I Think it's Way Too Late

[1313]

Not to keep beating a dead horse (well yes, to hamburger), this is from the diary I'm keeping as something happens almost daily: ("A" will be assistant, "X" is service provider)

2/18
Asked to get in to house, went from today to tomorrow to accommodate schedule for "A".

This afternoon "A" starts calling me because once again she’s having email problems. This usually starts as soon as I ask to get into the house.

To clarify, to have personal email accounts at "RE Office" (which is what they want), you need to use secure ports and SSL encryption. This has been problematic from the start as they often change the protocols and I’ve had to change port settings multiple times. Also, if "RE Office" is having internet issues, it is assumed it’s something to do with outlook, the email etc. all of which become my fault.

On this day she said outlook wasn’t working, but could give me no specifics. I told her to log in on her webmail and use that. But she can’t remember her password for her webmail, and blames me as “I’m the system administrator” and should remember her password. Originally when setting it up I probably asked her for something really simple she’d remember (birthday, name, the word “password”, "12345" etc.), and then set up her email on outlook using that password. She began getting hostile, and I would ask her not to yell.

She would say it’s because she can’t hear anything (hearing problems). So if I raised my voice so she could hear, she’d say I was yelling. (I was sitting in the same room with my Mother and house keeper at the time - so I wasn't yelling, just talking loudly). If I asked if she could tell me what message outlook was giving her as far as error to troubleshoot, she couldn’t tell me, nor could she say why she thought it wasn’t sending and receiving.

I went to go to my "X" account, and the browser didn’t remember the password – and I couldn’t find it. I haven’t logged onto this account in probably at least a year or longer. My password is usually a randomly generated multi-character password for something like this.

I didn’t want to call "X" right then and there as my home phone etc are all different.

She then texted me and asked if I was going to give her my administrator password yes or no! (I have text messages). I asked her to what (the PC, the email account, the "X" account?) – as I had just told her I couldn’t log into "X". She answered “to what” with “because we need it”. Then “anything we need to do to help u we will”. I then asked again, specifically what she was talking about. She said “we need the administrator password to do my job! Are u going to help me or not?”

Again I asked her what she was talking about – and clarified again in case she didn’t understand if it was the "X" account she was asking about – I couldn’t/wouldn't give it to her. I would not give her the password to my administrative account to all of the domains and emails I have. I said after I talk to them I would set her up with a new password. I asked her twice to check the wife’s computer to see if her email from the same domain was having problems, that would help me understand/troubleshoot her issue.

She finally answered the wife's PC wasn't available. I then asked her again if she tried her birthday and her name, and received no answer. So as in past occasions, I will send several potential passwords and don’t hear if it solved the problem. I will usually guess it did, and not hear back for a day or two or 10.


This is what I entered before I got access to the house, talked to the assistant again, and was again told to change the password. I still need to enter 2/19, I was just so flabbergasted about my phone I never did.

Have I been too much of a nice guy? Yes. That stopped this weekend. As you see, I spent way too much time on this - and the diary is already looking like, well, a diary.