SETTING: My "liberry" as a female patron approaches the circ desk.
PATRON— Can you help me? I just did an email on one of your computers, but when I tried to go to it I can't.
(I pause to try and interpret what she has said, but find my inner-Patronese translator doesn't seem to be functioning.)
ME— Um. What was that again?
PATRON— I just did an email on your computer, and I need to see if they got it, but it won't let me.
(Pause.)
(Nope still no translation. The closest I get is that this is yet another patron who has activated our non-functioning MS Outlook and has sent a non-email into the ether.)
ME— I'm sorry. I think you need to show me what you're talking about, because what you're saying doesn't match up with what I know about email.
(Goes to computer where patron brings up the login screen of Yahoo Mail and points to the login username and password blanks.)
PATRON— I just set up this email and it won't let me look.
ME— Ohhhh. You set up an email account.
PATRON— Yeah.
ME— I see. Okay. Well, do you have your username and password?
PATRON— Uh huh. But when I type it in, it takes me to this page...
(Points to screen again which I now notice is Yahoo's "This ID is not taken yet" page, indicating a misspelled or otherwise incorrect username has been tried.)
PATRON— I typed in Hamdinger_Heaven291@yahoo.com (not her real address) but it won't take it.
ME— Just try Hamdinger_Heaven291 by itself. That's your username. You don't need the rest. Then do your password below that and it should work.
PATRON— Ohhhhhh. Okay. (Starts a typin'.)
ME— Um, be sure to do the underscore.
PATRON— The what? Oh... Oh, yeah.
(I leave. Minutes later, she's back.)
PATRON— This thing is still not letting me do this!
(I return to her machine.)
PATRON— It's saying there's no Hamdinger_Heaven291@yahoo.con. It's saying .con, not .com, but I typed .com!
ME— Looks like a typo.
PATRON— Yeah, it did to me too, but I typed .com!
(I started to return to my earlier theme of how she needed to type neither Yahoo.com nor .con in order to access her email account when I happened to notice that the address that was actually written on her piece of paper was Hamdinger_Heaven291@hotmail.com.)
ME— Wait. Do you have a Yahoo email account or a Hotmail account?
PATRON— Well, I was trying to get into Yahoo.com but it won't...
ME— (Holds up hand, then starts to pull out own hair with it. Voice strains to remain calm...) All... I need... to know... is if you signed up for... a Hotmail account... or a Yahoo account.
PATRON— I… I… (Pause) Can you tell?
(She hands me another piece of paper, a copy of an email she'd evidently sent earlier from a Hamdinger_Heaven291@hotmail.com.)
ME— Looks like Hotmail. But you're on Yahoo's page.
PATRON— I know. I tried to go to Hotmail and it took me here.
(Ah, another victim of the seemingly random tendency for our computers to ignore all possible avenues leading to Hotmail except typing "msn.com." She probably did type in Hotmail.com and it took her to a Yahoo search engine by default. I ask her to type MSN.com into the address bar and then choose Hotmail from there. Once she types in her correct username and password she was in.)
PATRON— I'm so sorry.
ME— That's okay. Don't feel bad. It's not like MSN goes out of its way to make things easy.
Showing posts with label Password Problems. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Password Problems. Show all posts
Friday, October 12, 2007
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
And the stars aligned (a.k.a. "The Password STILL is...")
Wow the computers were lousy with Rogues! At one point we had Matilde the Cranky Wiccan, Jimmy the Anonymous Snitch, Gene Gene the Geneal0gy Machine and three members of The New Devil Twins Auxiliary League of Neighborhood Kids using at the same time. This is even more impressive than last week's Rogue Constellation Alignment when Mr. Big Stupid and Mr. Little Stupid were both using at the same time.
As usual, the League of Kids descended on us in a clump to sign up for computers. I went out and logged them onto the second, third and fourth computers on one side of the computer bank, skipping the first one, a 15-minute station that I'd logged off not five minutes before. I then returned to the sign in clip-board to mark which computers I'd placed them on and make sure they'd listed their sign on times. When I turned `round again, though, I noticed that one of the kids was seated at the 15-minute station and had its desktop loaded up and everything.
Dammit! They knew the passwords AGAIN!
Okay, so it wasn't exactly a difficult password to hack, especially considering it was actually the old password that the League already knew. With all the recent computer installation and printer and password issues that have been going on, we finally got the tech guys to go in and set all the logins and passwords to the same thing and make the stations all print to the same printer. Only, the tech guys changed all the passwords back to the old old password, the same single letter it had been back before we got them to change all the passwords to my initials. The League all knew the old old password, so here they were again with free access.
Not that it really matters in the grand scheme of things, since the only reason to have passwords—y'know, beyond our whole need to wield power over people and feel all mighty and stuff—is that requiring them forces patrons to come sign in at our clip board, allowing us to both count them as computer users in our stats and to know who signed on when so we'll know who to kick off when.
I busted the kid off the 15 minute station, didn't say anything to him about knowing the password and then went to write a note to Mrs. A explaining the situation.
We've now changed all the passwords, this time to the initials of a staff member other than myself.
As usual, the League of Kids descended on us in a clump to sign up for computers. I went out and logged them onto the second, third and fourth computers on one side of the computer bank, skipping the first one, a 15-minute station that I'd logged off not five minutes before. I then returned to the sign in clip-board to mark which computers I'd placed them on and make sure they'd listed their sign on times. When I turned `round again, though, I noticed that one of the kids was seated at the 15-minute station and had its desktop loaded up and everything.
Dammit! They knew the passwords AGAIN!
Okay, so it wasn't exactly a difficult password to hack, especially considering it was actually the old password that the League already knew. With all the recent computer installation and printer and password issues that have been going on, we finally got the tech guys to go in and set all the logins and passwords to the same thing and make the stations all print to the same printer. Only, the tech guys changed all the passwords back to the old old password, the same single letter it had been back before we got them to change all the passwords to my initials. The League all knew the old old password, so here they were again with free access.
Not that it really matters in the grand scheme of things, since the only reason to have passwords—y'know, beyond our whole need to wield power over people and feel all mighty and stuff—is that requiring them forces patrons to come sign in at our clip board, allowing us to both count them as computer users in our stats and to know who signed on when so we'll know who to kick off when.
I busted the kid off the 15 minute station, didn't say anything to him about knowing the password and then went to write a note to Mrs. A explaining the situation.
We've now changed all the passwords, this time to the initials of a staff member other than myself.
Friday, August 31, 2007
David Cronenberg films I'd prefer patrons didn't see
The tech boys were in recently to install some new patron computers. In the process of making updates, though, they managed to ditch the passwords from all but one of the remaining old computers, so now patrons can log themselves on willy nilly, and do. (For some reason, the techies don't seem to care if patrons have immediate unregistered access to the computers, but they won't give us the admin passwords to make any changes to the systems we see fit.)
Now the only computer that still has a password is a recycled computer we had lying around. Trouble is, we've used a couple of different logins during its lifetime and damn if any of us can remember it on the first try. This is why former Newbie Greenhorn Ms. M called me away from an important "liberry" quest to assist her when she couldn't get it to log on for a patron.
"I keep trying the usual username and password, but it just freezes like that." She pointed to the screen, where the login box was grayed out as the computer considered whether or not it would accept the password she'd just entered. We watched it, along with the young lady who was waiting for it. After thirty seconds, or so, it refused to accept the password and popped me back to the login box. I tried a new password and the box grayed out for another thirty seconds before refusing once again.
During this time, I noticed that the young lady who was waiting for the computer—a late high school or maybe early college-aged girl, seated nearby—was staring at me and not in a good way. It wasn't exactly the hairy eyeball, but there was something in her expression that clearly wasn't rating me very highly. Sure, I was an employee who evidently didn't know his own password and was therefore making her wait far longer than she might have liked to get to her MySpac3 on, but the look seemed to go beyond even that offense. Did I smell bad? Did I have a booger on my face? What?
The log in box finally ungrayed, I tried another combination, the box grayed out again, and I received yet another baleful look from the patron. Only after the box cleared, another 30 seconds later, did I recall that this particular computer actually took a different login than the one we'd been using. I typed the proper one in and managed to guess the right password for it and the system loaded just fine.
"There ya go," I said to the girl.
I left the computer bank, determined to return to my important "liberry" quest, which was to find a toilet plunger and have a look at the men's restroom toilet. An earlier patron had reported that it wasn't flushing properly and suggested a plunging was in order. I found the plunger, stepped into the restroom, plunged the toilet, but didn't find any real problem with it flushing before or after. While I was there, though, I figured I'd take the bowl for a test-drive and have a wee myself. Only when I went to unzip my fly, I found it preunzipped for my convenience.
