The company decided to get started with an onsite project on Tuesday. It would have been fine, more or less, except the client is on a 10PM to 7AM work schedule. So we were in normal hour Monday and the next day it was suddenly the graveyard shift. Not benefit of even one weekend to adjust. It was extreme grogginess at around 3AM. And the tonight I had so bad a headache I had to skip work. They could have planned the project start better. This absolutely sucks.
I’ve implemented web access policies as well as been subject to them. But I have never encountered something as stupid as the web access policy enforcement at my current workplace. They’re using a commercial package called Websense. But it’s nonsense if you ask me. It is expensive and, to put it plainly, it sucks. It seems they’re using a vendor-managed blacklist so it blocks a whole bunch websites regardless of actual content, a lot of which are actually useful for work. And allows some websites that should have been blocked. So it doesn’t really do what it’s supposed to do. Instead it just irritates and even infuriates users. If it were up to me, I would have been a well-defined blacklist of really undesirable websites and content. Or, if no research work is involved, using a whitelist of allowed websites. But, unfortunately, it’s not so I’ll just rant about it.
I arrived at work after the long weekend to find new seatmates. I SMSed Mark, who’s supposed to by my neighbor to the right to ask if he has been informed of a new desk assignment. He wasn’t and it was only when he arrived that we found out that a team from another room has been relocated to our area and he has been moved to my left. Something like that has happened to me, too. I arrived one day after being on leave to find someone else sitting on my desk. And not even an email as to what happened. I ended up waiting at the reception for someone who knows where I was supposed to sit. How’s that for uncoordinated?
For the first time in months, I topped up with Shell V-Power. I just couldn’t help but indulge on their top-of-the-line fuel. At P37 or so per liter, it was way cheaper than the price till a few weeks ago of their least-expensive fuel: the alcohol-laced E10. Gas prices have been going down which is definitely good. But the downside is that there’s a pronounced increase in the number of cars on the road along with the consequent traffic jams. Pretty fast response to price changes. Demand for fuel is supposedly inelastic in general. Probably a change in elasticity at certain price breakpoint? Either that or it’s just my imagination :P
I have belatedly discovered Defender of the Ancients or, as it is more commonly called, DOTA. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you would know that it is a scenario map of Warcraft III. In the scenario map, you and the other players play heroes against each other. To aid in this pursuit, you have available weapons, armor, potions, and other items that enhance you abilities. Sort of like a It’s like a role-playing game in a nutshell.
Previously, I’ve only been playing Starcraft as that’s about the only good game I can play on my old IBM Thinkpad X22. However, when I got my Asus EEE PC, I found out I can actually play Warcraft III, and consequently DOTA, reasonably well. So now, after almost 5 years I’m finally playing it.
Better late than never.