First off, I love the simplicity and appropriate nature of your signature.

Personally, I have had a pretty decent amount of success at not doing more than inflicting a nick here and there, which is no worse than my hurried cartridge razor days. There are a thousand things that could be going wrong for you. Was your razor honed by a honemeister? How's your pre-shave beard treatment and lather application? At what angle to your face are you holding your razor? Are you stretching the skin? How much pressure are you using? Are you rushing it?

In conjunction, the two underlined seem to spell "recipe for disaster," but all of them could play an important role. Go back to basics once your face heals and definitely don't rush it. Many resources here, including Lynn's DVD and the general consensus of several thread, advocate shaving sections at a time, then finishing with your DE or cartridge. Personally, I shave my whole face, but I take a LOOONNG time to do it carefully. Both approaches focus on development of fundamentals. And I would not recommend trying to jump into full face straight shaving if it's on a pre-work time constraint. See the link below:

http://straightrazorpalace.com/showthread.php?t=21636

Keep at it. Hopefully some more experienced members will post to this thread to help you sort out which of the above might be causing your problems. Good luck and keep the alum handy...

Adam