Monday, July 28, 2008

Oh it's on

This database system we have here at work requires that I reset my password every 30 days. It starts asking me after 15 days if I want to reset it, and I have, in the past, reset it earlier than the 30 days.

Never again.

And this is why:

I used the same password every time, it was a word with a number at the end. I'd just change the number each time I needed to change the password. It worked out really well and I thought I had an unlimited supply of fresh passwords here. After all, there's an unlimited amount of numbers out there, right?

So today I needed to reset the password. I was on the number 10, so I put in the word then the number 10 and got this response:

Password contains too many characters

Huh? Who's ever heard of a password that is too long? Let's see, this has nine characters, so I've got to go less than nine. Ah! I'll just start over with the same password at 1 and cycle through them again...

Password is identical to one already used

All right, fair enough. It was worth a try, anyway. Let's see, what other word could I use? Ah yes! Let's try it.

Password contains too few characters

Dang! this has six characters, so what if I try this word and number... seven characters should be OK, right?

Password contains too few characters

What? You've got to be kidding me! The only allowable amount of characters is eight? What's so special about eight? Grrr! OK, here's an eight character password.

Password contains the same letter consecutively

This stinks. All right, here's a word with no similar letters or numbers next to each other.

Password contains two numbers consecutively

Consecutive numbers? Why on earth can't I used consecutive numbers? This program wants me to change my password every 30 days, no wait, every 15 days, but has this many restrictions on what the password can be?

Whoever wrote that software should ... no. No. I'm not mad.

Grrrrr!

7 comments:

TJ said...

Oh, don't even get me started...
The longer you've been here, the worse it gets.

Sarah said...

What I usually do is use Saturn1 and then a letter from the alphabet and it usually lasts me the whole year. Good luck!

Holdinator said...

Thanks for the empathy TJ.

Great idea. Thanks Sarah.

Marie said...

try the old password, that you were putting the numbers at the end of, and put the numbers at the front of it, so instead of password1 it would be 1 password, that can get you through another 9 months or so :) Yes, I agree stinky!

Laurie said...

hmmm...i'm always changing passwords for work also. but they're not limited to 8 characters only. what a pain.

Holdinator said...

Brilliant Marie! Holy cow, what a great idea... why didn't I think of that?

Oh, nice to meet you by the way.

Matsby said...

Oh man, I know your pain. Right now I have 4 post-it notes at my desk with all if my stupid passwords.

Which really defeats the purpose, but come on...