So yeah. I never did do a thought dump of 2013, Just the very tail end of it which was in itself an amazing way to end the year. On the flipside 2014 has been off to a rather shaky start. I'll get into that towards the end...

39,167. That's how many photos I took this year. This does NOT include Video or "photos" taken from my cell phone which I do not consider to be a camera. It DOES include my 3 main cameras and ones I have sold off.

2013 was the year of the camera. The year in which my photography hobby really blossomed. I had enlightenment in 2010 when I shot a little over 20k photos but then fell into a bit of a rut over the next two years. I got annoyed by "professionals" and Gear Snobs. I almost hung up my camera because of them. But I didn't. And 2013 saw a renaissance beyond what I could have imagined.

For the first time in my life I was making a "living" wage. Because I still live at home it allowed me to have a surplus of money. This surplus went into upgrading my gear including buying all three of my current "upgrades" on the camera bodies, and a number of lenses and an upgraded set of Studio gear as well as a better desktop rig for actual photo processing and editing.

Towards the end of the year, I started leasing a small photo studio. Its not much, 200 SF. Its a place of my own that I haven't had the time to get the use out of it yet - that is the other edge of the sword which I will get into.

So the pros of 2013:

-Upgraded all of my camera gear (to a point where I have access to all the tools I need and many more options to play with...)
-Got more use out of both my cameras and studio equipment then any other year I've had the hobby
-Rented my first property of my own- this is a huge milestone. Its moving out and gaining responsibility (without fully committing to changing my lifestyle fully)
-Held a "stable" full time job that paid well. This is for 2013. 2014 is not looking as bright in that regard....

Cons:

-Almost every con I have falls under "Time". This has been something that had been growing in 2013 and has snowballed into insanity in 2014. Time and the Stress that makes me feel like I have a lot less Time for things that I might normally have. But some specific areas that got strained for me in regards to time:

-Did not use the Boat that much this year (also weather related to a point)
-Did not get to Fly Fish that much either (same thing)
-Had to split my remaining time between an increase of volunteer time for  mnfurs and other charity orgs, my photography (which often went
hand in hand with the Volunteer work) hanging out with friends, doing small daytrips and everything else.
-Building stress at work due to Bell curve in workload. When I started my job at the end of 2012 Full Time it was manageable. I was not stressed and
never was given more then I could chew. It went up EXPONENTIALLY during the Fall. More on this in Breaking Point.
-Had more time to take photos then I had to edit and post them. While I did get a lot of content up for 2013 I am horribly behind. And its beginning
to show as other people are dumping/posting photos from events I haven't even got started on yet *sigh*

So that is 2013 in a nutshell. It ended in an amazing Vacation, but the Stress leading up to it actually made me seriously think of moving and hitting the reset button on life. The idea, however improbable actually was quite damn tempting for a moment. Which leads us into the crap I had to deal with over the last two days when I got sucked back into reality....

From one perspective, I can't complain. I make more money then I actually need right now which makes me able to buy toys, help friends out, and go out more places WHEN I am able. HOWEVER there is a nasty nasty nasty double edge to this sword which is reaching a breaking point.

At my current job I am the ONLY Technican that my company has to cover my accounts. This means 1. I have to fight to get time off. 2. If I call in sick, even for a DAY I get SLAMMED when I return. For example I had a nasty Sinus infection that happened, gracefully, when it was slower earlier this year. If I were to get sick like that NOW I would be beyond screwed. If its even POSSIBLE to be more helplessly behind then I am right now.

The company I work for is cheap cheap cheap. They do EVERYTHING to cut corners. This was made evident when I have 3-4X the workload I can possibly handle in a week in Nov, Dec, and now Jan of this year. Currently I have enough open tickets and misc work that it would take me TWO WEEKS to catch up and that is IF NO ONE called in a SINGLE help ticket or slapped on another project atop the mountain I have right now. Which isn't going to happen. They started piling up work atop of this mound this week and its all collapsing on itself.

