These Difficult Times

The message below is something I sent to my bosses and colleagues this morning. As you may be able to detect, I am experiencing a great deal of emotional difficulty right now. From a zoomed-out perspective, the topic of emotional difficulties, I think, represents the most wily and tricky type of difficulty. It is the most hidden, the most elusive, and the most transparent of all the difficulties we face, with the exception of religious or spiritual difficulties. And it is the difficulty that is the most difficult to celebrate, as I posture to do here on this website.

Gentlemen,

Having worked at Tekserve for over three years -- nine months at glass case, greeter, and intake; and over two years in the video department -- I believe I have proven myself to be a sturdy character and someone good to have around. I have been honest, communicative, a decent learner, blessed with a decent (although not exceptional) memory for details, generally a fun person to have nearby, and overall an asset to Tekserve. I have proven myself to be a rational, reasonable person, described several times by others with great relief as a "voice of reason". My reputation among the load-bearing people here at Tekserve is that of a person who is quick to take action, capable, straight-talking, and a people-person who is good with customers, one who does not mind talking to people, generally good at delivering bad news, and generally free of "issues" that seem to plague some people.

I also have a reputation for being someone who takes good care of himself: eating lots of salads; not drinking very much or partaking in any other "substances"; keeping a stash of nuts at my desk to stabilize my blood sugar in order to keep from getting cranky at our customers; recommending diets and exercises to people who work here; bicycling and running; stretching my legs; etc. This helped me cope with the stresses and distractions that are part-and-parcel to working here, the crucible that is Tekserve.

When I first started working at Tekserve, coming here was something I immediately liked doing, and I think everyone here generally saw this. My good feelings for Tekserve continued throughout my first nine months here, but my stressful experience in the video department is beginning to take its toll.

When I first started working in the video department, I knew that there was a great deal of information that I needed to learn. I knew that it would be difficult and that I would have to absorb a great deal. Wow, how true that was! But I did learn a lot, and am now a decent salesperson of highly technical equipment.

Initially, throughout that first year, I could properly recuperate from the stresses of this job -- I could get a night's sleep, eat a hearty breakfast, and be ready for more. But lately, the last six months or so, those recuperative and coping powers that I relied upon during my early time within the fist of Tekserve have worn out and are nearly gone. Those of you who are sensitive to these types of issues within people may have noticed this: I look tired and harried. You can see it in my face, and, believe me, I can feel it. This last weekend, a three-day weekend (President's Day), I hoped the time would be enough to gather more strength, but it was not -- I did not regain my strength, and Tuesday morning came, and this week I feel I cannot continue.

I am not the type of person who can compartmentalize his life into work and away-from-work -- to me, they are all part of the same process -- and I cannot separate the two. I feel the stress affecting me even before getting out of bed. My coping tools have nearly left me and I feel I cannot recover. I feel as if I'm only a shell of the person Tekserve originally hired. I fear that I am "burning out", "losing it", "near the brink", and that I "cannot handle it".  I do not wish to become another David Shecterson (someone who did not adequately protect himself or those around him), and I fear that I have waited too long to take a little bit of time off.

I doubt that my declining state was precipitated by the loss of Frank Lamonaca -- my energy has been draining for a while now and Frank knew it. Others who work close to me have noticed, Steve and Matt Walsh especially.

I care deeply about my reputation and ability to work at Tekserve, and I hold a deep respect for those I work around, especially for Ron T. It is for these two reasons, and to retain my sense of honor, that I will depart at 2pm this afternoon and take Friday off.  I will return Monday, hopefully somewhat restored.

I apologize to my colleagues for any extra workload this may represent.

Mining such emotional difficulties for positive experiences is such a deep art, a slippery task, that I'm not even sure what to say about all this, except that one thing I know for sure: emotional difficulties can be very easily mapped via metaphor onto natural disasters (hurricanes, tornadoes, and especially earthquakes), and we can profit by saying "I was rocked by a wave of emotion". For the record, my emotional quake, I think, was relatively mild, registering only a 1.2 on the Richter scale of emotional techtonic activity.

Within twenty minutes of sending this emotional email, I could barely think. I could barely form sentences, and when a friend came up to talk to me about it, I could barely speak. It was awful, and I wonder what good or bad will come from it.