me to shine in a way that I never thought possible. It turns out I was simply using it to mask other issues that were looming in the background.

I regularly was required to travel from my domicile to implement these solutions, sometimes away from the comforts of my regular life for weeks at a time – often loading myself up with stressful situations not only onsite: dealing with clients, meeting strict deadlines, often forcing all nighters, malnutrition by dealing with restaurant foods, elevated heart rate, and mass consumption of alcohol to shut down at the end of the day’s session. Not good. We were regularly required to track time worked, in order to bill the client. While it is one of the most simplest of things, other things got in the way, multiple times, and I always struggled with this. Juggling 5-6+ projects at once, sometimes allowed this to slip through the cracks. When I had a chance to breathe and focus on Administration, via call logs, and email correspondence, and my own personal logging, I tracked it to the best of my ability. Of course, there is no way to track time spent in Hotels, and I rarely if ever marked times when I was doing research and development for new technologies that became very sought after products to sell to clients. In short, after a few years – I turned the department profitable. Interrupting my weekends, evenings for calls from clients, other co-workers to help solve a problem was frustrating, but – that’s just my heart. Gold – I want to see everything succeed. Especially in a place where I had the opportunity to introduce new mechanisms, methodologies, technologies and ideas. I’ll almost guarantee that when I found something that I knew would turn into a profitable product my energies inspired others around me, and we all worked cohesively to succeed.

I took on a lot, more than I probably should have, without putting my foot down and making things known how I was feeling, letting things bottle up. I’d be great for a while, and then I’d overload – not understanding how to dissipate the stresses that were increasingly weighing me down, trying to find solutions when I was at breaking point, which didn’t give much room for lateral movement on my end. That’s my downfall. I worked with upper management to create a plan, to allow for an exit strategy, finding capable employees to take my position, while at the same time building in a performance plan that compensated me based on the efforts that I was putting forth. Remember, 4 years into the game, I’m still doing the exact same thing I was before, but supporting the entire empire I built, but with a heck of a lot more clients. The water was seeping through the holes and I considered my exit in early 2008. This was when I stopped sleeping.

Being able to stay awake for 3 days in a row, most certainly isn’t the healthiest for ones body and soul, and I eventually turned to ways to make myself shut down, via drugs and alcohol. Surprise, it sorted the short term issue, but eventually grew a gigantic hairy monster in the background waiting to suffocate me.

After some assessment, I rearranged some short and long term goals and decided to stick with it, yet still using my demons to deal with the situations. I worked out a new plan with management, cleared up some outstanding issues, and moved forward. To say that 2008 was a defining moment for me would be an understatement. One simply needs to read the About page and understand what was going on. I won’t even get into some of the stressors that started occurring come September. Fast forward 4 months later, I’m on the edge, stuck in a house that is unable to sell due to the economic downturn, which I can’t afford alone. I needed a way out. Luckily, a friend was able to bail me out and allow me to get out of my residence and rent it so that I may find a cheaper place to live in order to start rebuilding some of my savings that were dissipated from the past of making wrong decisions with someone, and being left to deal with the mess.

I mentioned these issues frequently to my employers, letting them know that there were problems arising. Frequent counseling sessions were helping, but didn’t solve the problem – my workload became much more intense, with the loss of staff members, where I repeatedly stepped up, put in more hours than one should in a day (12 hours was not uncommon for me), eventually winning employee of the month 2 times in the same year – a Pretty Impressive feat! All the time I was providing cross training, generating sales, and fostering important relationships with my clients. Fact would be that each of my clients I worked with I have a personal relation with, to where we could share a bottle of wine, a dinner, and talk about more personal things, outside of business. I gained a wealth of new friends, that will stretch for many years forward. I was planning at the same time a trip to San Francisco, in May – but the closer that date came, I realized it would be a poor decision to make, notifying my direct report that it was occurring in September.

The worst happened, my successor went and quit a few days before I was to leave on my trip. I had planned, double checked, and created dual contingency plans to ensure that operations kept smoothly. This eventually evolved into a communication breakdown, similar to how I handled things in the past – being at 99% capacity, stress, to everyone, and everything in my life. It was this time that I lost my partner in life because of these stresses. I made my voice heard, and requested change – which didn’t come and went on the trip – fully expecting to be terminated upon return. In some ways I wish I was.

I came back to the whole weight of the world on my shoulders, merging my stresses with the first part of this entry, and a whirlwind ride of implementations from clients, taking extreme amounts of my time, energy, and adding more to my daily stress. I commenced drinking in upwards of 3 litres of beer a day, using it to cope. Letting my superiors know that this was happening, I requested a meeting that my employment agreement be changed. I was told that this would occur, yet after repeat followups, it was missed, leaving me in a lurch, continuing my spiral. In order to complete some of these engagements – there was a requirement to purchase software and hardware for a client, using credit cards that belonged to the place of delivery – which turned out to be mine, since I worked from home. I purchased over $13,000 of hardware and software, in short order, because the implementation that these were required for occurred in less a matter of days.

After a conversation from my manager letting me know that this couldn’t be done in the future, due to wanting to keep all accounts payable under the roof, I agreed to this. Unfortunately companies automatically direct debited funds from this card and continued to do so as it was on file, until I was able to cancel the card. I submitted a reimbursement request for these costs to directly do business, and even offered to carry the balance for a month.

