I hate open enrollment

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Ugggghhhhh....

I was speaking with my mom about my troubles getting my pay statements, and she told me there's a law saying that if I cannot access my pay statement online, I have to be given a paper copy. If this is true, I'm really close to playing this card.

I finally had a chance to sit down at the computer in the offices at work yesterday. I tried changing my passwords. Didn't work.

Then I had to call the help desk. They checked their systems to make sure I was registered; everything checked out there. They had me change my password a couple times. Still didn't work.

As I'm telling the help desk person all this, she's all "Well this shouldn't be happening." Guess what, it is.

She told me that my login information was "getting stuck in the system somewhere," whatever that means, and told me that a script was going to have to be written to allow me access, whatever that means. She also said I was going to be sent a new temporary password, which I was to use to log in to ADP and then change.

All this over the course of at least 45 minutes, during which time I had to have somebody cover carryouts for me, and it happened to get really busy while I was shitting around with all this. I'm sure retribution will be swift in coming.

I got the e-mail with the temporary password and tried to log in just now. It didn't take it. And I'm locked out of the system. Again.

I am definitely going to be too busy to try it again today, and probably too busy next week also. And this is one of those things where it's probably best I do it at work, so I can call the help desk or HR right away if I have problems. But I can't just drop everything and do it if there's more important stuff going on.

Seriously. This is fucking bullshit. My own information is being withheld from me for no reason other than ADP and/or the help desk doesn't have its shit together.

[Naaman]

the help desk doesn't have its shit together

Not necessarily true. The help desk management may not have it's shit together, often when I was working helpdesk we'd only hear about new systems through the rumour mill or when a customer phoned because 'spanky new product' wasn't working.

Apparently we'd have had time allotted to training but they scheduled it for the busy periods, the management then made a decision to keep us on the phones so as not to kill the KPIs. If we did get a problem we were meant to escalate to the 4 techies who knew anything about it... if they weren't too busy fielding the other 20 calls about the product

[BarbieGirl]

Makes me really appreciate my husbands job with the open enrollment. We get a letter stating this is who is on it and here is your coverage, if we don't hear from you then it all just stays the same.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Ye ol' Litter Box has the online enrollment now, which started last year.

No more booklets and either mailing or calling the information in - it's online only.

Luckily for me, I can remember my PIN (and it's conveniently located on my paystubs too) and passcode so I can access my information.

We also have the option of getting online paystubs, but there are times when you just have to have that printed copy, so I stick with getting a hardcopy every other week that shows how many hours I worked, my gross pay, deductions, vacation time left, how much was deposited into my bank account (yay for Direct Deposit!) et al.

And our annual enrollment begins this week and runs through the last day of November. Can't wait to see what "options *coughbullshitcough* they'll give us for the upcoming year. . .

[Andara Bledin]

Irv, where do you keep your financial documents, such as the pink slip for your car and your copies of your tax returns? Keep your benefits information in that same place, and write your password on those documents.

We still get paper copies of our checks, so we don't have any issues with knowing how much vacation or sick time we have available.

I don't think I'd trust a paperless pay stub. I'd want to have a physical copy of how many hours were logged for work, and what my benefits were. There's just too much hinky stuff that can be pulled when all of the data is virtual, only.

Our passwords expire after 90 days or so and we have to come up with a new one every 3 months. You can't use one you've used before either and it has to be at least 7 characters but no more than 8. Also has to include numbers and letters. It's a nightmare trying to come up with a new password all the time and even more of a nightmare to try to remember it when you don't use it that often.

I have one that I use very regularly that expires every 40 days. And it can't be changed in between without calling in and waiting on hold for half an hour.

I use a password based partially around the date and a codeword. Works quite well.

I don't understand sites that make their passwords so complex and convoluted that the users have no choice but to write them down.

I use Firefox to save all my passwords, and then I passworded my Firefox so I have to log into it to have it enter anything. Works great for me, especially since my system is available for semi-public use thrice yearly.

^-.-^

[Retail Associate]

I've taken to using the same word and just going up a number (Example01, Example02, etc).

That's what I've been doing. I've used 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and now I'm on 8. I've got 0, 1 and 9 left. I'm running outta numbers.

[fireheart]

Our uni passwords were a living nightmare.

Had to be a certain number of characters, couldn't be in an English dictionary and had to include at least one number somewhere. So in the end, I just did mine in Japanese

[Eric the Grey]

I feel kinda bad myself. I'm a tech guy, and have so many damned different passwords.... I have to keep a text file with the least used stuff.... It is horrible, but when you have around 20 different logins JUST FOR WORK, you have to do something.

I'm nearly as bad. I have 15 or 16 different systems I need to log into. When the first one expires, I change them all at the same time, and make them all the same, so I only have one password to remember.

From a helpdesk point of view, I also hate this time of year. My ticket count has gone from 2 or 3 a night, to 15 to 20 a night, all password resets because the password for the HR site is different than every other system we have.

Then I had to call the help desk. They checked their systems to make sure I was registered; everything checked out there. They had me change my password a couple times. Still didn't work.

As I'm telling the help desk person all this, she's all "Well this shouldn't be happening." Guess what, it is.

It sounds like your companies systems are having to interface with ADT's systems, and something is out of whack between the two.


Eric the Grey

[Andara Bledin]

Another option I do sometimes is to use a passphrase instead of just a word, and replace random letters with their 1337 equivalent, and then capitalizing one of the letters.

^-.-^

[bsaana]

From a helpdesk point of view, I also hate this time of year. My ticket count has gone from 2 or 3 a night, to 15 to 20 a night, all password resets because the password for the HR site is different than every other system we have.

Thank God in my support job my coworker and I don't have to deal with that. I believe it is handled by the State IT people. We've never been called for it. However.... My company has a lot of our own software. Can't find documentation anywhere because the programmers here wrote it. Guess who gets to support software we don't understand or know very well yet? Its a great job though, and I get to sit at home in shorts to answer help desk calls .