A mass-mailer to reset passwords usually means a new head of IT or an executive’s info had been divulged because their password was “monkey” or “abc123” so we now needed passwords with a capital letter, a lowercase letter, and at least one digit.  In addition to this, the answer to security questions had to have a minimum length regardless of their actual length; even though my first pet was “Max”, I need to answer “maxthedog”.  I set the custom questions to:

Who is number 1?  “iamnumbertwoyouarenumbersix”
When is a raven like a writing desk? “idontknowthatswhyitisariddle”
Who is phone? “phoneisring”

After all this I had to set my password, so I entered my current one out of habit and waited for it to be rejected as a previously used password yet it wasn’t.  So after all this, the focus on security, the quest to increase entropy, and the need to have a clean start we’re allowed to use old passwords.  Spectacular.