有感而发：时间·压力

二零二四年六月的最后一天，时间真的是过得太快了。

半年就这样过了，时间不够用。

今天又加时工作：早上，下午，晚上。其实加起来应该只有四、五个小时，如果是连续不间断的工作，可能效率会好点。但计划跟不上变化，突然来的购食要求和额外的司机任务，让我无法连续工作。

当然，可能就算没有这些打断我加时工作的杂活，我也很可能无法持续，因为做的是令我压力飙升的额加工作。

做那非我所愿的活，但决定就走玩这一次流程，不论结果怎么样，都可以理正词直的说我尝试过了。

前前后后做了一个星期了，还是依旧写写改改，还是无法完成。心里只有乱和烦。

很快就要到截止日期了，还有那些正规项目的活要做呢，都已经被催了，唉…

时间不够用，压力啊压力！

有感而发 |系列|

Breather

Initially I was going to work overtime after lunch today, but watched a variety show with the family instead.

No big deal, I would just work after the variety show, I thought. Seldom get to have quality family time after all.

Halfway through the variety show I started to question myself on why am I working overtime practically every weekend lately?

So I decided there and then to give myself the much needed breather today.

I may or may not work overtime tomorrow, but today I will give myself a day off. I absolutely deserved it.

Other |temperamental thoughts| category entries.

Azeroth rejected

The anticipated two months worth of revisiting Azeroth ended in four days. What a downer.

The latency on the Europe server was simply horrible, up to the tens of thousands milliseconds range. I have plenty screenshots as proof, the highest I have managed to captured shows 22719ms. It's just unplayable.

Blizzard technical support said it's Internet Service Provider (ISP) problem, trace route information seems to support that. However Blizzard technical support could have been a bit more helpful, they kept ignoring my second and third option: change my purchase to an Asia server (which I have verified has good latency), or failing that, refund.

It's until I re-opened the ticket for the third time and listed the options for the third time that Blizzard finally acknowledged it's unplayable and that I had informed them of my request for refund within a short time of purchase (the second day), that they refunded me.

Not the solution I was hoping for, was hoping if they couldn't do anything on their end on the latency, then they could at least transfer my purchase to the Asia server so that I still get to play, albeit is not on my usual Europe server with my existing characters.

But of course that involves more work, and given their repeated haste to close ticket instead of genuinely trying to help customer resolve issue, it's no surprise they went for the refund.

Don't get me wrong, I understand ISP plays a big part, it's not like I didn't engaged my ISP for support. I went through the ISP self check diagnostics tool, which informed me "Poor Network Quality" (well, duh!) and asked me to schedule technician home visit, which I did as well.

Well, the technicians came today, only their competency was questionable. They only know hardware stuff I supposed, as checking the hardware was all they did, which has no issue. I showed them the trace route in real time, they gave me a blank look. My goodness, ISP technicians who don't understand trace route. They ended up giving me the same support number on their website, so much for the home visit technical support.

So back to square one of technical support from ISP. I chatted with their live agent tonight, who knows what I was talking about, who provided me with the information about their seabed fibre cut issue that severed all their direct paths between Europe and Asia, and that currently all traffic destined to Europe is routed through US. Finally, someone knowledgeable and actually trying to help resolve the issue!

Well, the live agent did the necessary escalation, which I got a call back within one hour on confirmation that my poor network issue is indeed related to the seabed fibre cut. I was told their plan to work on the seabed fibre, the timeline, and that they will escalate my issue further so the relevant people can see if they can help optimise the route so I get better network to Europe for the time being. They will call me again tomorrow to update me on the route optimisation effort.

Now that is good customer service. Too bad the World of Warcraft refund has already happened, so maybe next time, Azeroth.

Other |runaway rants| category entries.

Azeroth beckons

I am weak. I gave in to temptation and bought the bundle on the very last day it's on offer.

Goodness knows I don't have the time to truly enjoy this, I just hope whatever available snippet of game time I can manage in the coming two months can amount to something worthwhile.

When I logged on earlier, the latency to the servers I have characters on were not good, so that's almost like an instant regret. Will see if it's any better later, as I have just rebooted the modem and router.

My last subscription ended in August of 2021, there was a three days then another seven days free game time since then till now, but those don't count, so it has been close to three years since I last properly played World of Warcraft.

Well, Azeroth beckons once again, I just hope the latency can at least be playable without too much frustration.

And that I can have enough play time to achieve something meaningful.

Other |geeky gaming| category entries.

Need a breather

Worked through two weekends, a half day leave, and a public holiday after receiving the present in order to put together the material for the full day meeting yesterday.

Still have many configurations that I want to model, for what I deemed a complete assessment that is worthy of my own standard, but that's definitely not possible within the given time.

And if I say so myself, I have far exceeded expectation in the number of assessments I managed to complete in the given (lack of) time. Something that I regret on hindsight, because now the program manager will set even more ridiculous time period.

Should have just failed to produce any results since I was given less than my stated required time for thermal simulation turnaround. But my darn responsibility and personality simply cannot accept failure, this kind of attitude is absolutely not conducive to my health!

I was suffering from stress-and-lack-of-rest-induced headache for many days among the two weeks continuous non-break working days. So ya, it's a fact that my work and my attitude towards work are costing me my health.

Anyway, I could really use a breather now that the important meeting is over.

But... Added task from the meeting yesterday means the two weeks of work all over again. Need to write up the quarterly report for performance review by end of this week. Need to work on the technical leader stuff that manager roped me into by early next week. Need to complete the task of another project I promised will do after the meeting yesterday, something I promised two weeks ago, something they will follow up next week.

