i rowed on a crew team for many years. The pads of my fingers were all worn down. I was rejected three times for "bad fingerprints" when applying for US citizenship.
It's not as rare as people think for fingerprints to be messed up either permanently or temporarily. Which amazes me, actually, because I'll be willing to be pretty near 100% of adults have, at least once in their lives, burned or otherwise injured their fingers in a way that alters their prints.
Relying on fingerprints to gain access to things on a regular basis never seemed like a great idea to me.
