Ryan Bridge: I don't sleep anymore, I just fill out forms

Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

Ever tried to buy a pair of shoes online recently? What about a book? Or even book a haircut?

You would have been asked a billion questions.

It starts with what day and time you want your haircut.

Yep, fine, but then they want your; name, address, birthdate, postal address, how did you hear about us? What shampoo do you use?

I didn't ask for all that. At this point I'd rather pull my hair out in clumps than sit here and answer all these stupid, irrelevant questions.

I've been trying to get paid this week. I realise this is dangerous ground to be treading, I've only been here a week and the people are great but the processes, again, absurd.

You'd think they just want my bank account number, IRD number and tax code.

No.

Every personal detail under the sun - my sex, title, home address, ethnicity.

This sent me into a tailspin, why do you need to the colour of my skin to pay me? It's not a legal requirement, and the stupid drop-down box wasn't working. I tried to select European but wouldn't let me.

What the hell do you need to know if I'm Indian for? Are you paying me in Rupees? Would my wages turn up in Dong if I tick Vietnamese?

The reason I ask, and this goes for pretty every company on the planet, I just don't trust them.

Some Nigerian or Russian hacker will ram-raid their system at some point, and before you know it the world knows I'm an Indian male being paid XYZ.

It's totally unnecessary. I did an official calculation and I think I spend roughly 75% of my day filling in useless forms online.

I don't sleep anymore, I just fill in forms.

And why is this important? Well, thousands of companies have thousands of bits of data about us. They sell it, wax lyrical about online safety, then get hacked and barely apologise.

It happens all the time.

So, I've come up with an annoyingly named, hyperbolic bill which I'm hoping the government will pick up.

The “Excessive Digital Information Collection Protection Bill.”

For every question they ask us, we get $5. I want a reject all cookies function like they have in Europe, and I want the ability to sue if my data is stolen.

I hate it. I hate that we can't just pick up the phone and get stuff done anymore.

Happy Friday.

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