Chills of horror ran up my spine as I did the math and realized that the young lady at the computer had likely noticed this and disapproved. Not only that, but her seated perspective had been at about my crotch height. My cows were fortunately still tucked in the barn behind the safety of their boxer-brief barn door, so it wasn't like I'd been flashing her, but still it couldn't have looked good.
What was protocol in this situation? Should I go and apologize? No, I'd technically done nothing wrong, intentional or otherwise and apologizing for it would just draw more attention to it and might bring up questions as to whether or not it had actualy been unintentional.
For a minute I considered just staying in the bathroom until she left. Then, looking in the mirror, I noticed that with my arms at my sides, my untucked t-shirt actually covered most of my crotchal area. Even from her crotch-high POV, the chances of seeing that my fly had been unzipped weren't really that great. She might not have seen it at all. Then again, she had been staring daggers at me.
I left my sanctuary and returned to work, hopeful that the chick had just been annoyed that she was having to deal with a moron who didn't know his own password rather than a moron who didn't know his own password and who was additionally trying to show off his junk.
Now the only computer that still has a password is a recycled computer we had lying around. Trouble is, we've used a couple of different logins during its lifetime and damn if any of us can remember it on the first try. This is why former Newbie Greenhorn Ms. M called me away from an important "liberry" quest to assist her when she couldn't get it to log on for a patron.
"I keep trying the usual username and password, but it just freezes like that." She pointed to the screen, where the login box was grayed out as the computer considered whether or not it would accept the password she'd just entered. We watched it, along with the young lady who was waiting for it. After thirty seconds, or so, it refused to accept the password and popped me back to the login box. I tried a new password and the box grayed out for another thirty seconds before refusing once again.
During this time, I noticed that the young lady who was waiting for the computer—a late high school or maybe early college-aged girl, seated nearby—was staring at me and not in a good way. It wasn't exactly the hairy eyeball, but there was something in her expression that clearly wasn't rating me very highly. Sure, I was an employee who evidently didn't know his own password and was therefore making her wait far longer than she might have liked to get to her MySpac3 on, but the look seemed to go beyond even that offense. Did I smell bad? Did I have a booger on my face? What?
The log in box finally ungrayed, I tried another combination, the box grayed out again, and I received yet another baleful look from the patron. Only after the box cleared, another 30 seconds later, did I recall that this particular computer actually took a different login than the one we'd been using. I typed the proper one in and managed to guess the right password for it and the system loaded just fine.
"There ya go," I said to the girl.
I left the computer bank, determined to return to my important "liberry" quest, which was to find a toilet plunger and have a look at the men's restroom toilet. An earlier patron had reported that it wasn't flushing properly and suggested a plunging was in order. I found the plunger, stepped into the restroom, plunged the toilet, but didn't find any real problem with it flushing before or after. While I was there, though, I figured I'd take the bowl for a test-drive and have a wee myself. Only when I went to unzip my fly, I found it preunzipped for my convenience.
Chills of horror ran up my spine as I did the math and realized that the young lady at the computer had likely noticed this and disapproved. Not only that, but her seated perspective had been at about my crotch height. My cows were fortunately still tucked in the barn behind the safety of their boxer-brief barn door, so it wasn't like I'd been flashing her, but still it couldn't have looked good.
What was protocol in this situation? Should I go and apologize? No, I'd technically done nothing wrong, intentional or otherwise and apologizing for it would just draw more attention to it and might bring up questions as to whether or not it had actualy been unintentional.
For a minute I considered just staying in the bathroom until she left. Then, looking in the mirror, I noticed that with my arms at my sides, my untucked t-shirt actually covered most of my crotchal area. Even from her crotch-high POV, the chances of seeing that my fly had been unzipped weren't really that great. She might not have seen it at all. Then again, she had been staring daggers at me.
I left my sanctuary and returned to work, hopeful that the chick had just been annoyed that she was having to deal with a moron who didn't know his own password rather than a moron who didn't know his own password and who was additionally trying to show off his junk.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
And the password is... (2007)
When it comes to the New Devil Twins and their Auxiliary League of Neighborhood Kids, we rarely encounter any of their parents. The most we usually see from the parents is when they pop their heads in the front door to ask if their kids are on the premesis, almost as if they are afraid of setting actual foot in the building.
Last week, though, the mom of two of the primary League members stopped by, with her kids in tow, to sign up for computers. We only had one available at that point, which I knew because I'd gone back to reboot it some minutes earlier. The other two computers were occupied by a no-name patron and Mr. B-Natural, respectively. I told the mom she and her kids were welcome to use the computer we had.
The eldest son, Mark, signed up and headed on back leaving mom and little brother at the desk. Mom said that her younger son (points to younger son) had told her about some permission form we needed to have her sign in order for him to use the internet on his own and asked for one of those. I forked it over and waited while she started in on it.
"He's not going to be able to look at anything bad, is he?" she asked.
"Well, he'll have access to pretty much anything that's on the internet," I said. "Well, anything that can get past our filter."
"But nothing gets past the filters, right?"
I shrugged. "You'd be surprised. It's pretty good, as filters go, but it's not foolproof."
She gave the boy a long appraising look.
"MooooOOOOoommm! I'm not gonna look at anything bad."
"You better not."
While they were filling out the form, I went back to log on the computer for Mark. Only, when I came around the corner into the computer hall, I saw Mark was already using it to load a webpage. Mark looked up at me and I saw guilt cross his face.
"Now, how exactly did you do that?" I asked him, knowing full well that I had rebooted that computer earlier and that it had returned to our login screen where a password is required to proceed. "You're not supposed to know the password."
"No... I didn't," he said. "I just hit this button, but I didn't know it." He pointed to the single letter that has served as our password for the past few months. Granted, it's no great feat to have paid attention to our hands during the 200 times we've logged him onto a computer in that time, so it's not exactly surprising that he knew it and he's certainly not the first to have mastered that trick. His brazen use of it, however, was a bit off-putting.
"I'm sorry," Mark added.
"Let him tell me what it is," Mr. B-Natural said in a hopeful tone.
I gave Mark a stern yet forgiving look and told him it was okay. Then I left a note to the staff that we need to change the passwords again.
We've now changed the passwords, yet again. At my suggestion, we're going to use a password of multiple letters. Mrs. A then suggested and instantly approved a choice: my three initials.
Immortality is mine!
(Now if we can only convince Mrs. J to stop saying the letters aloud as she types them.)
A-MINUS: 10
Last week, though, the mom of two of the primary League members stopped by, with her kids in tow, to sign up for computers. We only had one available at that point, which I knew because I'd gone back to reboot it some minutes earlier. The other two computers were occupied by a no-name patron and Mr. B-Natural, respectively. I told the mom she and her kids were welcome to use the computer we had.
The eldest son, Mark, signed up and headed on back leaving mom and little brother at the desk. Mom said that her younger son (points to younger son) had told her about some permission form we needed to have her sign in order for him to use the internet on his own and asked for one of those. I forked it over and waited while she started in on it.
"He's not going to be able to look at anything bad, is he?" she asked.
"Well, he'll have access to pretty much anything that's on the internet," I said. "Well, anything that can get past our filter."
"But nothing gets past the filters, right?"
I shrugged. "You'd be surprised. It's pretty good, as filters go, but it's not foolproof."
She gave the boy a long appraising look.
"MooooOOOOoommm! I'm not gonna look at anything bad."
"You better not."
While they were filling out the form, I went back to log on the computer for Mark. Only, when I came around the corner into the computer hall, I saw Mark was already using it to load a webpage. Mark looked up at me and I saw guilt cross his face.
"Now, how exactly did you do that?" I asked him, knowing full well that I had rebooted that computer earlier and that it had returned to our login screen where a password is required to proceed. "You're not supposed to know the password."
"No... I didn't," he said. "I just hit this button, but I didn't know it." He pointed to the single letter that has served as our password for the past few months. Granted, it's no great feat to have paid attention to our hands during the 200 times we've logged him onto a computer in that time, so it's not exactly surprising that he knew it and he's certainly not the first to have mastered that trick. His brazen use of it, however, was a bit off-putting.
"I'm sorry," Mark added.
"Let him tell me what it is," Mr. B-Natural said in a hopeful tone.
I gave Mark a stern yet forgiving look and told him it was okay. Then I left a note to the staff that we need to change the passwords again.
We've now changed the passwords, yet again. At my suggestion, we're going to use a password of multiple letters. Mrs. A then suggested and instantly approved a choice: my three initials.
Immortality is mine!
(Now if we can only convince Mrs. J to stop saying the letters aloud as she types them.)
A-MINUS: 10
Friday, December 31, 2004
And the Password is (Addendum)
I'm still not convinced that Parka doesn't somehow have our new password.
