Almost every time I buy something online, or subscribe to a service, or reveal that I am an alive person, I am encouraged to create an online account. I have accounts for my email and virus protection, utility companies and local library, credit cards, banks, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Norton, Kindle, Amazon, Office Depot and a whole bunch more.
This phenomenon is becoming unavoidable. When I tried to help Mom change her address with the DMV online, we had to create an account. Or when she tried to cancel the call waiting feature she didn’t ask for/doesn’t want? She had to create an account on TimeWarner.com. Either that or continue to jabber with ineffectual magpies at their 800 number, or go down to the local office and wait in line for forty-five minutes. Neither of which work. So you go online and create an account with a new username and password.
I have more than seventy user name/password combos.
I do not want any more.
Perhaps sensing you’re falling out of love with this process, some companies try to lure you back by letting you personalize a little sliver of their corporate website. They do this by tacking on the cutesy “my” to their web address (e.g. “myverizon” or “mytoyota” or “myfibroids.com.”) (Okay, I made that one up.) Some of them, like my local newspaper, even want you to create personal profiles. Pretty soon you won’t need Facebook. You’ll have “mypressenterprise.com/me”. Go ahead. Put that on your business card instead of a personal website. Wait, I think I’ll delete this blog. You can just go to my page at Frigidaire.
Many of them would like to make it even easier for you to log in by using your Facebook or Google UN/PW. Isn’t that nice of them? I’m sure it’s all on the up-and-up. Very secure.
I’m not a Luddite. I love new technology, but we might have achieved critical mass of ridiculousness, and now it’s time to stop and reassess. Does it make sense that corporations are firing all their humans and then programming software to act like employees? Who needs a bricks-and-mortar bank, store or library? You just go on the Internet and, with the help of a smug little voicebot, do it all yourself. Pretty soon we’ll be performing surgery on our own bodies. The only thing we’ll need is the proper user name and password.
Kindle readers can contact me at Lmspreen@gmail.com.
I cheat on the passwords by only using a limited number. My older sister, who has a notoriously bad memory, uses a different password for each account and then writes it down. The problem is, she can’t remember where she wrote them. This gives us a good laugh.
Laura
Laura, you hit two nails with one hammer. You either reuse passwords, which is a risk, or dream up really good ones, but then you can’t remember them without a list, and where do you keep the list? If a thief found it, it’d be the treasure map to our lives! Thanks for stopping by.
Here I am on your blog! And I see Debbie, another blogger who I follow. I can’t get started thinking about the nightmare of endless passwords and security codes because I will go into a complete emotional spiral. And then I won’t have the necessary password to get out of it.
Hey, Renee, you said you follow Debbie. Isn’t it cool to run into people who you’ve interacted with elsewhere on that big, oversized, uncontrollable World Wide Web? I mean, in some ways, it’s a small world online, too. Glad to see you here.
Thanks, Lynne. I can rather relate to some of your experience as well. My family was actually working-class but I was fortunate to meet someone after my first marriage ended who had a different focus. Although we never had a lot of money, our life was comfortable, and we were able to travel much more than most people ever get to do. But it was not a time of savings, so when I went back to work I began to save as much as I could through work, and have managed so that as long as we don’t see anything like 1929 again, I will be ok till I am 90. Not wealthy, but I will be okay. I won’t be taking lots of trips, but I can perhaps manage every couple of years to take a modest one. Health issues over the last couple of years mean that I am a bit leery of travelling too far from home anyway, so I am glad I had all those opportunities when my husband was alive. My brother and I are going to see about sharing a place and expenses, which will make things easier for both of us, and we will plan to simplify. I start to find that it does not make sense to have so many “things”. Now if I could just stop acquiring books…Carol
I have a notebook too. I also keep a folder in my email (yeah, stupid idea) where I store all those confirmations they send back. The biggest problem I encountered was when my email was hacked. I had so many places and so many passwords to change, I couldn’t remember which were which. So I too am using fewer variations.
