multi-factor authentication

At work, our email system has been switched to Outlook. For accessing our email via the web, they've set up multi-factor authentication via text message. But it's not the kind where they text a number to you, and you have to enter that number on a webpage. Instead, they text a number to you, and you have to reply to the text, and in the reply you have to type in the number they sent you.

So not only does it eat up one text message (on your personal privately-funded cellphone!) each time you need to log in, but two. And you have to fumble to type the number correctly on your small cell phone screen. Switching the screen to larger landscape mode doesn't help, because then the original text is no longer shown so you can't see the number anymore that you're supposed to type.

Gah. Gah. Gah!

There's supposed to be a way of entering security questions instead of replying to the text. Before when I didn't reply to the text message in time, the security questions were automatically displayed. Now I get a blank page. Gah! I'll have to look up the instructions again.

And all this just so I can check my work email from home before leaving for work, without having to turn my work laptop on.