A couple days ago, I put him on the little computer by the stairs cause the other two were full. This always brings me great joy, because he hates the little computer by the stairs, probably due to its high-traffic and high-visibility status. He's also not fond of the third computer down, cause it doesn't have a nice scroll-wheel mouse like the others.
A while later, another patron came in for a computer and I went back to tell the lady on the middle computer, next to Parka, that her time was up. I returned to the circ-desk to wait for her to finish so I could log off her computer and log it back on for the new user.
BEEEEEEP, I heard from the back.
Ah ha! And so it begins anew, I thought. That beeping was no doubt Parka rebooting his computer so he could either stage a coup and take the more comfy middle computer with the scrolly mouse or so he could come complain to me that he'd locked his machine up, had to reboot and needed me to log him in again, affording him yet another opportunity to try and get a look at our password. Well I wasn't going to put up with it. I resolved that if he came up to ask me to log him on again I was going to... I don't know... tell him he had to wait in the children's room while I did it so that he wouldn't be tempted to try and nab our password. Sure, this was dumb and would be tipping my hand that I knew what he was up to, but if I had the evidence from his previous visits I felt I needed to use it to show his smarmy ass up.
Parka didn't come up to ask, though, and I was unable to go back and see what he was doing due to an unfortunately timed ringing phone at the desk. While I was on the phone, the lady from the middle computer departed, so as soon as I was able to hang up I went back. Parka was still at the little computer by the stairs. His computer was already logged in, though curiously he only had the desktop up and seemed to be in the process of clicking on Internet Explorer.
Ah hah, Ah HAH, I thought. He'd had exactly enough time to reboot and illicitly re-login his own computer while I was away! I'd caught him at last!
Then I noticed the middle computer. I had expected to find it still logged on from the previous user and in need of a re-login itself. However, this had already been done and it was now sitting there in default rest mode, awaiting a CTRL ALT DEL to bring up the login panel. My evidence was shot, cause I knew that it was quite possible that the BEEEEEEP I'd heard was the middle computer restarting at the command of the previous user as she left. Even if Parka was acting suspicious, I had no accusatory legs to stand on. Dammit.
I logged the middle computer on for the new patron, making a big production of sliding the chair out of the way so I could wedge my holiday-spawned bulk in to block Parka's line of sight. He made no move to run up the stairs and look, which would have given me an excuse to kick him out. Dammit.
"I think we still need to watch PARKA," I told Mrs. C yesterday as a precursor to telling her the above incident.
"Ohhhh, I didn't tell you, did I?" she said. "I had to yell at him this morning."
Mrs. C said that Parka had come in earlier and signed in for a computer. Mrs. C went back to log him on and saw that the middle and third computers were still logged in from the previous patrons. She went to the middle computer and did a log-off and was about to proceed to the third computer to do the same when Parka came back to the hall. She was just flipping down the laminated orange "Get Thee To the Sign Up Sheet Or Denied A Computer Thou Will Be'est" sign that's taped to the top of the monitor when Parka spoke up.
"I want to use the middle computer," he reportedly said, no doubt in full Officer Barbrady monotone. Mrs. C noted this and continued on to log-off the third computer down, but she had already flipped the orange sign down over the screen before moving to log off the third computer. Parka was enraged.
"Hey, I said I want the middle one!"
Mrs. C said she turned on him, eyes blazing, and shouted back, "I heard you the first time! I have to log them off and wait for them to come back up before I can give one to you!"
Parka notched his anger down at this, but still said, "Well, you flipped the sign down."
"Yes. Yes, I did."
Now Mrs. C is on the Parka war-path. Later in the morning, he managed to lock his computer up again and then shut it down completely rather than simply rebooting. When Mrs. J came to log him back on she had to stand there for the minute it takes for it to completely boot up, Parka looming over her the whole while. Mrs. C wants to tell him that if he does that again he'll be banned from the computers. She has to wait for Mrs. A to come back from vacation to get the authorization for this, though. I somehow don't see Mrs. A having a problem with it.
He may also still have our new password, as a simple log-off of a computer, as might have happened with the middle machine, does NOT cause a BEEEEEEEP. Only if the previous patron had told it to RESTART would it have done so. Could be either way at this point, but I'm going to have my eye on Parka to make sure.
A couple days ago, I put him on the little computer by the stairs cause the other two were full. This always brings me great joy, because he hates the little computer by the stairs, probably due to its high-traffic and high-visibility status. He's also not fond of the third computer down, cause it doesn't have a nice scroll-wheel mouse like the others.
A while later, another patron came in for a computer and I went back to tell the lady on the middle computer, next to Parka, that her time was up. I returned to the circ-desk to wait for her to finish so I could log off her computer and log it back on for the new user.
BEEEEEEP, I heard from the back.
Ah ha! And so it begins anew, I thought. That beeping was no doubt Parka rebooting his computer so he could either stage a coup and take the more comfy middle computer with the scrolly mouse or so he could come complain to me that he'd locked his machine up, had to reboot and needed me to log him in again, affording him yet another opportunity to try and get a look at our password. Well I wasn't going to put up with it. I resolved that if he came up to ask me to log him on again I was going to... I don't know... tell him he had to wait in the children's room while I did it so that he wouldn't be tempted to try and nab our password. Sure, this was dumb and would be tipping my hand that I knew what he was up to, but if I had the evidence from his previous visits I felt I needed to use it to show his smarmy ass up.
Parka didn't come up to ask, though, and I was unable to go back and see what he was doing due to an unfortunately timed ringing phone at the desk. While I was on the phone, the lady from the middle computer departed, so as soon as I was able to hang up I went back. Parka was still at the little computer by the stairs. His computer was already logged in, though curiously he only had the desktop up and seemed to be in the process of clicking on Internet Explorer.
Ah hah, Ah HAH, I thought. He'd had exactly enough time to reboot and illicitly re-login his own computer while I was away! I'd caught him at last!
Then I noticed the middle computer. I had expected to find it still logged on from the previous user and in need of a re-login itself. However, this had already been done and it was now sitting there in default rest mode, awaiting a CTRL ALT DEL to bring up the login panel. My evidence was shot, cause I knew that it was quite possible that the BEEEEEEP I'd heard was the middle computer restarting at the command of the previous user as she left. Even if Parka was acting suspicious, I had no accusatory legs to stand on. Dammit.
I logged the middle computer on for the new patron, making a big production of sliding the chair out of the way so I could wedge my holiday-spawned bulk in to block Parka's line of sight. He made no move to run up the stairs and look, which would have given me an excuse to kick him out. Dammit.
"I think we still need to watch PARKA," I told Mrs. C yesterday as a precursor to telling her the above incident.
"Ohhhh, I didn't tell you, did I?" she said. "I had to yell at him this morning."
Mrs. C said that Parka had come in earlier and signed in for a computer. Mrs. C went back to log him on and saw that the middle and third computers were still logged in from the previous patrons. She went to the middle computer and did a log-off and was about to proceed to the third computer to do the same when Parka came back to the hall. She was just flipping down the laminated orange "Get Thee To the Sign Up Sheet Or Denied A Computer Thou Will Be'est" sign that's taped to the top of the monitor when Parka spoke up.
"I want to use the middle computer," he reportedly said, no doubt in full Officer Barbrady monotone. Mrs. C noted this and continued on to log-off the third computer down, but she had already flipped the orange sign down over the screen before moving to log off the third computer. Parka was enraged.
"Hey, I said I want the middle one!"
Mrs. C said she turned on him, eyes blazing, and shouted back, "I heard you the first time! I have to log them off and wait for them to come back up before I can give one to you!"
Parka notched his anger down at this, but still said, "Well, you flipped the sign down."
"Yes. Yes, I did."
Now Mrs. C is on the Parka war-path. Later in the morning, he managed to lock his computer up again and then shut it down completely rather than simply rebooting. When Mrs. J came to log him back on she had to stand there for the minute it takes for it to completely boot up, Parka looming over her the whole while. Mrs. C wants to tell him that if he does that again he'll be banned from the computers. She has to wait for Mrs. A to come back from vacation to get the authorization for this, though. I somehow don't see Mrs. A having a problem with it.
He may also still have our new password, as a simple log-off of a computer, as might have happened with the middle machine, does NOT cause a BEEEEEEEP. Only if the previous patron had told it to RESTART would it have done so. Could be either way at this point, but I'm going to have my eye on Parka to make sure.
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
And the password is...
Last week, two girls and a boy began
pestering me for the password to the children's room computer. They were
probably 11 or 12 and therefore given to cheerfully pestering people.
The ringleader of them was Caroline Turner, a regular patron of ours and
a young lady I've had some confusing dealings with before.
