"Your responses are strictly confidential and will not be individually identifiable"

This was part of an e-mail I got from my company HR department.

Interesting part was, every employee got a seperate login password for the survey. The e-mail even came with a statement saying "BECAUSE THIS INVITATION AND PASSWORD ARE UNIQUE TO YOU, DO NOT FORWARD THIS EMAIL OR PASSWORD TO ANYONE ELSE."

Now I might be dumb, but I am not that dumb.

If you have information on which password answered the survey in what way, you can relate that password to the person it was sent to and so, in a matter of a few seconds, find out who was responsible for the glowing tributes and who made the rotten remarks.

All in all, the message is contradictory.

If my responses are confidential and not supposed to be individually attributable, why have a seperate password for every person?

Beats me. And I am not completely sure about that "not individually attributable" part. But it does not matter. I am always honest in my survey responses, whether people know I responded or not.

If I think a person did a good job, I will say so. If they suck, I will say that too.

Oh well, I guess I will have to submit my responses for the survey soon enough. Just don't feel like doing it today. Just the possibility of answering such stimulating questions like "If you were offered the same salary and compensation package at another company, would you leave us?" is more than reason for me to avoid it for as much time as I can.

But I cannot avoid these questions, which I sincerely feel should also have a "Duh!" option as an answer choice, and will have to spend ten minutes of my life going rapid-fire-click.

Oh, well...at least I don't have to do it today.