At my limit ...

About two months ago, I stopped exercising. "Just until I can get over this stressful period." I also gave up my dietary restrictions.

About a month ago, I stopped blogging.

I've been working a lot of hours for one particular company on one particular project. It's modifications to an incentive financial system that produces $15 million of checks per month. I am responsible for gathering requirements, doing design, coding, unit and system testing. I do have someone to bounce ideas off for design/code review, and customer acceptance tests done by the customers.

Last week, two people pointed out that I was getting "snippy" lately.

My desk, house, and, increasingly, yard - is an awful mess.

Tuesday, I noticed that I was biting my nails. Looking at them, I've bit them down far further than is reasonable. "To the bone" is an exaggeration, but not by much.

We shipped the first incremental release yesterday, and, when the interface ran, no regression errors and 3 of 4 major issues were fixed. Whoopee.

Still, I struggle. One on hand, I can't stand the kind of refuse-to-take-responsibility, refuse-to-make-commitments, just-dont-care attitude that I see in some technologists.

On the other, this is killing me.

I need to find a third way.

What does this have to do with Creative Chaos?

Well, In a previous post I mentioned informal measurement systems - like the ones you use to tell that you need a hair cut. Interestingly enough "Is Matt Stressed" is a very simple measurement system - LOOK AT HIM.

Yet, to a formal measurement system, everything is GREAT. Why, we should do more of this!

I didn't start out with a moral, but here it is anyway: If you have a problem where formal measurement doesn't fit, don't force it - instead, use informal measurement. Otherwise, someone is probably going to get burned ...