Thursday, July 19, 2007

Dis Organization Part II

Another area where it can become frustrating trying to fit the "yes I am a together and organized person" profile is navigating the password Yellow Brick Road to gain entrance to the paperless Emerald City that awaits us online.

I only have about ten such for different applications at work. I've tried to start keeping everything the same, but it doesn't always work out that way as there are also different log-in names. For instance, first initial/last name; last name/first initial; caps/no caps; space/nospace; must have 2 numbers, 1 character and one animal reference. That's not including personal life passwords for various bill paying, blogging, flickr, etc.

Today I attempted to log in to one such place. Sorry, this does not match. Okay try another combo - nope. Shall we ask your secret question? Sure.

Place where you met your husband? Simple - NY Rangers hockey game. Wrong.

Okay, more general - NYC. Nope.

Madison Square Garden! Nope.

The backseat of a car? Hah, just kidding.

I am sorry to report that as a result of this run-in, I now have no idea where I met my husband, although he seems convinced of the above so now I'm not sure if he is, in fact, my husband.

Then to add insult to injury, when they finally degrade you enough by the smarmy "Forgot your password? Just enter your email" No record. I just know there is a tech person sitting back popping nachos into his mouth saying "What's up, you again? Write it down, biatch!" The truth is that I truly have a great memory, but it seems to fail me with so many options out there. I mean if I only log in sporadically, the chances of log-in success dwindle accordingly.

Once you try to gain the next rung of the recoup the password ladder, the inevitable, "Enter code letters as they appear below" subdues you into thinking your sign-on is imminent. Imminent if you had dropped acid and are looking through a funhouse mirror as that is the mental state you'd need to be in to decipher the code. The DaVinci Code may have been easier to solve (actually that whole book was one predictable pile of..., but I digress). The caps are actually small, the small are numbers and the numbers are that reference to an animal that I mentioned earlier.

I know we are supposed to be moving towards a paperless society but until such time that we just place our eye up to the screen and gain access, I will be a slave to the password scrawled on paper somewhere. And it will get changed and it won't be written down...you follow.

Now can somebody please tell me where I met my husband?

18 comments:

Hobbes said...

I have few accounts and intend to keep it that way. But what's with Blogger, which keeps telling me I can log in with my Blogger account, but then insists on my Google one, which I don't really want and therefore refuse to verify?
We keep going around in circles on that one.

~Mo'a~ said...

I have four e-mail accounts, two blogs a web site. I must have a least 20 cards from various grocery stores, card stores and drug stores.....just so they can keep tab on what I buy.
The point to all this is that I sometimes not only forget passwords but I also have to ask the check out person at the register to tell me the name of the store I am in, as I shuffle cards and check my key chain and try to answer my cell phone and be polite at the same time.
I am nostalgic for the simpler time of ten years ago.

Nessa said...

I'm voting for the backseat; D

I love being able to do things on line but you are right, those login/password problems are degrading.

Claire said...

G, you are so funny! This post is so true. I keep thinking I ought write down all my sign-ins and passwords for everything on one piece of paper that I'll keep in a secret location. Somehow I never get around to it... or maybe I did do it but forgot where I put it!

Doug The Una said...

I wonder how many divorces start this way. I believe you met him at Tali's violin recital.

Anonymous said...

you're married?

Anonymous said...

HAHAHAHAHA to the above (but, you knew that.)

and how i lovelovelove this post! i'm tellin' you, i have 3 (maybe 4) passwords i rotate, depending on the "type" of account i'm using.

the other day i tried to use one, then the next then the 3rd, then 4th... with NO success. round and round (like Weirsdo) i went.

finally it occurred to me to try one of my OLD 4 passwords (from a few years ago)... and voila! of course, by the time i got "in" i forgot what it was i wanted.

i hate that. ; ) xox

Sweet and Salty said...

