Author: wwducat

So secure that even I (the intended recipient can’t get it….

My insurance company sent me a message saying that there were messages waiting on their site.

There’s a link. It’s valid, and does in fact link to their web site.

I click on the link, and it takes me to a page that asks me to create a password to view my messages. I create a password. Then I get five emails in my normal email, each of them contains a PDF that is encrypted. I figure out that the password I just created in fact will open these PDFS. 

I enter the password and find that each of the PDFs says the same thing. NOTHING.

In the mean time, the password has reset ALL my passwords on for the insurance company and since I had their application running on my phone when the password reset happened. That counted as an invalid attempt to access the account. Then I try to acces the account from their web site to see if I can read the messages they wanted me to read…  BOOM, now I’m locked out. 

I tried to reset my password again… NOPE! Too many accesses within too short a time…

I still don’t have the messages that they wanted to send me.

I call my agent. They don’t have any idea what the company is trying to reach me about. I ask my agent to tell the company I’m not going to use their web site anymore. I want every communication on paper, mailed to me with a stamp. 

I’ve spent over an hour trying to get this all so important message from the company and honestly… I’ve lost my desire to worry about it. They can wait for me to get the information on paper via USPS. 

Technology is supposed to make this kind of thing easier, not harder.

The really annoying thing is that I have several encryption keys. The insurance company could have simply accessed one of the public keys, encrypted the message and sent it securely to my email where I could have conveniently read my message. 

All of this pissing around with their kludge “security” has done nothing but annoy the hell out of me. It’s screwed up the account for me and my other half and now I’ll have to spend yet more time (probably hours) unfucking this fuckup.

Grrrrr!

At the end of last year, the company moved our department into a building that was still under construction. Throughout the winter months my department was like a set of “The Walking Dead“. We had people blowing through their sick time like it was candy. (Myself included.) Around the beginning of the year we had people coming in with various flus, walking pneumonia, colds, and sinus infections. Which they passed around freely. So most of us have little to no sick time left.  (Myself included)

So a month ago I had and accident.  Annoying, totaled my car, and required me to take a day off with more time off to lick my wounds, and get myself right again.

If I worked for a “normal” company, since I have plenty of vacation time on the books, I’d be able to simply use vacation time on request to take care of medical issues and any therapy I needed. I’d go to work and do my best to schedule time so as not to disrupt the business and there’d be nothing said about it.

However, I don’t work for a “normal” company. I work for a company that has instituted this crazy system of penalizing you if you take a day off without prior management approval. Even with this system in place there is a loophole that will allow you to deal with emergencies, (Or car accidents) without penalty. The problem is, that your manager has it at their discretion to enforce the penalties, OR NOT. 

I happen to work for one of the ones that refuses to exercise that discretion. My manager is one of the rule bound ones.

Which leads me to the situation I’m in now.

In order to be able to make appointments, and not be penalized for doing it. The company makes you go to a government agency.  That Agency contacts your Dr., your Dr. fills out a bunch of forms, which he / or she sends back to the government agency, then they determine if you’re worthy.

After their determination they send the forms back to the company. And all the penalties magically disappear and you then have permission to miss work to go take care of your health.

In other words it’s an overly complex mess that should be handled between the employer and employee. Then again… you have to keep bureaucrats busy don’t you?

Well in my case, the Dr circled the wrong box on one page, and this morning, I got a call from HR telling me that I shouldn’t be at work because I was on continuous leave.

This is what happens when you abdicate responsibility.

Not that I’m complaining, I need some down time. Even a day or two will be more than fine. Just so long as I don’t feel like I’m running to beat the clock, punch the clock, be on schedule, or dance to someone else’s tune.

In other words, I’m going to have a drink, go to bed, and have nothing planned for tomorrow. That will be a nice change after weeks of running to the NEXT thing.  Hell, I may even turn the phone off.

I’ve been intermittently checking out what at first looked like a great little Blogging program.

Problem is, they’ve been adding features but not actually fixing the issues that were broken.

I’d stopped using the program because the issues were so bad. Really? You aren’t allowing iPad’s spell check to operate?

I just checked it again today. It’s even worse.

SO I’m thinking it’s time to flush the program from all my devices. I’ve been patient for over a year, and still many of the basics aren’t being supported.

It’s a pity, the application originally had a lot of potential and was very clean and elegant.

But the harsh reality is this, if I’m not using something I shouldn’t hang onto it out of sentimentality or guilt.

Time to free up the space and maybe the application developer will wise up a start paying attention to basics!

I’m probably pissing into the wind here. But I can always use more space on my devices…

It’s been weeks since I paid any attention to the news. I think I’m better off.

I’m completely disconnected from the annoyances, and irritations that flood into our homes via the media. I haven’t even read a newspaper online.

I have been dealing with my own drama, and I suppose that’s the good news and bad news.  If I’d been paying attention to the antics of the politicians, I’d have been really, really, cross. As it was, the stresses of my life were more than sufficient to keep me occupied.

So now I find myself wondering what’s been going on, and simultaneously I’m afraid to look.

There’s a strange comfort knowing that if the end is going to happen, it will be a complete surprise to me!

Perhaps, this simply proves that old adage…

Ignorance is Bliss

The question now for me is, do I choose to remain in Bliss?