Come December, I was taken out of general support duties (on the front line at least) in my workplace, to allow for a smooth transition to two other IT experts. This was due to recognition of my stresses and to give me an opportunity to tie up the many loose ends that were out there with clients, and internal work. All the while my monster kept growling at me. Eventually I hit the wall.

December 21st, my heart commenced to accelerate after a week of a vertical line of pain occurring on my left side of my body at a very rapid pace. I was admitted to the hospital that evening, and went through the routines of fluid tests, an entire physical, and was given a long chat with the on duty doctor. They advised that immediately I withdraw from anything causing stress in my life out of fear that continued pains would eventually turn into a heart attack, or cause neurological damage. I relayed this information to Human Resources the next day, and was presented with a letter of termination on approximately December 24th, and an agreement that I was to complete the final project that I was working on, and could take personal time in order to remove my stressors.

On approximately January 11th, I was contacted by Human Resources due to my lack of of time entries, and simply to understand some of the agreements that were made with my manager, which were not shared with HR, or other managing partners. From what I understand, everyone in my department and my manager confirmed this to be the case. Shortly there after, phone calls were made regarding outstanding issues – one being the outstanding reimbursement of the funds remaining from the hardware and software purchase in November. I had already received a partial reimbursement on approximately December 23 of $4406.33. Another issue is that after analysis of my time entries, it showed that I was behind a number of hours of entry. I explained that this has always been a weakness, and had wished that this had been brought to my attention sooner, as even though I was management, it doesn’t preclude me from making mistakes and missing things due to a very heavy workload. I offered suggestions of aiding the company in the future for further training for my successors, even offering 2 on site implementations in the area that headquarters was situated, at no cost other than to cover my expenses partially. I was told that I would receive a letter detailing these issues in the last trimester of the month of January. At the same time when requesting the final reimbursement of the costs related to the company doing business, I was also told that it would be released to me on Monday, January 25th.

I attempted to contact upper management multiple times throughout this time, with no response. Finally, on February 2nd, 2010, the final day of my employment, I was locked out of the system with no warning at approximately 1:30pm without a goodbye, a telephone call, an email or an instant message. I later did receive a telephone call from my direct supervisor, which I missed that day due to some appointments that I had to attend to regarding medication for serious depression, suicide, and anxiety. With high optimism I went into 2010, however my optimism soon dulled into a blunt edge.

On February 3rd, 2010, I received an email from my old employer, stating that they would be deducting time from my reimbursement of the costs required to do business that I still carried a balance on my credit card for, due to lack of time entries over the prior year. Naturally, my defenses went up, and I did not agree with this whatsoever, again wondering why I was not given an opportunity to resolve earlier with HR, and partners of the company.

I then submitted a formal request to resolve the situation using a self help kit from the Employment Standards Branch, due to the content of the letter, and based upon prior requests to communicate with management of the company.
I received a response on Friday, February 5th, 2010 outlining further details of reasons as to why funds were being held, and inaccurate comments stating that I did not complete full days of work on February 1, and February 2 2010.

I responded to these comments in an email to the sender of the initial email – Human Resources with a request that all partners of the company be CC’d along with the lawyers listed on the correspondence they were sending me. I received a response stating that it was already being done. Finally a short time after, I received a reply from my direct reporting manager, one of the partners of the company letting me know his disappointment of the situation, and that to cease communication with them without going through their lawyer based on the fact that I had retained legal counsel.

My personal views of lawyers, while they serve many purposes, one being able to understand wording in contracts/agreements, however I do find an awful lot of professional fees and time is wasted and spent between drafting of letters, pushing it to the other side of the desk, before finally moving it back to its original place. I’m sure regardless if lawyers are friends of yours, it can eliminate frivolous costs, however for those who simply wish to communicate, drop walls, and solve issues, I see it as an unnecessary hassle that simply creates logistical nightmares in trying to go about solving the problem in an effective, moral manner.

With all that being said, I’m taken down further notches on my mental abilities to cope, and calling out for help. I maintain a $8812.66 balance on my credit card that I can not afford to pay off, collecting interest at approximately 18% per annum, over what I thought was doing the right thing to help out a group of people who I regard highly, and felt like a member of family as opposed to simply an employee. I can’t afford legal help and this effectively halves my money that I’ve saved up to complete my de-stressing goal of riding around the world. To put it direct – I’ve hand the wind knocked out of me, and don’t know what to do. I’m incredibly upset that I was not recognized for my dedication, long term hard work, and talent that I was able to bring, enabling long term success of the company. Is this business?

I struggle to comprehend why a bridge is being burnt, with barriers, walls, and aggression without communication to assist in resolving the conflict. It may be business, but these are real people, myself included. Whatever my spirit beliefs are, I tend to gravitate around the golden karmic rule, yet also think heavily of St. Peter at the Pearly gates on how I carry on my life, being able to know that when I go to sleep finally, I will leave a legacy of positivity. I’m not looking to battle, I’m not looking to fight. I just want a resolution to these issues, so that our once positive relationship could be maintained. No one gains positivity with conflict.

To say I need my support network right now to prop me up would be the understatement of my entire life. The winds of change are eroding the 7th layer of my Pyramid, exposing it to a very acidic environment, with very little materials available to repair. This is the absolute toughest thing I have ever gone through, and need your help to understand what is right from wrong. I maintain my dependencies, and not sure where to turn to next. Help. Thanks.