Passwords!
Let me preface this with I understand wholeheartedly the need for passwords. Having just had my phone stolen I do see why having them is necessary but......
Seriously how many passwords can one person need in a day?!
Let me start at the beginning of today, as with every day I need a passcode to get into my office so before my brain is fully engaged I have to enter a four digit number! Challenge!! Password 1!
Then there's the password to get into my computer - here's where I became UNRAVELED this morning! I changed my password last Friday and noted it down, nice and simple 'Holiday2012' or so I thought. As I sat down I entered it and got the 'wrong password', I tried again and again and again and once more, then again oh and again and then I defeated the computer by turning it off! Not that it solved the password problem, it just postponed it. I got a cup of tea and started again, I tried every password I had used in memory and NOTHING! I raised a helpdesk request and then after my 100th attempt I added an 's'. I made my password 'Holidays2012' and it worked!! Seriously 'Holidays' - who uses the 's'!!!!
So lets say that was EVENTUALLY password #2!
Then I have to enter password #3 to get into my emails - that one thankfully hasn't changed in 18 months! Then password #4 gets me on to our sales system!! By this time it's only just 10am!
When it comes to my phone thankfully I am always signed in - although that could have been bad if Mr Phone thief (I say Mr as there was only men around) wanted to cause chaos on our twitter account :) But can you imagine if I had to sign into:
Blogger
Tumblr
Hotmail
Gmail
So phone sign in can go down as 1 more password!
If I get cash out then there's the ATM password, I have one, the joint card has a different one, the credit card has one and I have a TERRIBLE memory, so I could be there some time making sure I am 100% sure of the pin!
And laptops they require a password! Seriously see passwords- they are stressful! The nemesis for me though is accounts that have required me to put 'numbers' in my username or password!! I mean that's it, I request a new password as often as I use the account.
The funny thing is Laura and I actually did a focus group with paypal about how to make life easier. The suggestions ranged from face recognition to speech analysis, eye recognition to finger print signing - I mean they were trying BUT who knows how long that would take and would that be better?
Who knows?
Right rant over, I feel somewhat better after getting that out there.
I hope I am alone in struggling with password overload, I sense I won't be, but as they say better safe than sorry even if I lost nearly an hour of my life to frustration and memory lapse! Holidays2012! Seriously!!! Next time it's back to the good olde ILoveLaura4eva!
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| My day may have been a bit better had I stayed in bed :) |
I can sympathize with you Sarah - I have similar issues - though I am 17 years older than you! ;D
ReplyDeleteYes! At work we have to enter a code to get through the door into the office, and although we all know which buttons to press and in which order, none of the staff could tell you what the numbers in the code actually are, or even how many digits it has! Quite embarrassing when someone from our head office visits, and asks to be let through the door, and we have to say "we can't tell you what the code is as we don't know, but we can press the buttons for you"!
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One of my old creative writing professors just wrote a blog post about this! Here: http://www.heathersellers.com/blog/2008/01/16/good-reads/
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