At first I didn't even realize what they were up to. Caroline had come up to the desk around 6 p.m. last Wednesday night and asked me what Mrs. C's full name was. I told her. Then she wanted me to write it down for her, so I did. A minute later she was back, asking for my name to be written down. Okay, sure, I thought. It was odd, but I somehow imagined she and her friends were plugging our names into Mad Libs or something.
A few minutes later, she and her other cohorts came to ask me harmless personal questions, such as my pet's name, my favorite book, my favorite movie and my favorite number, (Winston Churchill: The Infinitely Bad Kitty, The Martian Chronicles, Raising Arizona and four, respectively). Having secured this information, they scurried away to the children's room again.
Finally, Caroline came back and just point blank asked me, "Would you just tell me what the password is for the kids' computer?"
Ah, so that was their game.
"No," I said.
"Pleeeeeease?"
"Noooooooo."
More minutes of pleading and banter followed during which Caroline even threatened to sign up to use the computer just so she could watch my fingers and get the password as I logged her on.
"Well, that's really gonna work for you now, isn't it?" I said.
"Aw come onnnnnnn! You can tell me!"
Sure kid, I tell you and soon everybody's playing Magic School Bus Vs. The Dinosaurs for free.
This sort of thing went on for some time, with Caroline coming up with wildly inventive reasons why I should tell her followed by threats of the crazy things she would accuse me of if I didn't. (This sounds alarming, I know, but her very worst threat amounted to her taking one of our books, tearing it up and then then telling Mrs. A that I had taken the book and let my dog tear it up. I explained to her that Mrs. A would never believe her because she knows I don't own a dog.)
For a while I even considered telling her that the password for the computer wasn't a word at all, just to see her race back to start trying number combinations. (The password really ISN'T a word, but there aren't any numbers involved either, so her search would be fruitless.)
Eventually, Caroline had to leave for her group French lesson next door, as did her comrades. So I was left in peace.
Caroline, however, would not be the first patron to try and acquire our password. The last patron to try it was an as yet unchronicled Rogues Gallery member from years past. However, before I could even start to chronicle that long lost Rogue, one of our current boobyhatch escapees tried the very same thing.
It seems that our old friend Parka has made it his business to try and learn the password to our patron computers. (See THE PARKA SAGA.) That's right. This festering butt-grape in our collective crack is trying to hack us.
Parka was in last Saturday to chat with his e-skanks. After he'd been on for around 40 minutes or so, I heard a distinctive BEEEEEP from the computer hall signaling that one of the computers had been rebooted from the ground up. I've noticed more and more of these beeps when Parka is using the computers. Usually it signals that he has managed to chat the computer into freezing up, in which case he wants to reboot it before asking us to log him back on, cause he somehow thinks we don't know what he's up to. Or sometimes it signals that he's about to leave and wants to reboot the computer to be sure that all evidence of his presence on a given machine is gone. (Surrrre it is.) Mrs. A has actually had to confront him over this rebooting business because until recently he didn't just reboot the machine when he left but would shut it down, forcing the next patron to use it, AND us, to have to stand around and wait around for it to reboot from the ground up before it can be used anew. He agreed to cut it out. I still listen for the BEEEEEPs, though, because it either means he's leaving or that I'm gonna have to go back and log him on again.
So Saturday I hear the BEEEEEP and wait to see what Parka's next move will be. Minutes pass and there is no movement from the back to either leave or ask for assistance. Curious. After nearly five minutes with no sign of Parka, I decide to go investigate. It could be that he just hopped onto a nearby computer that was not logged off from the previous patron. But I somehow doubted it.
I think Parka must have heard me coming cause by the time I reached the door to the computer hall he was up and moving.
"Could you log me on again it froze up and I had to reboot," he said, in his usual punctuationless monotone.
I went over to his computer which had our login screen up. Curiously, the cursor was NOT in the username blank, but the password blank. And while he had not typed in our usual username, which probably every regular "Intanet" Crowder knows by heart, the fact that he had been trying to do something in the password blank was suspicious. I moved closer to the computer and typed in our standard patron username. Then, keeping my back toward Parka to block his line of sight on the keys, I typed in our password, the letter Z, (not really the letter Z). As I did this, I heard movement behind me and, on turning, I saw that Parka was now half-way up the first section of steps on the staircase, a perfect position for him to have craned his neck and taken a gander in the direction of my hands as I typed. He wasn't actively craning when I saw him, but what other reason would he have for being on the stairs? I didn't think he had actually managed to see it, but the fact that he was trying at all was definitely one of the most irritating things this highly irritating man has done.
Yesterday afternoon, I broke the news to Mrs. C.
"I think we need to keep an eye on PARKA. I'm pretty sure he was trying to get our password Saturday."
"You too?" she said. Mrs. C then told me that Parka had been in on Sunday and had pulled the same trick on her, asking her to come reboot his computer and then standing there trying to watch her type.
What advantage, you might ask, would Parka gain by knowing the password to our patron computers? After all, it isn't as if we wouldn't catch him trying to log on without signing up at the clipboard up front first. The only reason he EVER comes to the library is to use the computers, so from the moment we saw his big dingy-white-Michelin-Man-lookin'-parka-clad ass trying to sneak back to the computer hall, we would know what was up.
Our theory is that after repeatedly locking up the system with his chatting he finds it inconvenient to have to come get us to log him on again. He would much rather be able to reboot at his leisure and continue on without having to muck around with such things as standing and walking through two whole rooms to see if we may or may not have a spare moment or sense of inclination to help.
"Think we need to change the password then?" Mrs. C asked.
"Couldn't hurt," I said. "In fact, it would royally piss him off if he has managed to get it and now it won't work for him." We grinned and laughed evilly at this. I even suggested we change the password to Parka's real last name, which he would never ever suspect. Instead, though, we changed it to a different letter in proximity to Z (not really the letter Z) which would look indistinguishable if typed really fast, further compounding his frustration.
As I said earlier, though, this is only one example of a smarmy little bowel irritant of a patron trying to get our password. A couple of years back, one such soul succeeded at getting it and got busted in a much more satisfying way. I speak of none other than The Evil Fed Ex Guy.
I first met the Evil FedEx Guy in November of 2001. I'd had cause to engage the services of Federal Express after the processor-fan in my computer started to crap out on me and I found myself in desperate need of a new one. I'd purchased one online and had paid $9 extra to have it delivered via Federal Express's two day delivery service. As you probably suspect, my two day delivery did not occur as per the definition of two day delivery. What followed were eight days of not only no deliveries, but repeated instances of official Fed Ex tracking records being altered by someone to show that delivery attempts and phone calls had been made when no such deliveries nor calls had actually been attempted--cause, I was, like, home the whole time and stuff. When my new chip fan was finally delivered, A WEEK AND A DAY LATER, it was the Evil FedEx Guy who delivered it.
At the time, I didn't even know that the Evil FedEx Guy was actually evil; I just thought he worked for evil. So I didn't hold a grudge when, for example, he came to the library on his lunch break to surf the web a few days later and managed to leave his wallet behind. I didn't even consider doing anything nasty to his wallet or its contents. Instead, I phoned him up and left a message that we had his wallet. The more I've thought about it since, though, the more I've come to believe that the Evil FedEx Guy himself was entirely responsible for my delayed delivery. I'd been blaming the FedEx dispatcher, but really the clear line of deception and ass-covering in the delivery process points back to the guy who was failing to make his delivery. And who else would further benefit by going back and falsifying even more such attempts after the fact to make it look like he was actually doing his job? Him Him Him. I understand that being a FedEx driver is hard work and the drivers are under the gun of deadline constantly. But altering records to make it seem as though I was at fault in the matter when I was not just burns me up. Still, I'd not done that math yet, but would soon learn that the Evil FedEx Guy was a right bastard for a number of other reasons.
After the above wallet snafu, the Evil FedEx Guy began making a nuisance of himself at our library as a member of the Liberry Intanet Crowd. On his lunch hour, he would pop by and park his enormous FedEx van in our half-hour parking, taking up well over his allotted parking space, and come on in to surf the web. This would even have been mostly okay with us if he didn't, in true Intanet Crowd fashion, constantly prove himself an enormous asshat. He had all the standard Intanet Crowd quirks, such as getting pissed off if he couldn't log on immediately upon arrival, or if he had to wait at all, or if he ran out of time and we had to ask him to relinquish his computer, or if the internet was slow, etc. That's standard issue. However, he was so possessive of his internet time that if we had to bust him off after his time was up he would rush the desk to sign up for the next computer and then get even more pissed off and start cursing if he had to wait at all. Dealing with him in any capacity was just unpleasant. This alone was bad enough to deserve our collective ire. However, he did us one better.
We didn't know that the Evil FedEx Guy knew our patron computer password until he decided to show off with it one day. He had come in for a computer, stayed his half hour and got booted off in favor of a new patron. The wait for a free computer was considerable and he wasn't finished with whatever it was he was doing, but oddly he didn't make a big stink about it like usual.
