Week 10 Blog - Angel Dooley - November 2, 2014

Admittedly, I have had a rough couple of weeks, both physically and mentally.  I am feeling hella guilty for falling behind, but know there really is not anything I can do. 

Anyway, speaking of health, it is time to sign up for benefits for next year at work.  Of course, we have had all these frightening emails about making sure to get in and get our benefits picked because this year every person has to sign up or they will be assigned to basically the worse plan available because of "Obamacare".

One new thing they are pushing is the change in wellness incentives for next year.  Last year, we could earn a max of $150 by meeting certain markers, such as having our cholestrol (sp?) checked, quitting smoking, etc.  This year they have added more to the pot and other markers to reach, including taking a million steps between October 1, 2014 and September 15, 2015.  They are also offering the fitbit in the bookstore at a reduced price and in addition to the monetary reward for reaching a million steps, if you have fitbit and track your progress with the same, they will reimburse you for the cost of the bookstore fitbit flex.

So, after a little obsession, I went out and got the fitbit flex for both my daughter and I.  We sat them up on our laptops at home, on iPads, and our phones, we are covered with the fitbit.  It is a bluetooth device, so easy enough to set up on the iPads and phones.  However, to sync it up with your laptop (wirelessly) and/or your desktop, there is a USB dongle that goes through it to get that accomplished.  So, off I went to work to set up my fitbit on my computer at work.  Made sense to me, it's being promoted by the University, the feedback from the fitbit is recommended for our healthy rewards, this should be easy.  Well, nope, not so much.

Couldn't download the dashboard from the fitbit site because I don't have the correct permissions.  So, I called my friend in our Department IT dept., Margaret, and asked her if they could install it or what the deal was.  Well, of course, they are still trying to decide how to handle it.  They are fearful that there could be an issue with the dongle and system security.  Which, I understand, but what I don't understand is why they would promote the use, and actually tie in the use and feedback from the fitbit into our benefits.  I have not felt up to looking into this matter, but will try to, by next posting, look into this subject a little further and see what the possible issues would be and how any risks could be mitigated.