Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Just F***king Fobulous

No, No, that's not a typo. I meant to type fObulous. You see, recently, my company, decided we need to take every measure imaginable to be a secure steward of the private information of our clients. Now, I don't personally work with clients, but some people who work at my job do. But still, I have to go through all of the security measures too.

The first one was having to go through federal security clearance by writing down every place we've ever lived, the names and numbers of every neighbor we've ever had, every job we've ever had, every school we've attended, every car we've ever driven, everyone we've ever dated, slept with, or thought we might have a slight crush on, everything we've ever eaten, every time we've ever sneezed and what we were wearing at the time, and every time we've ever gone number two and what color and consistency it was. They also took fingerprints, mug shots, height, weight, BMI, shoe size, pant size, ring size, and length of our second toe on each foot.

My security paperwork
 During all of this, there were stirrings that we should be scared that something they find out like you once peed your pants because you puked too many times would mean that we were no longer employed at this particular establishment. Then someone who actually knows what the hell they're talking about told me not to worry that no one had been denied security clearance and especially hadn't been fired. But then I was told that they are, in fact, beginning to contact every person you put on your clearance paperwork to make sure you're not a complete effing train wreck. This has me a little freaked out, because not only are the people I put on there going to say that I am a complete train wreck who takes down every small village in my path, but also because I made up half of the people I put on my paper work. Joe Schmoe never lived next to me on Brentwood Drive and his number is definitely not 867-5309. (Note: In case the feds are reading this, that's a lie. No one on my paper work is made up. I just thought this bit was funny the first time I used it. Sorry, Mr. Obama, I won't crack that joke again. But now it lives in internet infamy and will be giggled at for centuries. Who's got the last laugh now??) (Other note: Probably STILL the federal government.)

Then the real bomb dropped last week when we had a meeting in Frankfort. We were informed that, from this point forward, we must carry around a fob that will give us a new code every minute. We must input this code into our computer, or we will be locked out. Let me tell you why this is a problem for me.

Fob and badge. Together they succeed,
together they get lost in my sh*t.
We were also given badges to get in and out of our buildings several months ago, and mine have--at time of publish--been replaced three times. I lost one. I'm pretty sure that one still exists somewhere in my property but its whereabouts are forever unknown. And one was sold with my car. Realizing I'd sold my security badge for a the low-low price of $2000--because the value of my car was at least $6,000 by my estimate and everyone said I was silly to think it was worth that, and they even scoffed at me when I said I was going to price it at $3500. Every car buyer in town jumped at it when I priced it for $2500, and it quickly sold for $2000. Days later, after the transfer, I went to pay the taxes on the blue book value of the car...seven f***ing thousand dollars. So I refuse to say that I took a five grand hit on my car, but rather, like to think of it as selling my picture off my badge for the low price of $2000 and throwing in the car because I'm a good person--I contacted the buyer on multiple occasions, and she would never call me back or drop my badge off. I'm convinced she's saving it for when I'm famous, then she'll make a financial fool of me for the second time in my life.

So not only am I afraid I'm going to lose this fob and have to pay my company a million dollars to have it replaced, but I'm also scared that I'm simply not smart enough to use it, and thus they'll discover my incompetency and simply quit submitting my paycheck realizing I'm too dumb to notice.

Me, Destiny, and Jo graced the IT guys with our collective presence last week when we had to be trained to use our fob. I hold a belief that IT guys have boring lives jobs, but that could be completely unfounded. Much like the belief that someone who drinks as much wine as me is considered an alcoholic. But I am positive that we rocked those IT guys' worlds. In an effort to cover up our fear of being too dumb to continue to be employed by the state of Kentucky, we spent almost a full hour in the IT office making complete fools of ourselves, and generally cracking the guys up. We needed no less than three explanations as to the difference between passwords and passcodes. We refused to follow directions, thus making them have to repeat themselves about 100 times, and we were pretty much preoccupied by making each other laugh the whole time.

This is what Dee did while she was supposed to be paying attention to our fobbing lesson.

At one point, I questioned, because I'd heard this rumor, if the fob tracked us wherever we were going. One IT guy said absolutely not and even if it did, they didn't care where we were, which I know isn't true because if people didn't care where I was and what I did, my phone would never ring, no one would read my blog, and my mom wouldn't think I was dead if she hadn't heard from me in 5 minutes. Also, I'm pretty sure our bosses care we were are because we're being paid to be in a certain place 37.5 hours a week. The other IT guy, when asked--because I insist on polling the audience--said at any given minute, the government could run a report and figure out exactly where each of us is. This is really scary, because I don't really like that someone gets to know sometimes I spend the better part of an hour in the bathroom, sometimes I sneak to Pizza Hut and eat an entire pizza by myself in the dark parking lot, and that I have been spotted in Rue 21 more than once. So I've decided I'm going to start leaving the fob in weird places where no one will mess with it--like the janitor's closet at one of my schools, in a mailbox of a home that's for sale, or in my state representative's trunk--so that if the government decides to track me, they'll think something far more entertaining is going on than what actually is in my life which is usually that yes, I am at the Pizza Hut buffet for the third time this week.
Let me save you a report.
This is where I'll be.

But that gave us a great idea. And by us, I mean Jo, but we now all act as one. We are going to start taking pictures of our fob in funny, random, or exciting places and sending the pictures to our staff with the subject line "Where Have You Been Fobulous Lately?" The IT guys found this pretty funny, until I announced--way too loud--that I was going to take a picture of mine between my butt cheeks because that's both random and funny, and they threatened to take my fob and have me escorted out immediately.


Jo is busy being fobulous in Cali
So my charge is to not lose my fob, try really hard to remember how to use it, and apparently to keep it out of my orifices. I can't promise that I will succeed in all or any of these, but I will have a pretty damn good time taking pictures of it in fobulous places. I just hope the IT guys never do a scan of email, because I don't actually like it when people other than Jo and Destiny see pictures of my naked bum.