I hate launch week. I have hated launch week for nearly three years. I hate it because everyone is annoyed and ultra-sensitive, and I am not immune from these feelings myself. I hate the long hours, and the fact that no matter how prepared you think you are, there are always things that pop up that you could not have possibly predicted; these things, of course, take twice as long to fix as they should have, because suddenly you have to switch gears, and rethink what you are doing, and that change in thought requires time, time that you don't have because that clock is fucking ticking. Or at least it feels like it takes twice as long.

I hate launch week because you suddenly detest all of the work that you've put your heart into for months. It feels lame, it feels false. No one will like it, you think. No one will click where you want them to click. No one will come back as many times as you desire, and no one will linger as long as they should. Suddenly you are thinking click-throughs and page views and numbers and anonymous people and computers, and none of it you can control. Anything that was once inspired - the concept, the process, the design, the copy, the content, for christ's sake - is now just a computer screen. It is suddenly not fun. It is suddenly just the web.

I hate launch week because for a minute you think, oh shit, I just spent fifty or sixty hours a week for the last three months (and likely fifty or sixty hours a week for the next three months) to build something that will not help a soul. It won't make them feel less lonely - they can't touch it or hug it or interact with it (as much as we like to think interactivity means something.) It isn't going to save anyone's life. It isn't going to be remembered a year from now, or even six months from now. There will be no picture in the history book. Screen shots never make it into history books, at least not any I've seen yet.

And all of this hits you in the head, just a few days before you have to launch this sucker, and then you have to sit with the realization while you manage people or code or design or write or whatever it is you have to do to get it off the ground. It nags you - I work on the web. Why am I doing this again? If you're worth anything, your response should not be, "For the money." If you're worth anything, there should be some sort of valid response, something that can keep you going. But maybe, if you're worth anything, you run out of answers and find something else to do with your life.

Of course, being worth something is highly overrated.

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