For those who consistently get new certs--does it cause your coworkers to hate?

I started at a new company in January and one of the "informal" requirements is to get a cert within your first 90 days. They are a Novell shop so I got the CLA. I am in a help desk position right now so I'm trying to get certed up and get experience. Anyway a few people in my department have made half-jokes, saying that I'm making them look bad. Or they come up with excuses as to why they couldn't get a cert in their first 90 days ("I was more important and they threw a lot of tickets/projects at me right away").

Has anyone else experienced this? Is it common?

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kohr-ah

My current work experiences this but it depends the group.

The older group just laugh and ask if there is anything else I plan on getting certified in. Now it isn't like I am doing CCNP, MCSE, CEH, VCP6, RHCSA, CISSP and going all over the board I am keeping it all generally around the same field.
(CCNA, CCNA+SEC, CCDA, CCNP, CCDP, etc)

But the younger newer employees in the company ask me about the paths a lot and what I thought about this or that so it just depends the group.

I just look at it as say what you want but I am aiming to stay in my field if something would happen to this place.

bigdogz

It happens more than you think.
My management likes the fact that people improve themselves and have always encouraged me. Some of my team members like the fact that I am always learning and on a rare occasion it does help us in our cause in projects or resolving issues.

Most of my co workers like that I am certified but in most cases they just want the job done. There are some who are not certified and don't care and then there are the cases of those who hate you for improving yourself.
I had a network guy who was thought to be at a 'CCNP level' because of his experience but not certified. When there was an issue where we were thought to be 'hacked'. I heard from a guy, 'Let Mr. CISSP look at it' to me after I recently obtained the certification.

As it turned out, when 2 others including myself looked at the escalated problem, there were routing issues where this guy was actually responsible for creating the problem.
I quickly looked at the network guy and replied 'I thought 'Mr. CCNP would have found this issue. Oh... you don't have your certification and this a network issue. Do you know the OSI model or should I print it out for you?' That guy never opened his mouth to me again.

This was a case of am employee being there too long and not knowing or learning how things work or how to troubleshoot a problem. Needless to say that he is no longer with our company.

You can know everything in your environment but you should know how the products AND how they work in your environment and how to optimize the solutions in place. This will keep you in demand.

Regards,
bigdogz

bluejellorabbit

Just lie and tell everyone you don't have any certifications (or degrees). Only people who look at your resume need to know. The less your enemy knows, the better. Pretty sure Sun Tzu said that in The Art of War. Or if he didn't, he should have.

Remedymp

thatguy67 wrote: »

lol this is the funniest post I've read in a long time.

It's true. The signature really set them off! :^)

bigdogz

thatguy67 wrote: »

In the weekly meetings my supervisor announces whenever someone gets a new cert, so I was mentioned. They would notice me studying after hours and sometimes I'd offer them to study with me but they always declined. I upload my notes/study guides/etc on our company's DropBox. Other than that I don't bring it up.

My boss does this as well. I only have an older guy who starts with the sarcasm but the others understand the field and actually have started to obtain some certs. Most of my co workers have the same understanding as well and applaud me from time to time.

daviddws

Another thing to think about is this. The older set in IT didn't have the same type of requirements as people who have been in IT the last 15 years. They entered the field when it was wide open (like the wild west) and anyone could get a job in technology. Nowadays it is more cut throat and you have to be really skilled to get employment as opportunities are harder to get and upward mobility is very difficult without advanced education of some sort. Also many of these older chaps are holding on to their employment as long as possible making it difficult for new entrants. What amazes me is the lack of education many of these people have and how they are still able to hold on to positions of authority...

si20

I find that people who make *any* kind of negative comment on me studying for certs/university degrees have always been the lazy ones. My 2nd SOC job was comedy gold. When I started, I told my new colleagues that I was going to do an online MSc course. I was told I was wasting my time and that there's no point doing it, it wont help it'll just cost lots of money etc etc. Then, my colleagues got offered SANS training (not me, because I was busy doing my MSc). They had huge grins on their faces, because they were getting £5,000 worth of training at no expense of their own.

They kept saying how "SANS is the best cert you can get" - then when one of the colleagues failed the exam, he was saying how "the material wasn't the best", and "i'm not academic, I knew the answers but couldn't think at the time and there wasn't enough time on the exam" etc. Every possible excuse was used that day. Then the company offered the group a free re-sit on the SANS exam. They sat around the table devising strategies on how they could all sit together and take screenshots of the sample exams( to get the answers) and pass them around. It was truly, truly pitiful and at that point, I made the conscious effort to look for work elsewhere. I felt like I was surrounded by morons. I got a new job offered to me and before I even got my contract, I handed in my notice. Probably not wise - but I couldn't bear sitting in the same room as them.

