So Why Couldn't I Do This Five Years Ago?

Sometimes I think that I take on too many projects at the same time.

This is nothing new really, for I have been something of a workaholic for as long as I can remember. It took me a long time to realize that I wasn't doing myself any favors by pushing myself as hard as I used to, and it took me even longer to learn how not to do it. But at least I learned. We all know that in this world you either live and learn or you don't live long.

In addition to all the writing work I do I have also been known to take on the occasional bit of database design. This is really nothing new. Back when I was working at the computer store, I took it upon myself to try to come up with a database to manage our technical services department. Not a bad idea, really, but try as I might I was never really able to come up with something that really did the job well. I came pretty close on a couple of features, but I never really hit the mark.

Once I was well on the road to recovery I decided to try this thing again, just to prove to myself that I could do it. The platform of choice was Microsoft Access 2000, and the project was the same one that I tried to do all those years ago, a database to manage the day to day activities of a technical services department in a computer store.

The key to successful database creation lies in the reference materials you're using, and your state of mind when you're looking things up. My collection of computer books is nowhere near as extensive as it used to be, and the only Access book I have on hand is a book on Access 97 that really isn't very good. Sure, it will show you a lot of things to help you accomplish very basic tasks with Access, but that's about it. For this project I needed something a little higher on the old quality scale.

So I paid a visit to the Edmonton Public Library and came out with two books. The first one was a book on using Visual Basic for Applications in Access, and the other one was a copy of the Microsoft Access 2000 Bible. Between these two books and the notes I made from them, as well as the notes I made from the contents of the Access 2000 help files, I was able to come up with a data base that would actually do the job, and do it reasonably well.

I didn't set my sights all that high, of course, because I wanted to make sure that the task was well within my reach. The database I created is more of a work order manager than anything else, but its still better than anything I ever created all those years ago.

Okay, I was able to do something that was actually pretty simple, now it was time to really test myself. I decided to take on a project that was a little bit more complicated. The mechanics shop in the bowling alley I work for uses a very simple database system to track parts inventory and part usage. The database was created in Lotus Approach, and while it does the job well it can sometimes be a wee bit of a pain in the arse to use. So I decided to take what they were doing in Approach and do it in Access.

Just to make the job more interesting I decided to add two new modules to the thing as well. In addition to the Inventory and Parts Usage modules present in the original database I also set about designing a Stop Recap module (to record all the stops we have to clear in a night) and a Frames Per Stop module. (Frames Per Stop is a measure of how well us mechanics are doing. It represents the average number of frames that are played before a machine stops and one of us mechanics has to intervene.)

I've been working on his project off and on for about three months now, but in that three months I think I've spent no more than about ten hours on the project. It's almost done though. The last module I was working on, the Inventory module, is all but complete. Then I have to work on some of the reporting and that's it. It can then be considered a completed project.

I learned a few things from doing it too. I can now do things with Access that I never could have done five years ago. The database does everything that our original database does and then some. It's pretty intuitive and it's pretty quick too.

So, why couldn't I do this five years ago? Simple, I was in the wrong state of mind to be able to do it.

You see, I've been a depressive since I was a teenager. I don't know why it worked out that way, but it did. And that depression has clouded everything I've tried to accomplish for the last fifteen years. Not only has the depression clouded everything I've tried to accomplish, but it's served as the impetus for things that I would rather not have done. For example, I drank as heavily as I did not because I'm an alcoholic, but because I was inherently lonely, and the alcohol served to take some of the sting out of that loneliness, for a while anyway. The depression was also the driving force behind my tendency to be a workaholic, and for much the same reason. I worked because when I was working I wasn't thinking about being lonely.

By the same token, getting involved in what was supposed to be a long term relationship when I was in that kind of state wasn't the most intelligent thing I could have done. My depression played a pretty big part in the destruction of my marriage and all the rotten things that happened to me because of it.

In the end, though, I did it to myself. I didn't do it on purpose, I don't think, but I certainly missed out on the fact that I had a problem. And by the time I figured it out it was too late for me to really do anything but say goodbye to the person I was and the life I used to live, and concentrate on building a new one in its place.

Whenever I come across people who have problems with addiction and depression I always encourage them to seek help and do it now, and I always tell them that if they don't then they're going to end up the way that I did, and no one deserves to have to go through that. It's true too. But at least I can take some comfort in the fact that the various debacles that make up the last ten years of my life can serve as an example to others and might just give some people the little push they need to get themselves some help before things have a chance to go from bad to worse. When I think of it that way then I don't mind having had to go through what I went through so much. At least something good has come out of it.