This time of year we’re always busy. It’s the rush of getting all the projects done before our annual benefits enrollment period begins. Not much gets to go in during enrollment: anyone breaks production in that time and they rain down the hellfire. And of course I’m one of the primary keepers of it.

It’s been nuts. In addition to all the projects that have to rush to go in before the change freeze, we got surprised with a migration of our SAN cluster that had to happen. The weeks keep getting longer as we work longer out of hours to make all this happen. A guy I know who got married a few weeks ago put off his honeymoon in Hawaii to this week, and he STILL sent out an email at 9am this morning. He’s a workaholic though.

It’s been weird, as usual, keeping up with the stress of it. I feel like a blown out LED: gets abnormally bright for a moment, then fades, fades, and goes dark from too much current. Over the weekend, which flew by faster than normal, it seemed like I’d gotten it under control. I got to work this morning three hours ago, and even though I haven’t actually DONE anything, I still feel the stress rushing back in like the tide. It’s downright Pavlovian: the beige means it’s time to panic.

Everything else I do suffers. Familial relationships aside (and I know they worry about me), all my own interests and projects go nowhere. All I can really manage is to park my ass in my desk chair and watch downloaded TV shows. By the way, 30 Rock is really good, I should have started on it sooner.

And so everyone is looking for the break in all of this: the enrollment period, when I’ll be on call 24/7 for a whole month and during a major holiday. Woo!