Focusing on the positive

The big project that's been stressing me out at work for the last few months, and to some extent the last few years, is now over. Not in a good way: it was 'decided' (I use that term very loosely) to simply pull the system, probably at the end of the month, and go back to the way things were before.

To call this 'disheartening' is to make light of it, but I don't know how else to describe it. I think I never quite managed to figure out how I felt about it before I was already moving past it. If I focus on the negative, I'd be devastated. Not that it was my fault: certainly there are things I could have done better, but what I did manage was almost superhuman and something to be proud of, even if not many people at work can see it yet. But they will one day. No, the part that's devastating is that this is the most damaging demonstration of the lack of leadership my office suffers from.

However, by the time the 'decision' came, I was already prepared for it. I excel at the process of putting things behind me. My feelings are still jumbled but the most pointed things to feel are all about relief. The crushing workload that's suddenly melted away, most notably. For a long time I've been aching to be past this project and now, in entirely the wrong way, I very abruptly am. (At least for now; next year we'll dust the cobwebs off the project and try again.)

I've got a few more weeks of transition (the opposite of the "go live" process, so I'm calling it, not without irony, the "go dead" process). Once that's done, I'll have a while to work on other things and get back to a more reasonable workload before I have to start preparing for our second attempt. I suspect getting back to normal is going to take some adjustment.