Working on a Saturday and sad news

I ended up having to work yesterday. I was told to expect a call at 4:30am on Saturday to begin work on my piece of a project relating to the conversion of a current computer system to a new version of it. Sounds boring, right? :-) As boring as it is, it takes many people and a lot of time to make it happen.

When I know I have to get up early, I don't sleep well the night before. I guess it's a nervous energy and knowing that your routine will be different. I never got a call but was up by 5:30am. As with most projects, things never go as planned. My part wasn't required until about 2:30pm. I worked for 3.5 hours straight on a report that turned into a nightmare. And, this weekend was only practice for the real conversion on the weekend of June 13!

Besides having to work over the weekend, the office has been saddened by the death of a co-worker. He didn't show up for work about two weeks ago. He wasn't answering any calls, so a co-worker finally went to his apartment. When he still didn't answer, she called the police and they found him inside. No one knew what happened until last week. He committed suicide by shooting himself.

I wasn't close to him, because we never worked on any projects together. The whole thing is a shock, and a good word for how I feel is "disturbed." I feel bad that he thought this was the answer and that he was found alone.

Pat reminded me that he probably had a chemical imbalance that caused him to make this choice. You just never really know what is going on in someone's head or life. I pray that his family can make sense of this and allow this tragedy to bring them closer.