About two weeks ago, I had a problem with the gas bill. I went to the web site, and I couldn’t log in. I know that when we first moved into the house I signed up for the web sites of all our utilities, so it was just a matter of remembering a pin or getting the account number right. After hours of messing with it, I gave up and called in to argue my bill and make the payment (a pleasure they charge extra for, mind you). I then sent an email to the tech support of the web site with the various error messages and other problems I had using the web site … and to tell them the phone service never verified that my payment went through (it said to check at the web site).
Today I finally get an email back from them. Yeah, so glad it wasn’t URGENT or anything.
End result? I had both the email and the PIN wrong. I forgot I had signed up with Lin’s email address, which was why it wasn’t sending me a new PIN at any of mine. Well, guess what? They sent my account number, my new PIN and all relevant information on how to log into the account to an email address that was not listed as belonging to us. It could have belonged to anyone, so anyone at all could go to the web site, try to log in to my account, not be able to, and then send an email to tech support using their email address and get the information to log in. Not that there’s much they could do (no stored credit card info) … other than pay the bill, turn off the gas account, and get all our personal phone numbers. Yeah, that’s real secure, isn’t it? I suppose I will have to email tech support again to complain about this. I think I’ll cc it to the local utility commission as well. I am highly annoyed.
I think I will test this at the other utility web sites just to see if they are any more secure. I certainly hope so.
Bureaucracies spend more time and money promoting pleasing illusions of such things as security, than they do implementing them. They do so because Americans have tacitly agreed to be bamboozled, as long as it’s done with a smile.
Quantity will always trump quality in our culture because the majority of us reflexively want more than we possibly could need. Walmart understands this and makes billions selling junk in high volume. This superficiality pervades all areas of suit and tie America, including the billing office of the gas company.
A couple of hours listening in on the conversation of some business school types, aside from revealing their appalling lack of social engagement, would instruct one more in the true nature of this country’s motivations than most anything else. About all we can do is anticipate their moves and limit our contact.
As convenient as all the auto payment, pay on line, pay on the phone stuff is, I think I am going to go back to sticking a check in an envelope and close all my on line accounts with these people. I used to think the check thing wasn’t secure enough, but it sure beats the hell out of what they call on line security.
About all we can do is anticipate their moves and limit our contact.
Which was the decision I made when I left corporate America … get the hell away from these people!!! I played the “game” well enough to get to middle management, but it was obvious that I was being used and abused by those above me, and I wasn’t nearly cut-throat enough to ever go any higher in the ranks. That all left me pretty miserable every damn day.
I didn’t just walk in and quit though, I tested limits on my way out. First it was the leg tattoo. Then I stopped wearing make-up. Then I stopped spending an hour or more primping my hair into a perfect coif every day. Then I just started wearing whatever I wanted to to work … nothing bizarre, but certainly not business suits. It was at that point they began asking if I was unhappy or something. “Well, now that you mention it …” :lol:
I’ll never forget sitting in my office the day I decided to hand in my carefully crafted resignation letter. I got a call from home office asking me to go to Dallas for a month to open a new store and do all the staff training (something I enjoyed doing a lot). I stuffed my letter back in my purse and decided that a month long vacation with a company credit line was just the thing I needed … so I took it. I guess maybe they thought I was going to change my mind about leaving. Didn’t happen. I quit the week I got back. I’d have gone stark raving mad had I stayed. Business people are EVIL (probably not all, but the ones I worked with were).