A few minutes later, Mrs. A came downstairs from her office to find Evil FedEx Guy using the computer in the children's room. She told us all later that right away she knew he had our password.
First of all, it's a hard and fast rule in the library that NO ADULT is allowed use the children's room computer because that computer is exclusively for the use of children. All the staff know this and it is not a rule that is ever violated. Second of all, when that computer IS used by children it is almost only used with the Children's Login setting, which preloads all our games and does not include access to the internet. It is technically possible to use the computer to access the internet, but only if logged in with the adult user name and password, so the chances of EFEG having spied this computer already logged in for adult access were very very slim.
"Excuse me," Mrs. A said, walking over to where Evil FedEx Guy was crouched down on the tiny, child-sized chair, his knees practically against his chest. "How exactly did you come to use this computer?"
Evil FedEx Guy had to know he was caught, but he tried to lie his way out anyway. He stared up at Mrs. A from his lowly position and said, "Um, the lady up front put me here."
"Which lady?"
"Um... Uhh... I don't remember."
Mrs. A no doubt chose this moment to look over her half-glasses at him as though he were a slow-witted child.
"You're telling me that you signed up for a computer and one of our staff logged you on this computer and you don't remember which person it was?"
"Yeah."
"You are not supposed to be using that computer. That computer is for children only. None of our staff would have put you on it either because they all know you're not supposed to be using that computer."
Evil FedEx Guy protested that he had been placed there by a duly appointed staff member, though he couldn't point out any of the ladies on duty specifically. Mrs. A told him in no uncertain terms that she didn't buy it. She told him she thought he had managed to figure out our password and had logged himself on because he didn't want to wait. (Mrs. A isn't afraid to get confrontational when she needs to, particularly when the person she's confronting is a dickweed like this guy.) Evil FedEx Guy slunk away to his truck and it was a good week before we saw him again.
We changed the password due to that incident and tried to keep a better eye out for patrons who seemed overly curious when we logged them on.
Over the following months, Evil FedEx Guy's Intanet Crowd behavior didn't really improve. He still had a tendency to curse often and unnecessarily when we asked him to get off, but he avoided doing so whenever Mrs. A was nearby. At one point, she told us that she had threatened him that if he didn't sit up and be smart he was going to be banned from using the computers. This had the most effect of anything, but he was still no angel. It got to the point that the entire staff would loudly groan in displeasure when we heard his big ol' FedEx van a-comin' up the hill.
Eventually the problem of the Evil FedEx Guy went away when he himself went away. I don't know if he was fired or just quit his job, though my wager is definitely on the former. We've not seen him in nearly two years. It's been bliss.
At first I didn't even realize what they were up to. Caroline had come up to the desk around 6 p.m. last Wednesday night and asked me what Mrs. C's full name was. I told her. Then she wanted me to write it down for her, so I did. A minute later she was back, asking for my name to be written down. Okay, sure, I thought. It was odd, but I somehow imagined she and her friends were plugging our names into Mad Libs or something.
A few minutes later, she and her other cohorts came to ask me harmless personal questions, such as my pet's name, my favorite book, my favorite movie and my favorite number, (Winston Churchill: The Infinitely Bad Kitty, The Martian Chronicles, Raising Arizona and four, respectively). Having secured this information, they scurried away to the children's room again.
Finally, Caroline came back and just point blank asked me, "Would you just tell me what the password is for the kids' computer?"
Ah, so that was their game.
"No," I said.
"Pleeeeeease?"
"Noooooooo."
More minutes of pleading and banter followed during which Caroline even threatened to sign up to use the computer just so she could watch my fingers and get the password as I logged her on.
"Well, that's really gonna work for you now, isn't it?" I said.
"Aw come onnnnnnn! You can tell me!"
Sure kid, I tell you and soon everybody's playing Magic School Bus Vs. The Dinosaurs for free.
This sort of thing went on for some time, with Caroline coming up with wildly inventive reasons why I should tell her followed by threats of the crazy things she would accuse me of if I didn't. (This sounds alarming, I know, but her very worst threat amounted to her taking one of our books, tearing it up and then then telling Mrs. A that I had taken the book and let my dog tear it up. I explained to her that Mrs. A would never believe her because she knows I don't own a dog.)
For a while I even considered telling her that the password for the computer wasn't a word at all, just to see her race back to start trying number combinations. (The password really ISN'T a word, but there aren't any numbers involved either, so her search would be fruitless.)
Eventually, Caroline had to leave for her group French lesson next door, as did her comrades. So I was left in peace.
Caroline, however, would not be the first patron to try and acquire our password. The last patron to try it was an as yet unchronicled Rogues Gallery member from years past. However, before I could even start to chronicle that long lost Rogue, one of our current boobyhatch escapees tried the very same thing.
It seems that our old friend Parka has made it his business to try and learn the password to our patron computers. (See THE PARKA SAGA.) That's right. This festering butt-grape in our collective crack is trying to hack us.
Parka was in last Saturday to chat with his e-skanks. After he'd been on for around 40 minutes or so, I heard a distinctive BEEEEEP from the computer hall signaling that one of the computers had been rebooted from the ground up. I've noticed more and more of these beeps when Parka is using the computers. Usually it signals that he has managed to chat the computer into freezing up, in which case he wants to reboot it before asking us to log him back on, cause he somehow thinks we don't know what he's up to. Or sometimes it signals that he's about to leave and wants to reboot the computer to be sure that all evidence of his presence on a given machine is gone. (Surrrre it is.) Mrs. A has actually had to confront him over this rebooting business because until recently he didn't just reboot the machine when he left but would shut it down, forcing the next patron to use it, AND us, to have to stand around and wait around for it to reboot from the ground up before it can be used anew. He agreed to cut it out. I still listen for the BEEEEEPs, though, because it either means he's leaving or that I'm gonna have to go back and log him on again.
So Saturday I hear the BEEEEEP and wait to see what Parka's next move will be. Minutes pass and there is no movement from the back to either leave or ask for assistance. Curious. After nearly five minutes with no sign of Parka, I decide to go investigate. It could be that he just hopped onto a nearby computer that was not logged off from the previous patron. But I somehow doubted it.
I think Parka must have heard me coming cause by the time I reached the door to the computer hall he was up and moving.
"Could you log me on again it froze up and I had to reboot," he said, in his usual punctuationless monotone.
I went over to his computer which had our login screen up. Curiously, the cursor was NOT in the username blank, but the password blank. And while he had not typed in our usual username, which probably every regular "Intanet" Crowder knows by heart, the fact that he had been trying to do something in the password blank was suspicious. I moved closer to the computer and typed in our standard patron username. Then, keeping my back toward Parka to block his line of sight on the keys, I typed in our password, the letter Z, (not really the letter Z). As I did this, I heard movement behind me and, on turning, I saw that Parka was now half-way up the first section of steps on the staircase, a perfect position for him to have craned his neck and taken a gander in the direction of my hands as I typed. He wasn't actively craning when I saw him, but what other reason would he have for being on the stairs? I didn't think he had actually managed to see it, but the fact that he was trying at all was definitely one of the most irritating things this highly irritating man has done.
Yesterday afternoon, I broke the news to Mrs. C.
"I think we need to keep an eye on PARKA. I'm pretty sure he was trying to get our password Saturday."
"You too?" she said. Mrs. C then told me that Parka had been in on Sunday and had pulled the same trick on her, asking her to come reboot his computer and then standing there trying to watch her type.
What advantage, you might ask, would Parka gain by knowing the password to our patron computers? After all, it isn't as if we wouldn't catch him trying to log on without signing up at the clipboard up front first. The only reason he EVER comes to the library is to use the computers, so from the moment we saw his big dingy-white-Michelin-Man-lookin'-parka-clad ass trying to sneak back to the computer hall, we would know what was up.
Our theory is that after repeatedly locking up the system with his chatting he finds it inconvenient to have to come get us to log him on again. He would much rather be able to reboot at his leisure and continue on without having to muck around with such things as standing and walking through two whole rooms to see if we may or may not have a spare moment or sense of inclination to help.
"Think we need to change the password then?" Mrs. C asked.
"Couldn't hurt," I said. "In fact, it would royally piss him off if he has managed to get it and now it won't work for him." We grinned and laughed evilly at this. I even suggested we change the password to Parka's real last name, which he would never ever suspect. Instead, though, we changed it to a different letter in proximity to Z (not really the letter Z) which would look indistinguishable if typed really fast, further compounding his frustration.
As I said earlier, though, this is only one example of a smarmy little bowel irritant of a patron trying to get our password. A couple of years back, one such soul succeeded at getting it and got busted in a much more satisfying way. I speak of none other than The Evil Fed Ex Guy.
