Friday, February 13, 2009

A Plethora of Passwords...

...and usernames. Although I'm usually quite organized about how I file and store secure passwords and usernames, occasionally I get caught out. Today it was a work-related site to which I knew the password, but I had been given an exotic username that had somehow gotten away from me. The username was something like "Graceful Dolphin Interspersed with Chanel No. 5 Perfume" that I had forgotten how to recite. So I got this email telling me that I had important new health information on the company website and would need to log in. Furthermore, failure to login with correct username and password and view this new knowledge would adversely impact my life in countless ways. The natural next step in this sequence was three messages saying "LOGIN FAILED." I did the email password request thing and was told that a password reminder had been sent to me. Twice. It never came. It is probably out there orbiting the moon.

The next thing that usually happens is that I get locked out of the site. I have to contact the Grand Plan Administrator who is astounded that I would forget my "Graceful Dolphin" username or whatever the heck it is.

Needless to say, the more important the message, the less likely it seems that I am able to view it. When I get requests to participate in those department store customer satisfaction surveys, the login information works beautifully every time. Murphy's Law, anyone?

1 comment:

Rick OzTown said...

I use "Passwords Plus" software that syncs all my passwords and other secret info back and forth betwixt and between my Palm and my desktop computers. Worth a view, IMHO.