My current boss who said she was retiring about 5 years ago (but didn’t…) used Excel as a password manager but would create her own little “boxes” of merged cells, then when she wanted to clear the contents of a merged cell she’d select the whole area and delete entire rows and columns, but she wouldn’t notice, so later then complain that the Gen Z office admin was “deleting important passwords” and when I pointed out that it was the boss doing that she’d either deny it, or repeat her process while paying closer attention then blame “Microsoft doing stupid things with this new Excel, it didn’t do this before the cloud” (don’t ask me why she thought her excel 2010 was on the cloud, other than the fact she saved this doc in Dropbox)
Said scape goat office admin transferred everything to OneNote when we did get finally get Microsoft 365, so at least the boss would stop accidentally deleting everything when trying to edit one thing.
Then the boss started to get annoyed at me for all my “stupid and impossible passwords”, how dare I have passwords like “nf6oO!D4t^q%Tnr3” and “&x#5Fr$s68iETYof”. I asked why it’s a problem, just copy and paste, my passwords are like that because I generate mine within a password manager and I’m not changing my process, I’m already heavily compromising by putting my passwords in her silly OneNote so she can log into accounts I’ve set up.
She had all her passwords in this document, but she wasn’t even using it to copy paste. She’d look at the document to read the password then type it out manually…
I showed her my password manager so she’d understand how useful it is, turns out our MSP had already set one up for her! But she didn’t like it because “it always asks me to check a code on my phone just to see my passwords, it takes too long to faff around with my phone, OneNote is just as secure because it’s in the Dropbox and you can’t get into the Dropbox without the password.”
Our industry was notoriously late to go digital, even in 2020 I heard of organisations physically mailing out letters to clients because no one had an established individual user email system
Our industry (community centres and non accredited adult education) dominated by grannies, retireees who volunteer, and council workers that burnt out and don’t care to change the status quo the grannies have set up.
I think my boss used to be sharper in her prime (or rather, I know she was, because I’ve seen examples of her work from 20 years ago), but she’s in her mid seventies, and the lead poisoning and chemo-brain have taken their toll on her.
Years ago, I’ve recommended KeePass to a girl from marketing who kept a long list of passwords on paper on her desk. She forgot the master pass after a week or so. That was the end of my trust in users’ ability to maintain a safe environment.
Whew, glad you didn’t say it wasn’t a password manager…
My old boss used it a password manager, no kidding…
My current boss who said she was retiring about 5 years ago (but didn’t…) used Excel as a password manager but would create her own little “boxes” of merged cells, then when she wanted to clear the contents of a merged cell she’d select the whole area and delete entire rows and columns, but she wouldn’t notice, so later then complain that the Gen Z office admin was “deleting important passwords” and when I pointed out that it was the boss doing that she’d either deny it, or repeat her process while paying closer attention then blame “Microsoft doing stupid things with this new Excel, it didn’t do this before the cloud” (don’t ask me why she thought her excel 2010 was on the cloud, other than the fact she saved this doc in Dropbox)
Said scape goat office admin transferred everything to OneNote when we did get finally get Microsoft 365, so at least the boss would stop accidentally deleting everything when trying to edit one thing.
Then the boss started to get annoyed at me for all my “stupid and impossible passwords”, how dare I have passwords like “nf6oO!D4t^q%Tnr3” and “&x#5Fr$s68iETYof”. I asked why it’s a problem, just copy and paste, my passwords are like that because I generate mine within a password manager and I’m not changing my process, I’m already heavily compromising by putting my passwords in her silly OneNote so she can log into accounts I’ve set up.
She had all her passwords in this document, but she wasn’t even using it to copy paste. She’d look at the document to read the password then type it out manually…
I showed her my password manager so she’d understand how useful it is, turns out our MSP had already set one up for her! But she didn’t like it because “it always asks me to check a code on my phone just to see my passwords, it takes too long to faff around with my phone, OneNote is just as secure because it’s in the Dropbox and you can’t get into the Dropbox without the password.”
Lord help me.
Lord help her! How has she even made it this far in life? 😂
Haha, I know right!
Our industry was notoriously late to go digital, even in 2020 I heard of organisations physically mailing out letters to clients because no one had an established individual user email system
Our industry (community centres and non accredited adult education) dominated by grannies, retireees who volunteer, and council workers that burnt out and don’t care to change the status quo the grannies have set up.
I think my boss used to be sharper in her prime (or rather, I know she was, because I’ve seen examples of her work from 20 years ago), but she’s in her mid seventies, and the lead poisoning and chemo-brain have taken their toll on her.
My old company had a saved spreadsheet on the O:drive called “Passwords”
Our users have had access to Password Safe, then Keepass, then LastPass, now Keeper. Guess what still pops up in screen shares.
Years ago, I’ve recommended KeePass to a girl from marketing who kept a long list of passwords on paper on her desk. She forgot the master pass after a week or so. That was the end of my trust in users’ ability to maintain a safe environment.
Haven’t used keepass but it should ask for master password at least once a day right? Or did she not require any credentials for more than a week?
Keepass will autolock after a minute or so, she used that pass few times a day…
My dad uses it as a password manager