burn down the desk, oh!

I’m at the first point in my professional career where I feel I’m really on the verge of receiving a bollocking from a boss. The chances of me finishing my current ball-and-chain task (a report summarizing the entire institute’s research achievements in 2005; previously mentioned here) by deadline (Friday 3 February) are diminishing by the hour. I’m no stranger to dicking around and avoiding work to the point that I then need to work long hours and weekends to complete it on time. But usually I reach a stage where a productive sort of panic sets in, I pull my finger out, and I actually work solidly until I finish. With the current task I reached that panic point days ago, but the solid work never kicked in. I don’t think I have another level – this is it. If my current panic/stress don’t motivate me, I have nowhere else to go. I should’ve told the selection committee they really should have tried harder to employ the guy they wanted originally…

The problem is I know that if I just had the discipline to put my head down and work a solid day – as much as the work itself would suck, I’d be so much happier. Yet that doesn’t seem to be enough incentive, somehow.

Also, understanding that, really, in the greater scheme of things, you are lucky only makes things worse, because I get down on myself for being negative and not appreciating my own fortune. And of course that sort of bullshit whiny angst gets me down a bit as well, and the whole positive feedback system kicks in.