Password Persecution

“I know I entered my password correctly! I just know it!!!” the employee said struggling to maintain composure as a supervisor stood looming and looking over shoulders walking back and forth. “I even had the password display as I typed it in this time so I know and NO it saying that I was inputting it in incorrectly!”. “I used to just believe I made a keystroke error or even had confused the many different passwords I try to memorize but this time I checked as I did it AND recorded it!” the employee continued. The supervisor glared and barked “RESET YOUR PASSWORD!” and a coworker the employee hated started it’s mental, emotional, and spiritual abuses AGAIN. “Are you absolutely sure you put it in correctly? It’s sooooooo easy just to make a mistake! Are youuuuuu sure it wasn’t YOU?!?”.

The employee snatched the bodycam off the uniform and uploaded it and then watched each keystroke both on the keyboard and screen on the video. For months the employee had been second guessing everything from performance competency to even sanity with the various issues including constant sign in issues and other glitches often resulting in verbal and even written warnings. Now the employee felt vindicated and began to put together the underlying scenario at play. Rather than reset the password the employee asked in a loud voice “Why is the supervisor always looking over shoulders during sign in at the beginning of every shift?!?” and the supervisor suddenly blushed and quickly walked away. The employee didn’t stop there and began pointing at the security cameras on the ceiling. “They could be watching us ALL sign in from the security cameras TOO!” the comment generating a collective gasp throughout the office.

Other employees who had been harassed for transactions they didn’t recall making and also had been getting sign-in errors started to murmur. “Do you ALL see it?!? Do you see how they’ve been playing with our damn minds in here?!?” the employee continued. The supervisor returned but went into the monitor cubicle rather than continuing to pace the floor. The employee knew in that moment the suspicion was correct. ALL the chittering and whispering the supervisor and that hated coworker shared in the break room suddenly made sense. A “RESET YOUR PASSWORD!!” prompt suddenly appeared on every computer terminal.

“How many of you reset your password only to have it say the new password and/or username wasn’t put in correctly on the first attempt but then it functioned correctly on the second try?!?” the employee asked loudly and at least half of the office raised their hands and otherwise indicated they had. “THAT IS HOW THE SHADY EMPLOYEES IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TAKE YOUR FIRST LOGIN TO GAIN ACCESS TOO!” the employee screamed finally losing ALL composure! Some other employees already had started to gather their personal items together as was the screaming employee!

It was suddenly very clear what that employer had been doing. The other employees remembered ALL the puzzled coworkers they’d seen lose their jobs at crucial moments when their pay scale would have increased. Some sobbing as they left the office accused of improprieties they said they’d never commit. It was all a big scam and that employee had revealed it and created an office walkout! About three quarters of the staff quit that day realizing what they’d been subjected to. Later they all waged a class action lawsuit and received an out of court settlement that although didn’t make them rich allowed them enough to never work again at that socio-economic level. “RESET YOUR PASSWORD” the employee said throwing the identification access lanyard on the desk and leaving for the last time.