TheFORCE

When i was studying for my CISSP i was trying to encourage my co-workers, but they instead were trying to bother me while i was studying and fooling around in the office playing games. When i passed it, they were all surprised, even my manager lol. Fast forward 1.5 years and now the group is being outsourced and they are looking for jobs, now they are thinking back and saying "i should have gone for the exam too". Point of the story, dont worry what they say, just focus on your plan and see it through.

olaHalo

Danielm7 wrote: »

P Typically the same people take a lunch break 2x longer than I do, go outside to vape 8+x a day, etc.

About half my team does this. Blows my mind.
Not that they're smoking or vaping (doesnt bother me at all), but the amount of time they waste doing it.

Sometimes the nonsmokers joke about starting to smoke just to get the 100s of breaks a day.

kohr-ah

daviddws wrote: »

What amazes me is the lack of education many of these people have and how they are still able to hold on to positions of authority...

That is called company seniority. They assume loyalty beats intelligence.
Dont get me wrong. I have guys I work with been here 20 - 30 years. They know this insane band-aided network inside and out.
But outside of this with newer tech it is eeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

netsysllc

Sadly 90% of the employees I have hired said they would get a cert within 90 Days and didn't. (mind you there was a wage increase on the line with the cert plus a passing cert was reimbursed and study material was paid for). They would complain about how much money they made and have all sorts of excuses as to why they did not go through with it.

Experienced_ISN'T_old

thatguy67 wrote: »

I started at a new company in January and one of the "informal" requirements is to get a cert within your first 90 days. They are a Novell shop so I got the CLA. I am in a help desk position right now so I'm trying to get certed up and get experience. Anyway a few people in my department have made half-jokes, saying that I'm making them look bad. Or they come up with excuses as to why they couldn't get a cert in their first 90 days ("I was more important and they threw a lot of tickets/projects at me right away").

Has anyone else experienced this? Is it common?

Ofcourse, you get stereotyped just like anything in life. You also get typecast as a paper cert tiger. Also exam-curmudgeon comes to mind

Sheiko37

netsysllc wrote: »

90% of the employees I have hired said they would get a cert within 90 Days and didn't. (mind you there was a wage increase on the line with the cert plus a passing cert was reimbursed and study material was paid for).

That's a stupidly good opportunity squandered.

gorebrush

Jealousy, pure and simple. I'd just go and get more certs.

Remedymp

gorebrush wrote: »

Jealousy, pure and simple. I'd just go and get more certs.

...until they sabotage you...

revbox

In my workplace, everyone has the same opportunity. Our boss has green-lit our certification with the only stipulations being A) if you take it, pass it and

get the practical before the dream (i.e. I better not be paying for the $1000 - $3000 test/courses before doing all of the CompTIA series). Some of us are taking advantage of this, others have other priorities/responsibilities at the moment outside of work. There's no competition. We realize this is more about solidifying our future wherever that might be versus trying to grab a single brass ring.

Nightflier101BL

I had a situation once, right after I got the Security+. I went to my "Network Operations Supervisor" and and threw some ideas about some things we may want to look at, document, etc. My supervisor just laughs right in my face and says exactly, "you are only saying this because you got the Security+ recently."

I had no idea how to react but I definitely stopped recommending or suggesting anything at that point. Later on, at the same place, I was passed over for a promotion, for a guy that had "a better personality" than me and I was told by this same supervisor that "it has nothing to do with your skills". Another time I was promised CCNA training which was later taken from me and used for someone else. I went and got it on my own.

During my time there I was only person that was continuing my education, gaining any certs or had any real goals. Everyone else just sort of kept to the "if it works, it's all good" mentality. They seemed to be happy just sitting in one place for a paycheck and riding it out to retirement. I definitely had a target on my back and I don't really know why.

Anyway, a left the place in the dust, kept working on my skills and now about year later, I've tripled the salary I had there and found a role in the exact area I'm focused on.

Don't let it get you down and start feeling like quitting or conforming. Keep pressing on with your goals and it will pay off for you.

ITSpectre

I have noticed that a lot of older people that are in IT rely on their knowledge instead of skills and continuing education. The issue I have is when older people act like they are "on top of the world" in their fields, When in reality the IT field is a ever changing place... it is either continue to learn, or find a new career. I recently had a job that was a month long and I worked with a Printer repair guy who was a senior tech. He knew everything about printers and fixing them... but when it came to PC support I excelled over him in that dept... he had no clue how to troubleshoot a computer running windows 8. I had to walk him through how to do it, and when he got mad at the computer I ended up taking over the PC support part of the job... The moral of the story is.... Keep learning and growing, the people that DONT want you to grow and learn are unhappy with where they are in life and want you to end up just like them.

revbox

ITSpectre wrote: »

The moral of the story is....

...that MFDs were created by the devil.

Signed, The Help Desk

Russ5813

I actually got a little hate from a couple of coworkers because I passed Sec+ on my first try. Said I made them look bad. Meanwhile, our company keeps paying for them to attend boot camps (just finished their third attempt, failed the exam again). Would love to see those training funds go to someone/something to benefit employees actually interested in learning and growing.

DatabaseHead

No not really most could careless. It's really about delivery, either you can do it or you can't.