I first met the Evil FedEx Guy in November of 2001. I'd had cause to engage the services of Federal Express after the processor-fan in my computer started to crap out on me and I found myself in desperate need of a new one. I'd purchased one online and had paid $9 extra to have it delivered via Federal Express's two day delivery service. As you probably suspect, my two day delivery did not occur as per the definition of two day delivery. What followed were eight days of not only no deliveries, but repeated instances of official Fed Ex tracking records being altered by someone to show that delivery attempts and phone calls had been made when no such deliveries nor calls had actually been attempted--cause, I was, like, home the whole time and stuff. When my new chip fan was finally delivered, A WEEK AND A DAY LATER, it was the Evil FedEx Guy who delivered it.
At the time, I didn't even know that the Evil FedEx Guy was actually evil; I just thought he worked for evil. So I didn't hold a grudge when, for example, he came to the library on his lunch break to surf the web a few days later and managed to leave his wallet behind. I didn't even consider doing anything nasty to his wallet or its contents. Instead, I phoned him up and left a message that we had his wallet. The more I've thought about it since, though, the more I've come to believe that the Evil FedEx Guy himself was entirely responsible for my delayed delivery. I'd been blaming the FedEx dispatcher, but really the clear line of deception and ass-covering in the delivery process points back to the guy who was failing to make his delivery. And who else would further benefit by going back and falsifying even more such attempts after the fact to make it look like he was actually doing his job? Him Him Him. I understand that being a FedEx driver is hard work and the drivers are under the gun of deadline constantly. But altering records to make it seem as though I was at fault in the matter when I was not just burns me up. Still, I'd not done that math yet, but would soon learn that the Evil FedEx Guy was a right bastard for a number of other reasons.
After the above wallet snafu, the Evil FedEx Guy began making a nuisance of himself at our library as a member of the Liberry Intanet Crowd. On his lunch hour, he would pop by and park his enormous FedEx van in our half-hour parking, taking up well over his allotted parking space, and come on in to surf the web. This would even have been mostly okay with us if he didn't, in true Intanet Crowd fashion, constantly prove himself an enormous asshat. He had all the standard Intanet Crowd quirks, such as getting pissed off if he couldn't log on immediately upon arrival, or if he had to wait at all, or if he ran out of time and we had to ask him to relinquish his computer, or if the internet was slow, etc. That's standard issue. However, he was so possessive of his internet time that if we had to bust him off after his time was up he would rush the desk to sign up for the next computer and then get even more pissed off and start cursing if he had to wait at all. Dealing with him in any capacity was just unpleasant. This alone was bad enough to deserve our collective ire. However, he did us one better.
We didn't know that the Evil FedEx Guy knew our patron computer password until he decided to show off with it one day. He had come in for a computer, stayed his half hour and got booted off in favor of a new patron. The wait for a free computer was considerable and he wasn't finished with whatever it was he was doing, but oddly he didn't make a big stink about it like usual.
A few minutes later, Mrs. A came downstairs from her office to find Evil FedEx Guy using the computer in the children's room. She told us all later that right away she knew he had our password.
First of all, it's a hard and fast rule in the library that NO ADULT is allowed use the children's room computer because that computer is exclusively for the use of children. All the staff know this and it is not a rule that is ever violated. Second of all, when that computer IS used by children it is almost only used with the Children's Login setting, which preloads all our games and does not include access to the internet. It is technically possible to use the computer to access the internet, but only if logged in with the adult user name and password, so the chances of EFEG having spied this computer already logged in for adult access were very very slim.
"Excuse me," Mrs. A said, walking over to where Evil FedEx Guy was crouched down on the tiny, child-sized chair, his knees practically against his chest. "How exactly did you come to use this computer?"
Evil FedEx Guy had to know he was caught, but he tried to lie his way out anyway. He stared up at Mrs. A from his lowly position and said, "Um, the lady up front put me here."
"Which lady?"
"Um... Uhh... I don't remember."
Mrs. A no doubt chose this moment to look over her half-glasses at him as though he were a slow-witted child.
"You're telling me that you signed up for a computer and one of our staff logged you on this computer and you don't remember which person it was?"
"Yeah."
"You are not supposed to be using that computer. That computer is for children only. None of our staff would have put you on it either because they all know you're not supposed to be using that computer."
Evil FedEx Guy protested that he had been placed there by a duly appointed staff member, though he couldn't point out any of the ladies on duty specifically. Mrs. A told him in no uncertain terms that she didn't buy it. She told him she thought he had managed to figure out our password and had logged himself on because he didn't want to wait. (Mrs. A isn't afraid to get confrontational when she needs to, particularly when the person she's confronting is a dickweed like this guy.) Evil FedEx Guy slunk away to his truck and it was a good week before we saw him again.
We changed the password due to that incident and tried to keep a better eye out for patrons who seemed overly curious when we logged them on.
Over the following months, Evil FedEx Guy's Intanet Crowd behavior didn't really improve. He still had a tendency to curse often and unnecessarily when we asked him to get off, but he avoided doing so whenever Mrs. A was nearby. At one point, she told us that she had threatened him that if he didn't sit up and be smart he was going to be banned from using the computers. This had the most effect of anything, but he was still no angel. It got to the point that the entire staff would loudly groan in displeasure when we heard his big ol' FedEx van a-comin' up the hill.
Eventually the problem of the Evil FedEx Guy went away when he himself went away. I don't know if he was fired or just quit his job, though my wager is definitely on the former. We've not seen him in nearly two years. It's been bliss.
Monday, September 27, 2004
Return of the Net-Neophyte
On Friday, about 45 minutes before closing, the door opened and a semi-familiar looking woman walked in.
"Oh... You're here again," she said dismally. Now, her tone did not suggest that my presence was necessarily a bad thing. I think instead, her tone actually meant that she would have preferred to have found someone on shift who didn't have quite as much dirt on her as I did, but that I would do in a pinch. I came to this conclusion a few seconds later, after I heard her next words and realized why she looked so familiar.
"Could, um... could you help me set up an e-mail... again?" she asked.
Oh, no, I thought. Not her!
Yes indeedy, the Internet Neophyte had returned. This was the patron who drove me nigh unto insanity back in July by taking damn near an hour to sign up for a Hotmail account--WITH my help! This was the same patron who refused to stop using her dog's name as both her username AND password despite both my and Hotmail's insistence that she cease doing so. This was the same patron who had then refused to write down either of her final username and password choices, despite my repeated entreaties that she do so, and then had that fact bite her squar in the taint when she couldn't get back into her own account after having JUST CREATED IT! Yes, this was the same patron who then had to use Hotmail's I'M A DAMNED MORON AND FORGOT MY PASSWORD link, then, when faced with having to choose a new password asked me to choose one for her. I chose the word orange, the same color as our internet signs, which I hoped would be easy for her to remember. As you will soon see, I was WRONG!!!!!
Ms. I.N. Phyte had just asked me to help her set up a new e-mail account. What she was REALLY asking me, though, was: Would you just do all the work for me since I'm incapable of doing it on my own?
Nuh uh. That was not going to happen.
I told her, "Well, I can put you on a computer and show you where to go, but..."
"But I'd have to do it myself," she finished for me, returning to her dismal tone. "Do I have time?"
I looked at my watch. "You've got 45 minutes."
On the way back to the computers, Ms. Phyte explained to me that she had not been faithfully checking her e-mail at all over the last two months so her Hotmail account was no more. I thought this unlikely, as Hotmail usually only puts accounts in drydock when they've gone unused for a time, but they will allow you back in if you jump through a couple of minor hoops. So I logged her onto a computer and brought up Hotmail for her to try and login anyway. It booted her out saying either her username or password was incorrect. Why were they incorrect? Oh, maybe because she had NO CLUE what they really were! She tried again and again to no effect.
"Errm. I just can't remember my real password," she said.
Barely able to keep the deep levels of frustration and loathing out of my voice, I said, "I do."
I pointed at the orange internet sign, then leaned over and typed "orange" into the password blank. Still, she was denied. This meant either she'd changed her password--not likely given her inability to login in the first place--or she'd gotten her username wrong. I was pretty sure the later was the case, as she'd gone through five username choices when she'd set up the account back in July. I should have just gone up front and re-read my original write up of the event and then I would have remembered it was her dog's name. As it stood, though, I only recalled the password and only because I had a memory-link to it taped there on the monitor itself. Still, I was pretty sure her original one, whatever it was, had three numbers affixed to the end of it and the one she kept trying then didn't.
"Are you sure that's the right username?"
"Oh, yes. This is it," she said.
"Didn't you have numbers in it?
"Oh, no. This one is it."
