Single sign-on

Initech has this AMAZING system they call SSO, which stands for single sign-on. Now, if you (like me) assume that this means you sign on a single time every day and have access to all the Initech systems you might need, you clearly don't know Initech.  

SSO means that you have to sign on every single time you click a button, type a key, follow a link, or have a thought. And by that I mean you type your user name and password. Because heaven forbid your browser should be able to remember either of them... That would be unsafe.  

And of course, you are required to change your password every few weeks to avoid any possibility that you might actually remember it.  

For your convenience, you only have to change your password once, and it will flow through to all the other systems. Eventually. So, every change of your password is followed by a week wherein some of the systems use your new password, some use your old, and some won't accept either.  

I changed my password just over two weeks ago. All the systems should now have my new password in place. But one doesn't... The conference room booking system doesn't recognise either my old or my new password.  

I sent a request to the conference room booking system help desk (over-specialisation much?) to find out why I couldn't get into the system. Their answer to my problem: their system probably doesn't like my password. I need to change my SSO password to something else.  

Of course, this would mean my SSO password was out of sync with my network password. Because, you guessed it... That's something else entirely.

And also of course, please note that the system described herein and which Initech has named SSO conforms to the precise definition of what an SSO is not (at least according to Wikipedia).

Comments

[lisa the knitter]

that's awesome! I imagine all this happening in British accents, so basically I am picturing "The IT Crowd."