Monday, November 24, 2008

Whats your pASSword?

Posted by Lemon


I work in at a fairly large local medical business doing IT support. I do end user support as well as network, and roll out support. My job pays ok money, and for the most part I enjoy it. I like working with (most) people. That being said:

A couple of days ago, I arrive at work and have a message on my phone saying that a user can not log on to one of the medical applications. I call them and tell them I'll be right up. (Up because I guess IT people never need to see the sun, and we like cold, windowless, basements with all the other unimportant folks)

When I arrive the user has the PC at the login screen for Windows. I ask her to get to the program that she is having problems with. She logs on the the PC and opens the application. She tries her username and password, and it fails. At this point I log into the application and have her create a new password. I log off the PC and tell her to log back in. At the Windows login screen she puts in her username and password and logs in, fires up the application, and gets a username/password error. She tries it 2 more times and gets locked out. I think to myself, Really? She JUST made the new password and had to type it twice to verify it. So I log her out of the PC and I log back in to reset her password, again. This time I have her tell me the password so I can enter it. That being done I log out of the PC and ask her to log in. She puts her username in, but puts no password in and hits enter. She gets an error. I ask her to put her username AND password in. She says "the one I just made (for the other program)?"
I say "No, the one for Windows."
"But I don't have one for Windows, just my username"
"Um, yes, you have a password for Windows" (I just saw her put it in two times before)
"No, I just put my username in and hit enter"
(trying to stay calm....)"I just saw you enter the password two times before"
"No, I don't have a password"
(finding my Zen place)"put in the password that you use everyday to log into the PC. The very first password you use"
"You mean the one I just made?"

At this point I was without words. This person was going crazy! This person is allowed to work with patients, but has forgotten the password she used 2 minutes ago? Clearly she was a patient that had escaped from the mental health floor and is impersonating a medical staff member. At this point I think my frustration and lack of patients had shown through. There were a couple of people who stepped in to try to knock some common fricken knowledge into this lady. I stepped back to watch what I thought would be a three ring circus act. The lady that had stepped in asked the crazy one for a list of her passwords and what applications they were for. (secure, I know. Why not just email everyone in the department you family tree, SSN, birthdate, and telephone number, and offer them your house, car, and the ogre of a man that decided it would be a great to hit you over the head with a club and drag you back to his cave by your hair so he can marry you, husband?) She gave them up freely, hell, if she would have been any louder, you would have needed ear plugs. Of course she gave every password except the one we needed. Finally, some one else asked her if what her main password was.
"Oh, that one! I didn't know you wanted the computer password"

I just turned and walked away.
I never found out if she was an escapee from the mental ward but if she's every my medical personal, I'll do the procedure myself!

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