Yet, wonder upon wonders, it still didn't work! In fact, Hotmail gave no indication that there was any sort of account with that particular username. It didn't even give us the I'M A DAMNED MORON AND FORGOT MY PASSWORD link, cause the password wasn't the problem.
After a few more unsuccessful attempts, I suggested she would be better off starting from scratch. I loaded up the New Account page and then I hauled ass for the front to get a pencil and paper, which I brought to her and, yet again, told her to write down her username and password AS SOON AS SHE HAD CHOSEN THEM. Then I got the hell out of the computer hall so as to avoid any accidental chokings.
I knew running away was futile. Throughout the oh-so-lengthy Hotmail signup process, Ms. Phyte kept coming to find me and drag me back to answer obscenely simple questions for her. Like: "What time zone are we in?" and "What does it mean when it says `Type in the characters you see in the security image'?" While answering these and many other questions, I took a gander at the paper I'd given her to write everything on. She'd written a username on it all right, but it didn't actually match up with the one I saw on the screen which had a _wholeotherword affixed to it.
Dammit, why can't people figure shit like this out? You have to write down the WHOLE USERNAME!!! Not half of it!!! ALL OF IT!!!!
With admirable restraint, I told her this in far more polite terms and with less verbal violence than I really wanted to use.
"I hope I'm not keeping you from anything?" she said after finally writing the whole username down.
"Oh, no," I said. "I have to be here until seven anyway."
At ten minutes before closing time, a full thirty-five minutes after she'd begun the Hotmail sign up process, Ms. Phyte finally finished up. I checked over her work, told her to hit continue, then I personally skipped through all of Hotmail's Spam Sign-Up pages and showed her the new account...
...again.
"Oh... You're here again," she said dismally. Now, her tone did not suggest that my presence was necessarily a bad thing. I think instead, her tone actually meant that she would have preferred to have found someone on shift who didn't have quite as much dirt on her as I did, but that I would do in a pinch. I came to this conclusion a few seconds later, after I heard her next words and realized why she looked so familiar.
"Could, um... could you help me set up an e-mail... again?" she asked.
Oh, no, I thought. Not her!
Yes indeedy, the Internet Neophyte had returned. This was the patron who drove me nigh unto insanity back in July by taking damn near an hour to sign up for a Hotmail account--WITH my help! This was the same patron who refused to stop using her dog's name as both her username AND password despite both my and Hotmail's insistence that she cease doing so. This was the same patron who had then refused to write down either of her final username and password choices, despite my repeated entreaties that she do so, and then had that fact bite her squar in the taint when she couldn't get back into her own account after having JUST CREATED IT! Yes, this was the same patron who then had to use Hotmail's I'M A DAMNED MORON AND FORGOT MY PASSWORD link, then, when faced with having to choose a new password asked me to choose one for her. I chose the word orange, the same color as our internet signs, which I hoped would be easy for her to remember. As you will soon see, I was WRONG!!!!!
Ms. I.N. Phyte had just asked me to help her set up a new e-mail account. What she was REALLY asking me, though, was: Would you just do all the work for me since I'm incapable of doing it on my own?
Nuh uh. That was not going to happen.
I told her, "Well, I can put you on a computer and show you where to go, but..."
"But I'd have to do it myself," she finished for me, returning to her dismal tone. "Do I have time?"
I looked at my watch. "You've got 45 minutes."
On the way back to the computers, Ms. Phyte explained to me that she had not been faithfully checking her e-mail at all over the last two months so her Hotmail account was no more. I thought this unlikely, as Hotmail usually only puts accounts in drydock when they've gone unused for a time, but they will allow you back in if you jump through a couple of minor hoops. So I logged her onto a computer and brought up Hotmail for her to try and login anyway. It booted her out saying either her username or password was incorrect. Why were they incorrect? Oh, maybe because she had NO CLUE what they really were! She tried again and again to no effect.
"Errm. I just can't remember my real password," she said.
Barely able to keep the deep levels of frustration and loathing out of my voice, I said, "I do."
I pointed at the orange internet sign, then leaned over and typed "orange" into the password blank. Still, she was denied. This meant either she'd changed her password--not likely given her inability to login in the first place--or she'd gotten her username wrong. I was pretty sure the later was the case, as she'd gone through five username choices when she'd set up the account back in July. I should have just gone up front and re-read my original write up of the event and then I would have remembered it was her dog's name. As it stood, though, I only recalled the password and only because I had a memory-link to it taped there on the monitor itself. Still, I was pretty sure her original one, whatever it was, had three numbers affixed to the end of it and the one she kept trying then didn't.
"Are you sure that's the right username?"
"Oh, yes. This is it," she said.
"Didn't you have numbers in it?
"Oh, no. This one is it."
Yet, wonder upon wonders, it still didn't work! In fact, Hotmail gave no indication that there was any sort of account with that particular username. It didn't even give us the I'M A DAMNED MORON AND FORGOT MY PASSWORD link, cause the password wasn't the problem.
After a few more unsuccessful attempts, I suggested she would be better off starting from scratch. I loaded up the New Account page and then I hauled ass for the front to get a pencil and paper, which I brought to her and, yet again, told her to write down her username and password AS SOON AS SHE HAD CHOSEN THEM. Then I got the hell out of the computer hall so as to avoid any accidental chokings.
I knew running away was futile. Throughout the oh-so-lengthy Hotmail signup process, Ms. Phyte kept coming to find me and drag me back to answer obscenely simple questions for her. Like: "What time zone are we in?" and "What does it mean when it says `Type in the characters you see in the security image'?" While answering these and many other questions, I took a gander at the paper I'd given her to write everything on. She'd written a username on it all right, but it didn't actually match up with the one I saw on the screen which had a _wholeotherword affixed to it.
Dammit, why can't people figure shit like this out? You have to write down the WHOLE USERNAME!!! Not half of it!!! ALL OF IT!!!!
With admirable restraint, I told her this in far more polite terms and with less verbal violence than I really wanted to use.
"I hope I'm not keeping you from anything?" she said after finally writing the whole username down.
"Oh, no," I said. "I have to be here until seven anyway."
At ten minutes before closing time, a full thirty-five minutes after she'd begun the Hotmail sign up process, Ms. Phyte finally finished up. I checked over her work, told her to hit continue, then I personally skipped through all of Hotmail's Spam Sign-Up pages and showed her the new account...
...again.
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
"Lemme in! I gotta use the innanet!"
Wow. Today was craptastic, bordering on shitacular!
Lots of irritating and bad things happened to me today and most of the worst of it centered around computers. Sometimes it was our new circulation software, which crashed our circ computer twice for no reason then abandoned all its saved settings in the interim. Mostly, though, it was the patron computers--specifically the patrons using them--that gave me the most headaches.
We were lousy with computer patrons--a full 42 of them by the end of the day, which I think may be a new internet crowd record. At no time between the hours of 1 and 4 were there fewer than three computers in full use with at least one person, usually two, waiting to take a turn. It was amazing and incredibly frustrating.
And yet people kept coming in--often in groups. Yes, sir, they'd arrive, three deep already, with hopeful happy "I'm going to use the internet" expressions on their innocent little faces only to have their expectations crushed by the grumpy "liberry" ass. at the desk.
My oft-repeated mantra became: "Sorry, it may be a while. They're all full right now and there are two people waiting ahead of you. The soonest I could put you on will be 29 minutes from now unless one of them dies or gives up."
One of the computer patrons was an utter newbie to the world of the internet. She signed on as instructed and asked, "Could one of you come put me on the internet. It's been a while since I've used it." I think by "a while" she really meant, "I once saw someone else use a computer. On TV. From across a very smoky room."
I logged her on and showed her the Internet Explorer icon, which I activated, bringing up the program. I assumed she knew what to do from there and left her for her half hour. She departed a while later, but came back after a couple of hours to sign on again. This time, I just logged the computer on, figuring she'd been taught about how to load IE already. Well, she did load it, but just barely. After she eventually called me back to help her again, I saw that she had made it as far as our home page and had managed to open up some kind of funky Windows program screen that I'd never seen before. I had to close it all out and double click the IE icon for her, a feat which seemed to delight and amaze her.
As she shortly explained, she was trying to apply for a job somewhere but needed an e-mail address. Someone had suggested she come to the library and sign up for a Hotmail address. They'd even written www.hotmail.com on a piece of paper for her, but she had no clue as to where to type in the address. Only then did I finally realize just what an internet neophyte she truly was. Still, I'm happy to help educate newbies where I can, so I showed her the address field and instructed her on the minor points of typing in hotmail.com there. Once that came up, I showed her where to click for a new account, showed her around the application screen. I pointed out the important bits, such as the fact that there was no way in hell she could use her own very common name as the username and not have a five digit number affixed to it. I should have known something was amiss, though, when she seemed to have trouble with the whole concept of passwords. She kept asking me if the password was supposed to be the same as her username.