So ya, fat chance of having that breather.

Other |wretched workaholic| category entries.

18 hours 31 minutes

That 13 hours and counting ended up as 18 hours and 31 minutes.

So no, I didn't get my half day off. In fact, by the time I ended work, it was already 10 minutes past midnight.

Granted, the overtime on the last day wasn't done in one long stretch, it was in five piecemeal periods. The longest of those was the last one, about 2.5 hours, and the longest stretch in between work periods was the lunch break, where I napped after lunch and managed about 4 hours non-work time.

Gotta celebrate these small wins, I suppose.

Since I still have to work overtime today after dinner, to get the presentation material ready, the continuous overtime streak is not over yet.

*Sigh...*

Other |wretched workaholic| category entries.

13 hours and counting

Public holiday on coming Monday, so I took half day leave on last Friday to make a 3.5 days long weekend.

It's now 2.5 days into the the long weekend, I managed a total of 0.5 days off work. That's the second half of last Friday, I have been working through Saturday and Sunday, today.

It's my habit to record stuff, my overtime is one of them. So far for this long weekend I have worked overtime slightly more than 13 hours. That's at the time of writing this entry, as I will resume later tonight to check on the simulation cases set to run.

And I am praying hard that they will converge because I am running out of time to have the results ready for the meeting in a few days.

And honestly I could use the day off, to actually rest and relax instead of work.

My sense of responsibility and the incompetence of program manager to understand thermal simulation needs time are not conducive to my health.

Oh well, one more day of this long weekend. With luck, I could have another 0.5 days off work.

*Fingers crossed *

Other |wretched workaholic| category entries.

World of Warcraft bundle

Another public service for my love of World of Warcraft.

World of Warcraft latest expansion: The War Within will launch on 26th of August 2024.

There is a Welcome to Azeroth 60 days game time + Dragonflight (current expansion) + level 60 character boost bundle available now until 23rd of June 2024.

Granted that usually when a new expansion launches, the old expansions become free to play as long as players have game time, so this bundle has most value for money for those who have not played World of Warcraft before.

Having said that, just getting it for the 60 days game time alone is already a good deal, as it's priced lower than the monthly subscription, so the level 60 character boost is a bonus, and the Dragonflight expansion is like a two months early access for those who don't have that expansion. Like me.

Tempting as it is for me, since I have bought all the expansions prior to Dragonflight, I simply cannot justify the purchase as I have no time to play. Well, no meaningful long stretch of time to play. And World of Warcraft requires a lot of time. That I know.

If the game time tracks actual playing time like what Blizzard is doing with the current Diablo Immortal Goblin's Plunder buff, I would buy the bundle without a second thought. Same with maintaining a subscription, if it counts actual game time. Oh well.

Other |geeky gaming| category entries.

Diablo IV first expansion

Diablo IV first expansion, Vessel of Hatred, will be here on 8th of October 2024.

It will continue the main storyline with new area: the jungle of Nahantu, as well as a new class: the Spiritborn.

Besides the new area and new class, players will be able to recruit Mercenaries to fight alongside with, and there will be new end game activity: multi-faceted dungeon that requires players to team up to take on the challenge.

Along with the announcement of the expansion, there is immediate change implemented to the base game in the form of Pets that will aid players in loot pickup. All players get a free pet dog, claimable through a simple quest in the first major town Kyovashad, it can then be equipped using the wardrobe.

Pre-purchase Vessel of Hatred now will let player use the additional pets, mount and cosmetic in the game immediately. Different game editions come with different stuff, the standard edition contains the expansion, a snow leopard pet, and a legendary gem for Diablo Immortal.

No, Blizzard does not pay me to advertise for them, this is just a public service for my love of the Diablo game.

Other |geeky gaming| category entries.

十八年

小天使，一转眼十八年
如果当年你没有离开我们
现在已是满十八岁的少年

究竟是少男还是少女呢？
那是爸爸一生的迷
原谅爸爸心里非常渴望你是女儿…

你和奶奶在天国好好的吧？
要照顾奶奶，带她到处游去玩哦
常常提醒奶奶爸爸是她第三的儿子…

你那令人操心的大弟弟，爸爸现在只希望他不会变成社会的累赘
你的小弟弟很好，不必父母操心
可以的话，请帮忙看护着你爷爷…

乖乖了，我的小天使
以后和你天国相聚

心语细述 |系列|

"Present"

As a 'welcome back' gift after my 3.5 days long weekend, the project manager dropped me a bomb.

I am to provide cooling solution proposals for two very different laptop configurations and component powers, with simulation results, in less than two weeks time.

I could barely get one configuration done in two weeks time when all went smoothly, with the powerful computing resources that I used to have access to, which let me run multiple large simulations concurrently.

Now I have two workstations that require a reboot after every simulation, and occasionally would just quit without warning half way working on the model, making me lose all the progress. Not to forget I can now only run model below a certain mesh size else the workstations would just die on me. Like, even kill the remote access function that kind of death, requiring me to go on site to reboot the workstation or trouble someone on site to do it.

Also, the required information to generate thermal model is not available, still lacking many crucial pieces. But I am given less than two weeks, because to the program manager, thermal simulation takes no time at all, and cooling solution always work on the first design, no optimisation and fine-tuning required.

What a blast huh? I am blown to pieces.

Other |runaway rants| category entries.