{"id":876,"date":"2021-03-28T17:30:52","date_gmt":"2021-03-28T22:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kurmudgeon.net\/?p=876"},"modified":"2021-03-28T17:30:52","modified_gmt":"2021-03-28T22:30:52","slug":"rant-everythings-a-chore-atms-passwords-and-bears-oh-my","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kurmudgeon.net\/index.php\/2021\/03\/28\/rant-everythings-a-chore-atms-passwords-and-bears-oh-my\/","title":{"rendered":"Rant: Everything’s a Chore… ATMs, Passwords, and Bears, Oh My!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Everything’s a chore<\/strong><\/p>\n

Computers and technology were supposed to make life easier.\u00a0 Computers and technology were supposed to give us more free time.\u00a0 Granted, most of us aren’t churning our own butter anymore, so there are certainly benefits to our modem lifestyle in the information age, but it’s not all a cakewalk, either.\u00a0 Now, the following examples aren’t life threatening, they aren’t going to bring you to your knees, and they most certainly aren’t the most important thing you will deal with.\u00a0 But they are annoying, frustrating, high blood pressure inducing… and they are most certainly unnecessary time stealers, and they’re all a byproduct of computers and technology.\u00a0 Here’s just a few of them…<\/p>\n

Getting a new debit card<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am the Treasurer for a local Toastmasters club.\u00a0 The old debit card had expired and I got a new card in the mail.\u00a0 Called and activated it and set the PIN.\u00a0 So far, so good.\u00a0 Then kept getting declined when I went to pay people’s dues, so I called the bank. Turns out I have to use it at an ATM as a second step, then it would work fine. *sigh*\u00a0 Ok, thank you, I cheerily said.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, I had to get in the car, drive to a bank, check my balance, and drive back home. Then it worked fine. *smh*<\/span><\/p>\n

“For your protection…”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last Saturday I had a photo shoot and on my way out of town stopped at a convenience store for some drinks for the ride.\u00a0 My debit card (from a small local credit union) got declined.\u00a0 Hmmm, that’s weird, I know there’s plenty of money in the account.\u00a0 I try four times, declined every time, so I pull out a credit card and pay.<\/p>\n

I then go to the ATM at said credit union which happened to be right next door.\u00a0 The ATM looks suspicious like when I computer has been reset.\u00a0 Had to go to the photo shoot, so I can’t call the credit union until Monday… which is another pet peeve of mine… you want people to abandon big banks and go local, then have someone to answer phones and deal with people during off hours.\u00a0 But I digress.<\/p>\n

Monday morning and I try the card again.\u00a0 No go.\u00a0 Good thing I had cash on me, which I normally don’t anymore.\u00a0 I decide to visit said credit union branch in person.<\/p>\n

To cut to the chase, through three visits to their ATM, and two visits inside to talk to a person, it turns out there was a “scheduled maintenance” (skeptical, there is no email evidence of such in my email) of the system on Saturday morning and my card usage was bad timing.\u00a0 Then, because I tried four times, which is one more than the maximum of three allowed, my card was locked.<\/p>\n

I’m sorry, but if it’s YOUR down time, then shouldn’t YOU be aware enough to make sure these things don’t happen?\u00a0 Plus, back to the big bank vs credit union thing, big banks don’t have down times for “scheduled maintenance”, yet small banks and credit unions do.\u00a0 It’s the 21st century, get with the program.<\/p>\n

Passwords<\/strong><\/p>\n

How do you do your passwords for internet sites?\u00a0 Do you have one for everything?\u00a0 Do you mix them up?\u00a0 Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter what you want to do, you can’t do that.<\/p>\n

You can’t have a single password for everything (which they say is a bad idea).\u00a0 All require letters, but some require at least one capital letter, some require at least one number, some require at least one “special character” (i.e.: !@#$%, etc., and not all allow the same special characters), and none all have the same requirements, it’s a mix-and-match, so even if you wanted to have one password you can’t.<\/p>\n

So, you have many different passwords.\u00a0 Ok.\u00a0 How do you remember them all?\u00a0 Do you write them down on a piece of paper or a computer file?\u00a0 They say you’re not supposed to do that either, btw.<\/p>\n

How about one of those password organization sites?\u00a0 I would think the chances of that getting hacked is greater than little ol’ me getting hacked.<\/p>\n

There is no perfect answer.\u00a0 And don’t even get me started on requirements to change my password every so often.<\/p>\n

Money and ATMs<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the great things where small banks and credit unions shine over the big banks is doing the small things to make life easier for the customer.\u00a0 (That’s you and me, btw.)\u00a0 One of these things is allowing ATM withdrawals in $5 increments.\u00a0 This is so handy.\u00a0 Sometimes I just need $5 or $10 for something small, and there is no need to force me to drain my account more than necessary.<\/p>\n

Within the last year two of my credit unions have changed their policy and now only allow $20 increments.\u00a0 This does not serve me well, and removes one of the key points for being with a credit union.\u00a0 If I’m going to be treated like I’m at a big bank I might as well do business with a big bank and gain the added benefits, like the ability to call on a Saturday evening and talk to someone and get my issues solved.\u00a0 (See what I did there?)<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

This turned out wordy.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude1b<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everything’s a chore Computers and technology were supposed to make life easier.\u00a0 Computers and technology were supposed to give us more free time.\u00a0 Granted, most of us aren’t churning our own butter anymore, so there are certainly benefits to our modem lifestyle in the information age, but it’s not all a cakewalk, either.\u00a0 Now, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,10,14,16,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annoyances","category-daily-life","category-rant","category-technology","category-trends"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kurmudgeon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kurmudgeon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kurmudgeon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kurmudgeon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kurmudgeon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=876"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/kurmudgeon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":890,"href":"https:\/\/kurmudgeon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876\/revisions\/890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kurmudgeon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kurmudgeon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kurmudgeon.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}