"Well, I guess it could be, but I don't recommend it," I told her. "Hotmail might not even let you do that."
No, Hotmail most certainly DID NOT want her to do that. In fact, this is exactly what Hotmail was telling her to stop doing when I went back to check on her 15 minutes later. It also didn't want her to use spaces or punctuation in her password.
"I don't understand," she kept saying. "I'm not typing in any spaces or punctuation but it says I can't use that password."
"Is your password your name then?"
"Uh, yes," the woman said, looking at me with an expression that suggested she thought I was some sort of psychic to have guessed her impossible password.
"Don't use your name," I said. "Hotmail won't accept it."
"Oh," she said. She immediately typed in variations on her name twice more and twice more Hotmail refused to accept them.
Over the course of the next ten minutes I struggled to persuade her to stop doing this and to choose something different. I also told her she needed to write down whatever she chose. Did she? Oh, no. Instead, she moved on to the next screen where her chosen user ID of her name was rejected on account it didn't have the aforementioned 5 digit number affixed to it. She didn't like that option, though, so she decided to use her dog's name. This also didn't work, cause there are thousands of other Hotmail users who use her dog's name too.
While sorting this out, she wound up having to go back through the password business again as apparently something had gone amiss somewhere in the process, then back through the username section where she finally settled on her dog's name plus 278. I then made her take my pen and write this down.
Eventually, we got into her new Hotmail account. Knowing how confusing the whole process was for her, I wanted to log her out, then hold her hand and lead her through the login process and show here how to use the damned thing. And, of course, when she tried to log in, Hotmail refused to accept her password.
Another ten minutes crawled by as she tried variations on her name, her dog's name and then capitalized versions of the previous. And because she hadn't written the password down at the same time she wrote her username down, both of which I'd told her to do, she now had no idea what password she'd chosen.
Finally, I convinced her to just use the I'm a damned moron and can't remember my password for five whole minutes link, answer her secret question, (answer: her dog's name), and finally get to choose a new password. Naturally, she tried to use her frickin' dog's name again and screwed it all up!
"Ma'am, you CAN. NOT. use your dog's name, nor YOUR name as a password," I said, practically hissing. "Your username is already your dog's name so Hotmail will NOT accept it as a password. You will HAVE to use a completely different and unrelated word."
"Well, I don't know. You pick one for me," she said, when we'd brought up the new password screen again.
I pointed to our new orange internet sign, flipped back over the top of the monitor.
"Orange," I said.
She shrugged and typed it in.
With that Herculean task finally accomplished, I prepared to leave her to her own devices.
"So now I can just go to the job site?" she asked. I looked and saw her pointing to her piece of paper, where the job site's address was written as well.
"Sure thing," I said. "Just type it in the address line there."
I then left the computer hallway, hauled ass for the circ desk, and told Mrs. C I was going on break.
When I returned, half an hour later, the lady was gone. Mrs. C said she'd had to go back and help the woman twice before finally realizing that the woman firmly believed her new Hotmail username and password would serve as her username and password for the job site. They might have, if she'd had an account with the job site to begin with. Both of them quickly realized that this was not something that needed to be tackled today and the woman left.
Lots of irritating and bad things happened to me today and most of the worst of it centered around computers. Sometimes it was our new circulation software, which crashed our circ computer twice for no reason then abandoned all its saved settings in the interim. Mostly, though, it was the patron computers--specifically the patrons using them--that gave me the most headaches.
We were lousy with computer patrons--a full 42 of them by the end of the day, which I think may be a new internet crowd record. At no time between the hours of 1 and 4 were there fewer than three computers in full use with at least one person, usually two, waiting to take a turn. It was amazing and incredibly frustrating.
And yet people kept coming in--often in groups. Yes, sir, they'd arrive, three deep already, with hopeful happy "I'm going to use the internet" expressions on their innocent little faces only to have their expectations crushed by the grumpy "liberry" ass. at the desk.
My oft-repeated mantra became: "Sorry, it may be a while. They're all full right now and there are two people waiting ahead of you. The soonest I could put you on will be 29 minutes from now unless one of them dies or gives up."
One of the computer patrons was an utter newbie to the world of the internet. She signed on as instructed and asked, "Could one of you come put me on the internet. It's been a while since I've used it." I think by "a while" she really meant, "I once saw someone else use a computer. On TV. From across a very smoky room."
I logged her on and showed her the Internet Explorer icon, which I activated, bringing up the program. I assumed she knew what to do from there and left her for her half hour. She departed a while later, but came back after a couple of hours to sign on again. This time, I just logged the computer on, figuring she'd been taught about how to load IE already. Well, she did load it, but just barely. After she eventually called me back to help her again, I saw that she had made it as far as our home page and had managed to open up some kind of funky Windows program screen that I'd never seen before. I had to close it all out and double click the IE icon for her, a feat which seemed to delight and amaze her.
As she shortly explained, she was trying to apply for a job somewhere but needed an e-mail address. Someone had suggested she come to the library and sign up for a Hotmail address. They'd even written www.hotmail.com on a piece of paper for her, but she had no clue as to where to type in the address. Only then did I finally realize just what an internet neophyte she truly was. Still, I'm happy to help educate newbies where I can, so I showed her the address field and instructed her on the minor points of typing in hotmail.com there. Once that came up, I showed her where to click for a new account, showed her around the application screen. I pointed out the important bits, such as the fact that there was no way in hell she could use her own very common name as the username and not have a five digit number affixed to it. I should have known something was amiss, though, when she seemed to have trouble with the whole concept of passwords. She kept asking me if the password was supposed to be the same as her username.
"Well, I guess it could be, but I don't recommend it," I told her. "Hotmail might not even let you do that."
No, Hotmail most certainly DID NOT want her to do that. In fact, this is exactly what Hotmail was telling her to stop doing when I went back to check on her 15 minutes later. It also didn't want her to use spaces or punctuation in her password.
"I don't understand," she kept saying. "I'm not typing in any spaces or punctuation but it says I can't use that password."
"Is your password your name then?"
"Uh, yes," the woman said, looking at me with an expression that suggested she thought I was some sort of psychic to have guessed her impossible password.
"Don't use your name," I said. "Hotmail won't accept it."
"Oh," she said. She immediately typed in variations on her name twice more and twice more Hotmail refused to accept them.
Over the course of the next ten minutes I struggled to persuade her to stop doing this and to choose something different. I also told her she needed to write down whatever she chose. Did she? Oh, no. Instead, she moved on to the next screen where her chosen user ID of her name was rejected on account it didn't have the aforementioned 5 digit number affixed to it. She didn't like that option, though, so she decided to use her dog's name. This also didn't work, cause there are thousands of other Hotmail users who use her dog's name too.
While sorting this out, she wound up having to go back through the password business again as apparently something had gone amiss somewhere in the process, then back through the username section where she finally settled on her dog's name plus 278. I then made her take my pen and write this down.
Eventually, we got into her new Hotmail account. Knowing how confusing the whole process was for her, I wanted to log her out, then hold her hand and lead her through the login process and show here how to use the damned thing. And, of course, when she tried to log in, Hotmail refused to accept her password.
Another ten minutes crawled by as she tried variations on her name, her dog's name and then capitalized versions of the previous. And because she hadn't written the password down at the same time she wrote her username down, both of which I'd told her to do, she now had no idea what password she'd chosen.
Finally, I convinced her to just use the I'm a damned moron and can't remember my password for five whole minutes link, answer her secret question, (answer: her dog's name), and finally get to choose a new password. Naturally, she tried to use her frickin' dog's name again and screwed it all up!
"Ma'am, you CAN. NOT. use your dog's name, nor YOUR name as a password," I said, practically hissing. "Your username is already your dog's name so Hotmail will NOT accept it as a password. You will HAVE to use a completely different and unrelated word."
"Well, I don't know. You pick one for me," she said, when we'd brought up the new password screen again.
I pointed to our new orange internet sign, flipped back over the top of the monitor.
"Orange," I said.
She shrugged and typed it in.
With that Herculean task finally accomplished, I prepared to leave her to her own devices.
"So now I can just go to the job site?" she asked. I looked and saw her pointing to her piece of paper, where the job site's address was written as well.
"Sure thing," I said. "Just type it in the address line there."
I then left the computer hallway, hauled ass for the circ desk, and told Mrs. C I was going on break.
When I returned, half an hour later, the lady was gone. Mrs. C said she'd had to go back and help the woman twice before finally realizing that the woman firmly believed her new Hotmail username and password would serve as her username and password for the job site. They might have, if she'd had an account with the job site to begin with. Both of them quickly realized that this was not something that needed to be tackled today and the woman left.
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