Great Post, G! I laughed all the way through. Funny enough, I AM the computer guy who gets the phone calls about not being able to log in. My reaction varies depending on how busy I am when I'm called. (smile)

"No problem. I'll reset it to 1234, then you'll have to pick a new password."

or

"Again? Didn't we do this yesterday?"

Shari said...

Welcome to the Twilight Zone!! Am I here or am I? Is he or is he? We are on the neverending road of the Internet Superhighway.

I typed a Word document of all my user IDs and passwords of all the accts I have at each shopping site (Amazon, JCPenney's, to name a couple), credit card accts, banking accts, online class password (I have taken online classes), Bloggeer acct, Emails, etc., etc., etc. It is buried in a list of other saved Word documents so I have no worries of anyone looking it up. I know where it is and I don't have to worry about losing a hard copy of the list of accts and passwords.

BTW, I just tagged you. I invite you to look at the meme at my site and see the rules. You don't have to do this if you don't want to, though. :)

Rusty Nails said...

First time visitin' and I love the wittiness of your post...and oh the truth contained therein!

What's up with all the symbol, number, capital combo stuff. I believe in security and all that but sheesh, how can anybody remember all that?!

Uh, my guess is you met your husband at a photo shoot for one of those photos with hundreds of naked people posing in some public place?

Gale said...

you met your husband in the library with colonel mustard with a rope.

Dan said...

You didn't meet your husband because you're not married! Jeez. How many times do I have to tell you.

By the way, you're Cancer? When is/was your birthday?

G said...

Hobbes, you are better off. Sometimes Blogger would do that to me but I would insist on going back to the original sign-in - and I was able to do so. Good luck.

mo'a~ haha, yes indeed - where am I? Yes the halcyon days of 1997.

Goldennib ~ one vote for the backseat ;)

Claire, that's the thing - where is that secret location?! Damn!

Doug, well a divorce has got to start somewhere after all. I'm kidding.

Yes, tali does not believe we ever were without her. Maybe she's right.

Neva, hahaha, presently - yes. Oh I'm feeling like Henny Youngman.

It's enough to make a grown woman cry.

Pavel, don't think I didn't think of you as I wrote this post. Really, I'm not one of those Help Desk stalkers - I swear! Now the stories I could tell you about "Narnia" in my office. You may recall her as the woman who thought a man just decided to take a nap in the fast lane.

Shari, it is indeed a TwilightZone episode. I've thought of doing that (creating a document) then I'm afraid of hackers who probably don't play around with minor players such as myself.

Well, I have another meme to catch up on so maybe I'll combine the two. I'll let you know when I do it.

RustyNails, it's all coming back to me now! Thanks - for the reminder and the visit.

Gale, yes that's right! We had just passed Mrs Peacock with the Croquet Mallet in the Study!

Dan, no wonder this guy frowns when I try to share the bathroom to brush my teeth.

Yes I am and I must have missed yours as you are also. Mine was July 8th. Happy Birthday to us!

FirstNations said...

I have a 'poem' that I've memorized. i use a word or phrase from that poem with a number and i'm golden. helps that the 'poem' is nothing but a bunch of made-up words strung together, so it's easy to remember and relates to nothing BUT my sign-ins!

the only bad thing about this system is that each time i enter another account i conjure up Nyarlathotep.

Anonymous said...

So you met Scissors at a Dodgers game in the new Yankee Stadium?

G said...

fn, see - I'm already lost. My sign-ins are quite simple and involve the names of two people I shall never forget - my kids! But that was the failsafe method I came up with in recent times.

Now back to your poem...

Pia, HAHAHAHA - that is a good one. We're Mets fans!

Actonbell, now I don't feel quite so bad!

I do have a tattered rolodex card that houses my passwords of late with scratch outs and boldly written new passwords. A new system needs to be considered - a mini binder you say...hmmm.

Maybe this is all an illusion.

Ariel the Thief said...

oh dear, what a way to learn that your husband is not your husband! did you try to ask him about his wife??

G said...

Ariel, good idea! I wonder if she was at the hockey game too?