A lot of aggro from coworkers after getting certification

Anyone else ever experience this? Every other hour, I hear a sentence phrased like this: "Well im not <cert> certified but I would do this" or randomly out of the blue a person will come up to me and give reasons why they are not certified. I don't even bring it up at all (Put in for a company reimbursement upon pass and Boss sent an email to the 15+ people on the team) but all my coworkers constantly remind me. They also think i'm now available at anytime for their trivia quiz questions so I can prove my knowledge to them and If I miss i'm a fraud. These guys have been in the same position for 3-5 years, complain about their pay day after day and yet don't make an effort to try to learn something new. /rant

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EagerDinosaur

I'm very careful to only tell my immediate manager and the people approving my expense claim for the exam about my certifications, so far they've had the good sense not to make any announcements.

I do hear some anti-certification comments from my co-workers, but try to ignore them. Some colleagues seem to think that everyone cheats in exams, which I can't help feeling says more about them than about me. Some claim that the exams are just memorisation tests, but even that claim doesn't stand-up, because some of the better Microsoft exams are a bit like IQ tests.

My employer encourages staff to get certifications, and mine have been used to support bids to win new work. I mainly do certifications because it's a way to force myself to learn new things, and some of the things I learn do get used to make me more productive in the office, so I'm going to carry on very quietly gaining certifications.

TechGromit

Info_Sec_Wannabe wrote: »

Same as you, I don't talk about it and only let my immediate manager and finance team know so they can process the reimbursement of the exam fee (and a couple of colleagues, but only if they ask).

I don't hide it, I have my plaques proudly displayed on my cube wall. I broke my ass to get some of these certs, it's nothing I'm embarrassed by, but I may have a different personality than you. I wouldn't let anyone talk trash to me about my certs and how worthless they are.

stryder144

Since I am an instructor, I am "encouraged" to place my certifications in the signature block for email. Outside of that, I don't normally broadcast wins and losses. At least not much.

DZA_

TechGromit wrote: »

I don't hide it, I have my plaques proudly displayed on my cube wall. I broke my ass to get some of these certs, it's nothing I'm embarrassed by, but I may have a different personality than you. I wouldn't let anyone talk trash to me about my certs and how worthless they are.

Only if I had a cubicle to place my certification plaques or else I wouldn't be dealing with these open concept offices

. Unassigned seating in an open concept office is the worst.

SteveLavoie

My employer encourages staff to get certifications, and mine have been used to support bids to win new work. I mainly do certifications because it's a way to force myself to learn new things, and some of the things I learn do get used to make me more productive in the office, so I'm going to carry on very quietly gaining certifications.

Same here, but everyone know in my office that I did many certification. I let them know that it helped me grow in the company, and it helped us gain new interesting contract that I did have to do myself. I am proud of them but I just dont act like bully about my certification lol

EANx

I prefer to see people chasing certifications so I put mine in my email signature to encourage them that it's okay to be public with it. I'd step hard on anyone that works for me that was disdainful about studying or bettering oneself.

TechGromit

Anonymouse wrote: »

Kinda sucks that your manager broadcasted your achievement to everyone.

I don't see it as a bad thing, he's recognizing you for all your hard work. Also he may have been trying to motivate others to do the same. Where I work, the company spent 250k to train engineers to get cyber security certifications, but after spending all that money only one engineer obtained a GSEC certification. I can see why they are more reluctant to spent money on training now, they cut way back on the training budget. Unfortunately any future training for me will be on my own dime, none of the limited "approved" training interests me, but I'm willing to invest in myself.

TechGromit

JoJoCal19 wrote: »

You know, some people just cant stand to see others rise up. While I didn't have in my face aggro from colleagues at the one bank I worked at for 8 years during the time I started on certs, I did get the dismissiveness whenever certs I was working on came up.

I wager if you took a survey of 10 people with certs and 10 people without certs, 9 of people with certs would have better jobs/still be employed ten years later. The certification-less, one might get lucky and get a better job, most would still be at the same position and some would be unemployed.

You can say what you want about certifications, they are a waste of time, just a piece of paper, money making machine for Certification vendors. Like it or not, people who earned there certifications get better jobs, more money, more job security.

NotHackingYou

Had this problem before, get new coworkers!

EANx

I suspect that one person without the cert who still did well would have that curious and engaged attitude. They probably just have four kids or an elderly parent they're taking care of and while they can't set aside the time to pass an exam, they do what they can to stay up.

SteveLavoie

Where I work, the company spent 250k to train engineers to get cyber security certifications, but after spending all that money only one engineer obtained a GSEC certification.

And I would bet it is you ?

TechGromit

SteveLavoie wrote: »

And I would bet it is you ?

Nope, I'm Cyber Security Operations, not an engineer. My department is only marginally better, only three people have security certifications, each person in the department on average having attended two SANS classes, that's roughly 330k in SANS training to yield 5 certifications total. I have the most.

We did have a guy who had 6 SANS Certs and a CISSP, but he recent left to become a VP at another company.

JoJoCal19

TechGromit wrote: »

Nope, I'm Cyber Security Operations, not an engineer. My department is only marginally better, only three people have security certifications, each person in the department on average having attended two SANS classes, that's roughly 330k in SANS training to yield 5 certifications total. I have the most.

We did have a guy who had 6 SANS Certs and a CISSP, but he recent left to become a VP at another company.

