Ryan,
That's ok, you work for the FAA. I figured it would take months/years for you to catch up on material that everyone else had access to from the beginning
What isn't adequately captured in that video is just how busy that controller was. I edited it down to capture my interaction with him and a couple of context-setting calls from other pilots, but that's about it. I kid you not, that radio was non-stop the entire time. That was the whole problem.
Most stressful part, let's see...the sinking ship feeling of weather dropping down, limited fuel, equipment out of service, etc. I did have a few seconds where I pictured not being to put it down, but then I quickly realized, if EVERYWHERE was fogged in and shutdown, I'd be hearing about it...plus I could probably limp back to somewhere with better weather (albeit not great). All that happened in literally a couple of seconds. After that, it was a constant reminder to FLY....THE....AIRPLANE, knowing my workload was through the roof, the one thing I didn't want to do was start slipping on the stick & rudder portion and end up having a perfect approach briefing while I spiraled to my death, or more realistically, got into an upset condition where drastic action would be required to get back on course and on heading.
I should've pushed back on the ATIS way sooner, would've helped a great deal. He'd already given me the stuff I really cared about. He gave me the weather, but needed the ATIS acknowledgement per SOP, I suspect, and perhaps for liability because there were some closed taxiways, I guess (none of which I cared about either at that time, trust me, I figured I'd deal with it on the ground). So, it was frustrating to work hard to get the ATIS (putting me closer and closer to TEB in the process), not getting anything useful from it, then not be ready for fly the approach when he attempted to vector me to final.
I couldn't tell you if fatigue was part of it, but I'd never been so happy to be on the ground...and 400 overcast at TEB felt like clear and a million after what I just shot at CDW (that was some THICK fog. Hard not to be intimidated by it.) It's not that flying in that is hard, but it's distracting, and there's just an ominous feeling of, "I shouldn't be here" when the clouds are that thick at night (where the landing light is blinding you, let alone the strobes).