Life at work lately is ... well, weird.

I seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time getting into fights discussions with fellow staff here.  It usually starts well ... I see a problem with something, and I point it out to someone, hoping they'll fix it.  After all, we're all on the same team, working towards the same goals, right?  But then the person responds defensively and starts accusing me of stuff ... which gets my temper up, and then I respond in kind ... and it eventually sputters out, but in a way that leaves me with way too much acid in my stomach and a generally unsettled feeling.

And since I'm leaving this as a public posting on Facebook and LiveJournal, let me say this ... no, I'm not talking about you, whoever you are.  I've seen this happen multiple times, with multiple different people.  I could name off all the incidents, but ... there's that acid in the stomach again ... and again, I'm trying to be professional about this and not air my dirty laundry in public.

But lately, I've been wondering.  If this keeps happening over, and over, and over again ... is it really the case that I just keep bumping into people who are nuts?  Occam's Razor would suggest that it's me who's nuts, not everyone else.

I do have people in my life who tell me that, no, I'm not nuts, I'm just stupid bold enough to speak up when I see problems.  Of course, those are the same people who are saying "we're right behind you" ... and then take up seats well enough behind me that I end up taking the brunt of the slings and arrows.   It's no fun being the first guy out of the foxhole ... over and over and over again.

So ... I don't know.  I've got enough presence of mind to have gotten self-introspective lately.  It might very well be that I've just run into too many brick walls lately --- all the brick walls that everyone else has given up on long ago, and it appears to be my turn.  (We all celebrate the hero who conquers the world, but forget that it really sucked to be the hero in the midst of the battle.)  But there's a part of me that wonders if I'm becoming one of those cranky old guys who just seems to pick fights with anyone and everyone else.