That's just effing mind boggling. I bet if your company had a policy of if you don't pass the cert you pay, people would either not sign up or would put in the effort. Kind of like what Iris said in the infamous H1B thread, people using training like a vacation. It's sad really. I got my SANS Work Study paid for by my employer at the time and I put forth all the effort to study for and pass the exams. During the courses outside of my facilitator duties, I also paid attention every minute of class. Man I would love to have a company willing to pay for SANS training.

LordQarlyn

LOL seriously, I wish I could find an employer that throws out training like a dying eccentric tossing away his fortune. I would be so on that to the point I would probably get fired for abusing it.

victor.s.andrei

NoNameNoob wrote: »

Anyone else ever experience this? Every other hour, I hear a sentence phrased like this: "Well im not <cert> certified but I would do this" or randomly out of the blue a person will come up to me and give reasons why they are not certified. I don't even bring it up at all (Put in for a company reimbursement upon pass and Boss sent an email to the 15+ people on the team) but all my coworkers constantly remind me. They also think i'm now available at anytime for their trivia quiz questions so I can prove my knowledge to them and If I miss i'm a fraud. These guys have been in the same position for 3-5 years, complain about their pay day after day and yet don't make an effort to try to learn something new. /rant

It's not just certifications. It's degrees, too. Any attempts to better yourself and to advance your career will be met with derision and some level of jealousy by people around you who are too afraid or too lazy to do what you are doing, especially if you're doing things the right way.

My advice...

...with apologies to Mark Manson for borrowing that image from his blog.

You should probably read the article in question, too. It's good advice for life, generally.

Your career - and your life - is yours and yours alone.

tim-not-giving-a-fuck.jpg

DatabaseHead

victor.s.andrei wrote: »

It's not just certifications. It's degrees, too. Any attempts to better yourself and to advance your career will be met with derision and some level of jealousy by people around you who are too afraid or too lazy to do what you are doing, especially if you're doing things the right way.

My advice...

...with apologies to Mark Manson for borrowing that image from his blog.

You should probably read the article in question, too. It's good advice for life, generally.

Your career - and your life - is yours and yours alone.

Interesting....

I've not seen aggro over degrees, ever..... I mean ever. Normally organizations will announce the individual graduated from N university, assuming it's viewed as being top notch. Usually the middle tiered and on line universities don't get much hype or celebration. Local Universities seems to be exempt they mention those as well.

Certs on the other hand I have seen folks get REALLY grumpy about. One is more accepted it seems.......

boxerboy1168

get another one

GuyFawkesStereotype

Sorry to be a stickler, but it seems that you've made a pretty simple HTML mistake... you should probably open the <rant> container before giving out the </rant>

Just kidding. In all seriousness, I think it depends on who your coworkers are. In my workplace, we actually congratulate each other on receiving a cert. We are all under the impression that just because you pass a certification, you don't just know how to apply the concepts of the test. That's just my two cents.

instant000

I find the trivia aspect kinda funny. I would probably laugh at them and tell them to ask Professor Google.

In my experience, the people disparaging the achievers aren't actually doing anything.

The way I see it, if they're not putting in the work to try and do what you did, then they cannot know for sure if it is meaningful or not. There are tons of best practice information and mistakes that you can avoid if you have performed some independent study, versus "strictly doing your job".

There's no reason to be big-headed about having certifications, as there is always more out there to learn. I would expect the person who goes after certifications to be a bit more humble, as the more you study, the more you realize there's so much more that you don't know.

I find it kinda weird whenever the subject comes up, and it's always the same old people disparaging certifications. I know for sure that gaining certifications has increased my salary over the past few years, and has also helped me to avoid even making mistakes that others have made, so that's good enough for me.

To the original poster: don't worry about these people. Just keep working harder, and begin looking at your next opportunity. Make some friends in your target company, and get them to pass your resume to their manager.

Hope this helps!

Ashenwelt

I would take it as a challenge... and further ask them when they are going to get certified? Take the haters and make them wonder... is this a job or a career? If its a career you always grow. They may not have decided to grow.

Hawk321

Certs are great no doubt.

In my personal environment I know only cheaters....MCSA's who can not do any kind of subnetting, who do not know OU's....same for Linux, a guy who has zero knowledge about yum and/or apt ....but a LPIC-1 Cert. None of them ever touched a book, each of them follows the opinion like "swindle with the cert, get the job and learn it on the job". Those are scum in my eyes, they betray my professional education...

Heck, I invested so much time into books, hardware and videos to learn something new and those cheaters tell me in the face "TRUNK? What's that"

Sad thing is, my employer is blended by those ...well, he also believe in cloud, noops, serverless and that everything must be containerized....poor naive bastard.

Clm

Seems there is a outbreak of the hater virus in your office. Don't worry about it has happened to me especially when I got CISSP. There will be plenty of people who will neglect there professional growth and be upset when others grow and they don't. I always say you have to pay the cost to be the boss and your obviously Doing that so congrats on your accomplishment.

JDMurray

People express envy at the accomplishment of others, or jealously of the attention that accomplishment brings to others, for many different reasons. Usually they are feeling bad about themselves for some reason, such as their poor performance in past learning situations, or their fear of being perceived as incompetent or less valuable, or dislike of being challenged in competition. You might see an entire group of people all acting (actively or passively) aggressive to another's achievement, but all doing it for different reasons.

If you engage these people with the idea of, "Let's all study for our next cert together!", some will eventually reveal their issues with your accomplishments, while others will work through their issues and give it a shot. (This action will also help you claim "Leadership" on your next performance review.)

If management is actively discouraging people from attempting certification, you likely have a manger (or higher) with the issues.