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I was involved in a project with The Barnes Foundation Museum. I estimated, negotiated and received a purchase order in October of 2010 to work with this museum. The contract amount of the project was for $525,000, a large sum. It was my company's responsibility to install of the security system in the museum, including hardware. I felt very personally excited at the beginning of the project. Also, it was much needed important and purportedly profitable work for our company. After about a month, that feeling of excitement quickly turned to nervousness and constant beleaguered communication from the foreman of the project about the many problems. Another, month had gone by and the project that I had instigated was turning into the nightmare of my professional life. I had never experienced anything as dysfunctional as a project manager.

It was just after Christmas of that year and I had to provide my superior with a cost report on how many hours the project consumed and the amount of materials we had so far devoted to the project. In the meantime it was quite obvious to all that my estimate was far from accurate. I was in the fight of my life. After, a meeting the owners of the company I work for and I came up with a plan about how we could move forward. We reached out for help from a private consultant who identified where the estimate was low and told my boss what to expect over the next twenty months, the expected length of the rest of the construction. One morning I woke up with sharp pains in my stomach and a high fever. Something was obviously not right. My wife drove me to the emergency room and where it was determined that my colon had burst into abscess. There were severe ramifications for this including the need for surgery.

Once again, taking too much upon myself led to a damaging situation where my future was in jeopardy. My parent's advice about my uncle came back to me from so long ago and I reached out to others for aid. I have had to learn the same lesson twice in my life: to get the help you need, you must be willing to ask for it.