Passwords
Added: October 24th, 2006 (tagged with: random, work)
I hate passwords. I get to work, log into my computer, check my email, and load my favorites online... and I'm already 8 passwords down. If I do some online banking... 9. Buy a concert ticket... 10. Pay my Cingular bill... 11. Visit Amazon or Barnes and Noble... 12, 13. Then, I get to work. I work online on multiple sites a day each with it's own separate username and password. In an average day, I probably use 20-odd different usernames and passwords and enter them 50 or 60 times. This doesn't take into account the sites I visit infrequently such as my Nintendo account or IIT account or any of the other random online shopping places I have ordered something through. When I worked at SPSS we had to change passwords every 90-days or so... I worked there for 2.5 years... that comes out to about 10 different passwords, all 8+ characters in length utilizing lower/upper case, special characters, and numbers. That is a lot to remember.
The reason I am writing this post it that since I left SPSS, I need to cash-out my 401k (since it is less than $5000 and my new 401k doesn't start until next year). The Fidelity web site asks for your Customer ID and PIN... um, let's see... I set that account up about the first of this year... that would be about 7-8 passwords into my SPSS career, so it was... I don't have a f***ing clue!. Oh, look. I can "Change [my] PIN" great. Customer ID, Date of Birth, Zip Code (well, which? my current, the one I used to open the account, the one the city changed to during my tenure?), and the "Model of my first car" (well, I've only owned ONE car, that shouldn't be difficult). Invalid Information. After a few other tries (was it the zip code? is the model of the car case-sensitive?), LOCKED OUT. I need to call them now to unlock my account - just so I can see what I have in my 401k so I know what I have some knowledge of what I need to ask for when I call them to write me a check which is going to have the sh*t taxed out of it for early withdraw because I don't have my new 401k account to transfer it into yet.
I hate passwords.
