$tupid Pa55word$

Monday Morning Match is a simple post – maybe a quote, inspirational story or idea – intended to spark some motivation inside each of you so your week gets off to a fantastic start on Monday morning.

Please Enter Your Password

We all have them. We all have hundreds of them. We use them for everything from garage codes, debit card PINs, email authentications, and entry into private clubs. We use them to listen to our voice mails and connect to our social networks. Passwords are designed to create levels of security to protect private data and content and also give peace of mind that you are protected from the hackers and bad guys out there in cyberspace that are looking to steal your identity or private information.

We all understand why we have them but dang, if we don’t have too many of them.

One requires 8 digits while the next is 10 digits. Some are only letters while others require at least one CAPITAL letter, one lower case letter, one number, and one special character. H0Ly $h!t, that’s a lot of digits and dollar signs to remember, isn’t it? While many people use password managers to make them more secure and usually failsafe to never forget, it’s really hard to keep them all in your short term memory.

You’ve Been Locked Out

I recently had to change my iPhone password. I normally use Face ID on my Apple iPhone but occasionally it does require me to access the phone with a password. I’ve had the same password for more than 3 months but I recently was required to change it. Today when my phone timed out and Face ID didn’t work, I was asked to type in the new password. I unconsciously pounded out the password I have been using for the last few months and was notified that it was an “Incorrect Password” and asked to try again. Now my mind was being challenged so I tried what I thought would new the new password.

“Nope, try again!”

“How about this one,” I said to myself, as I started pounding the keyboard harder. No luck.

“Okay,” I thought. “It’s got to be this one then…” only to be declined again.

Having entered in several incorrect passwords, the phone told me I had to try again in 5 minutes. After another failed attempt, my lockout time was extended to 15 minutes. After getting locked down for 30 minutes I gave up and drove to the Apple Store some 20 minutes from my home.

I’ll make a long frustrating story short. Regis at the Apple Store couldn’t help me because when it came time for me to enter my Apple password (different from my phone password) I froze and couldn’t remember that. I had too many passwords running through my head. I was dumbfounded and couldn’t get it from my head to my fingers. I was that player on Wheel of Fortune that you laugh at when they cannot solve the puzzle that is 80% complete.

W__ __ T IS YOUR __ __ __ __WOR__?

“I’d like to solve the puzzle, Pat. WHAT IS YOUR HOMEWORK?”

You were so confident but when Pat Sajak looks at you and says “Sorry, that’s not it,” you hang your head in shame.

I’m still not sure why the people at the Apple Store can’t simply push a button and reset my password. After all, they know who I am (with photo ID) and they can see that I am the owner of the phone. Understand, I’m not blaming anyone at Apple for my failure to remember my password, I just wish it were easier.

Keep It Simple – Like Password123

It’s important to be aware of all the tech tools you can access to help you deliver your services. Don’t take them for granted and even though it might be a pain to remember all the passwords and procedures, I think we can all agree that they are there for a reason. Just think wisely when creating your passwords to access the systems you need to help get closer to the closing table.

So while you’re getting off to a great start this week with customers and clients, I’ll be over here waiting for my iPhone purgatory to be lifted and hopefully reunite with my old friend before dinner so I can get back to typing, texting, tweeting and more with anyone and everyone.

Now…to come up with an easy to remember password?

I wonder if I could ever forget Bu1lDR3L4tiOn$hipsS0lV3Pro8l3m5H4V3FuN “?

Photo courtesy of Markus Spiske

Photo courtesy of Jose Fontano