My company will not hire another tech to help me. I've pleaded several times, and got the cold shoulder every time. They will ocasionally pull a tech from another account for the SHORT TERM only if its a high priority project and then that tech will be dedicated ONLY to that project and NOT around to assist me with my backlog of daily work.

The day I got back from vacation I had a near mental breakdown when I realized how many tickets were in my que and that people kept calling in tickets. I started to snap at some of the customers because I felt like they were out just to make my life more miserable by giving me more work in a selfish way. This is NOT the case and nor should I be thinking this way. If your computer goes down its not your fault. But since I have so many tickets it feels like your issue is just there to taunt me, like you broke it knowing I was busy to watch me writhe in pain. This is not healthy.

If this wasn't enough they added Insult to Injury by forcing me to take ALL of my Vacation hours over the Holiday Shutdowns of the actual company I work at. Last year, they gave me paid holiday for this time. This year... Christmas and New Years. The rest of it "oh your site is closed down too bad you must use your vacation to cover it" Yeeah.

I have all of 4 hours of vacation left out of a Week and a half I had originally. Granted... I made good use of it. I got to go on two trips, one to Las Vegas and one to Arizona over my break. They were both awesome in their own right but at the same time going away on vacation only made things much much worse when I returned. Esp during this last vacation.

This means that taking time off for the next few months will be nigh impossible until I gain a day or two back. It takes roughly a month to acrew one day of vacation time. I get a total of 10 days of vacation acrewed in a year, half of which was forced to be taken during the holiday shutdown.... There was a con I wanted to go to in Feb (Fur Squared). Now the chance of me going is unlikely unless I get a new job, I risk playing hooky and burn the rest of my sick time (which I don't want to do) OR I straight up leave and take my chances...

I worked 2 days this week. Those two days felt like TWO WEEKS full of work...

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I handed my resume off to the neighbor who is going to pass it off to his company. I got interviewed for another job in Nov that I did not get. I'm going to try to get my resume back to Robert Half and see if they have anything for me. But work is so draining right now that it feels like I'm quite litterally working 80 hours a week.

When I get home a lot of days I feel like that. I only want to do one of two things: get as far away from home as possible and blow off steam with friends OR fall asleep in bed. Getting out with friends and communities has been the ONLY thing keeping me sane right now.

So I guess the question is: where do you draw the line. Where do you reach a breaking point where the money isn't worth the stress? Sure, I can sit here and buy material possessions and even work on paying off my debts... but what is life if you can't enjoy it? What is a job if you are so stressed and overloaded with work that someone trying to even say hello to you at work could set you off because you don't feel you have the time to even nod thanks to them back?

I think I am reaching my breaking point. And both the companies I support and my parent company would stand to loose a LOT if I just up and left right now. It would take atleast a month to train someone on all the accounts I am on and get them the proper badge and network access they need for the sites to do my job. Add to that my current backlog- which would be instantly applied to no one if I walked off right now.

I wouldn't walk off without notice as... nice as that would be to just decide I am not going to put up with this anymore and not show up on Monday. But I have to decide at this point how much longer I can go if my company won't staff my role properly. How many weeks do I need to both cover my own finances and give them some hope to possibly get someone in to cover my job who will likely burn out in a few weeks anyways...

Or how long before I make the ultimatum: "Hire someone to help or I am gone and you'll need to hire someone anyways" and roll the dice and see if they actually man up and call rather then fold and slither into a corner like they have been doing.

At this point... if I get a job offer for up to $5-7 less hourly then I make right now I am GONE without a second thought. They might get the standard two week notice at best in this case so I don't jeopardize not getting the offer from the new company.

Wow that was long. Cookie if you read it all. So far... 2014 looks pretty shitty unless things change. Its sad when you reach a point where work frustrates you enough you snap at co-workers who are trying to be friendly. Then it will move onto snapping at parents and family, and then to friends. This sort of overwhelming frustration does NOT stop at the workplace.

I feel like I am working in a call center all over again. Even if this time I'm doing a job I don't mind doing under normal circumstances. But when you are forced to take on an entire army by yourself as a Lone Solider....

Things never end well for that Lone Solider...