The Five Stages of too Many Attempts

My hands froze hovering over the keyboard and mouse. There might have been a slight twitch in my eye, though honestly, that’s not where my focus was. The oppressive glow of the fluorescent lights off the government-gray walls for once is not the current cause of my forming headache.

“This is a joke, right?” I stared at the three words that had become my whole world: reset, your, and password. Really there were four words, but the feigned, fake, faux politeness of the word 'please' was absolutely without a doubt lost on me.

Clearly whoever programmed this warning screen did so with the intent to mock me with the pulsing red border on the pop-up that synced itself with my heartbeat. Could have been the other way around. Was the room getting hotter? Surely not, the grating hum of the air conditioner was still there. Is this a panic attack? But I don’t panic, not after three tours. I most certainly do not panic. It could be some kind of neurotoxin?

It has to be that, I’m being attacked. There’s no way I got the password wrong three times. Maybe someone toyed with the keyboard and disabled the capslock’s light.

I press the malfunctioning key to prove my theory. Light came on. Theory busted. Maybe it’s the num lock key, yeah it must be that. For some crazy reason whenever you boot up the machine it automatically turns it off. Huh, that light seems to be working as well.

Both keyboard and mouse bounce up on the surface of the desk as I feel shuddering pain lance up my arm. The desk is made with real wood, not that cheap particle board. Real wood hurts. I soothe the throbbing hand with the other to ward off the remaining pain. Frustrated when I see that the trash can is on the other side of the room by the door to be put outside for the cleaning crew, I choose not to peel the busted skin off my knuckle.

Shaking both hands out to reset their functional status. “Come on baby, be nice for daddy. You know I didn’t mean it.” I gently caress the top of the keyboard with one hand and the side of the monitor with the other.

“I promise to give you a good restart if you just let me try one more time. Pretty please.”

Dear god, am I trying to sweet-talk a computer? Yes. Yes, I am. The fidgeting in my legs has turned into full-on bouncing, nearly involuntary like electrodes have been shocking the muscles into action.

This isn’t good. Not good at all. I’m going to lose my job over this. Going to get the sack. The pink slip. The good ole boot out the door.

The great heaving sigh helps a little to ease some of the worries. “Oh well, I guess it can’t be helped now.”

Resigned to my fate, I pick up the phone and press the red button I’m not supposed to push unless it’s an emergency. Technically this counts as an emergency, I think. I heard the phone ring twice before the telltale click as the other end was picked up.

“Mr. President,” I paused to gather my breath and thoughts. “The space force task management system’s password needs to be reset.” The silence is excruciating before the voice on the other end speaks up.

“Again?” The one-word question was filled with annoyed exasperation. The silence dragged out once more, I didn’t know how to respond. “Unbelievable, just hold on.”

So I held on. I might have held my breath too. No, I did, cause I didn’t release it until the President spoke into the phone again. While he put the phone down I could hear him bemoaning something about inheriting problems from the previous administration. After he spoke the chief of staff’s name the rest of the conversation became garbled. I sat upright and alert to the sounds of the receiver being jostled.

“Password reset has been authorized.” I was able to release my breath and the President continued. “For the sake of my sanity please choose a password that you and your team will actually remember.”

“Yessir.”

“Don’t forget to update the poster.”

“Yessir.”

The line went dead as the President hung up the phone. I stared at the screen and waited for the ‘reset your password’ button to become active. I was all too eager when the inactive gray background turned to a deep azure blue and allowed me to click it.

I punched in the new password that followed the requirements and adhered to the creation policy my team agreed upon. Sweat formed again when I picked up the phone receiver to make a second call, grateful I had an assistant who would have to inform the rest of the divisions that use the task management system of the password change for their systems. I don’t think I could survive mentally if I had to make those calls as well.

The chair creaked as I leaned back to a precarious angle and I took a beat to collect myself. Finally, I was able to take stock of the aftermath, noticeably it was less chaotic than the last time this happened. It was a good call to move most of the throwables away from the desk.

Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, I could feel the pain in my hand again. Blood welled up in the crater of the broken skin on my knuckle. Was going to have to take care of that next which caused me to locate the trash can again. It was still, by the door on the floor right under the poster I still needed to update.

Defeated and slouched, I ambled to the poster and erased the 29 scrawled on the blank line in dry erase maker and replaced it with a big old zero. ‘It has been 0 days since the last password reset.’

“Almost made it a month. Too bad it wasn’t February.”