I can't remember . . .

. . . my ID, my password, which account I'm trying to access.  What's an account?  Where am I?

It's tedious and time consuming to help someone under those conditions.  I've spent hours with some residents trying to help them get to the services they want.  Here's what usually happens:

Let's say someone needs to re-establish their email service after a long time of not using it.  I ask them "What's your email ID?" they reply "I don't know."  There the trouble begins.  We have to call customer support for whoever the account is with and go through an identification ritual to establish that I'm not an identity thief.  Usually, there is a lengthy wait time for the next available representative. 

Sometimes, the account in question was set up by a resident's child or grandchild.  In this case the plot thickens.  Unfortunately, the offspring may be the only person with the necessary account information.  This requires additional time to gather what's necessary.

If the forgetful person should remember their ID, we can go through a "forgot password" routine consisting of getting either a link in email or a code via a smartphone (if they declared one when they opened the account).  This is still tedious, but a bit shorter.

Either way their forgetfulness costs us a lot of time.  What's the best way to deal with forgetfulness?  I recommend keeping a list of the accounts you access with their respective IDs and passwords.  A small notebook dedicated to this purpose is best.  While good security practice in business discourages this, at Sunnyside, we're a different breed of cat.  We recognize that as we age, we're apt to forget things.  Thus a memory aid, like a notebook is something that benefits us. 

Just for clarity, an account is a record or statement of a relationship relating to a particular purpose.  For instance:  Gmail, Amazon, ebay, BBT, Wells-Fargo, Lumos, NTelos, Sunnyside-Times, ResidentApps, and more are all accounts.  A web site that needs you to supply an ID and Password has an account with you.  If you need to sign onto something on the Internet, you are accessing an account.

Your ID in most cases, not all, will be your email address.  Some sites use an ID other than your email address for brevity.  Instead of my email address, I might go as "Dingbat".  (almost like a CB radio handle)

A relatively secure password consists of UPPERCASE LETTERS, lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters (like !@#$%^&*( etc.).  Passwords need to have at least 8 characters with at least one of each of the characters mentioned here.  What's more, identifiable words like names are not allowed.  "NFH&853nb" would be acceptable as long as the "NFH" isn't your initials.  Some people use the first set  of  characters in most of their passwords and a few lowercase characters at the end as an abbreviation for the name of the account - like "eb" for their ebay account or "boa" for their Bank of America account.  You are free to create any scheme like this that works for you.  Just write it down.  You might forget it.

Account Name: ______

ID: ____

Password: ____

for all of your accounts.  Keep the notebook in a secure place you can remember :-)