re the offshore jobs coming back: glad to hear they are beginning to reverse gears on that one. Too late for me though. I was “restructured” out at the age of 64, back in June. I am in Canada, which tends to follow US trends, but not right away. While I would like the income, I don’t miss the stress of working, so not too likely I will go looking for work at this age. If I do, it will be something less stress-oriented. I’m a full-time poet now. Not too likely that will be a paying job, for sure! lol
Quillfyre aka Carol
Hi Carol, I’m from a barely-middle-class background. All my life I supported deadbeats. In my forties, I married a sweet guy from a privileged background. When things went to s*&# with his family biz and our finances took a dive, I was able to show him the beauty of living simply, since before I met him, I had done nothing but.
We have never been happier. And he married the right girl, huh?
My dad always said, if the country falls apart, you can all come live in my backyard. We were always prepared for disaster. I might not be able to grown my own food on the patio, but in all other ways, I can be happy with way less. There’s strength in self-reliance, and you now have the time to indulge your art. I wish you the very best.
Lynne, I’ve had to keep a notebook of all the passwords and accounts I am now the proud owner of. I’ll be dead in the water if I misplace that notebook.It is beyond annoying. it appears that human touch is being lost. I mean, when was the last time you made a phone call (if you could even get the #) to a business or service and talked to a live human being?? You have touched upon a very timely issue,my friend!
Oh, Lynne, you’ve presented some valid arguments here! I think we all are getting pretty tired of creating strong usernames and passwords for every single thing. It was fun for a while, but now we’ve got so many of the darn things we can’t begin to keep up (and we’re not even old!) I don’t know what the answer is, but I hope somebody can figure out one — maybe they’ll simply have a place where we can touch our thumbprint to the monitor and then we’re good to go — scary stuff!!
I tried to click on the LIKE tab, Lynne, but it asked for my username and password, which I forgot! [[[sigh]]] I know I wrote it down on some scrap of paper, but I don’t remember where I put it, because it’s in a secure spot.[[[grrrrr!]]] Anyway, I like what you and everyone has to say…But, in this day and age, of everyone knowing everything about everybody… just Google your name…nothing is really secure. Hey!! Maybe I can ask Google where that scrap of paper is!
Pat and QF, thanks for your comments. Two positive developments of late: the viewership of the three network evening news programs (Sawyer, Williams and ?) is growing. Apparently 24/7 cable blather is losing its appeal.
Secondly, companies are beginning to “onshore” jobs back into the US. According to the report, and in accordance with Tom Friedman’s predictions in his book The World is Flat, it’s only a matter of time until the wages of workers in other countries rise, diminishing the value of offshoring. Because part of the cost of offshoring is problems based in cultural differences, lack of trademark security, and cost of shipping. If American workers aren’t that much more expensive, those other intangible factors can even out the difference, and the work can come back. So there are two minor silver linings for you.
I hear you re all the passwords. I must admit I cheat — even though “they” strongly recommend against this. I use the same password in a lot of place.
Subject aside, I love your humor, Lynne. Keep these posts coming!
Thanks, Bonnie! Good to hear from you.
This is a great thought provoking post. As someone who is lost in the maze of Internet and social media, I, too, wonder where all this is going, especially in our schools. Teachers today spend as much time answering emails and creating moodle and other on line curriculum sites, as they do interacting with students. What will be the cost to society, if we lose the human touch in education?
And when everything is internet-based, all employees fired, who will pay for any of the products and services these companies are selling?
If they aren’t automating something, then they’re moving the jobs offshore to places where people aren’t paid enough to afford those products and services either.
Then again, if we make the companies and employees in those countries strong enough through the money sent offshore and through the training and education provided, they might just end up taking over the whole of North American business.
This might be a little bit of sour grapes on my part, having been given early retirement when most of my tasks were sent offshore. And I am not against helping out those who are working to become better, but should it be at the cost of our own citizens? I think perhaps what works in the short term will fail in the long. I marvel at the short-sightedness of management these days.
Perhaps just one more way that the rich get richer and the poor stage protests on Wall Street… Carol