Sunday, May 31, 2009

Trolling Craigslist for Microsoft Certification

Found among the "opportunities" on Craigslist:

    I need an MCP to add to my Microsoft Account (City)
    Reply to: [email protected]
    Date: 2009-05-16, 1:29PM PDT

    I am looking for someone to associate thier MCP number with my Microsoft Partner account, so I can increase my companies level of partnership with Microsoft. I would be willing to pay a small fee for this, but be realistic. It is something I would really like to do, but I'm not in a position to pay much at all.


Nothing about this surprises me. I just happened to stumble upon it.

You know how it is: There are strange things done in this world, but they're somehow more real when you experience them yourself.

So Cousin Larry's Pretty Good Computer Fix-It Shop and part time janitorial service has decided to become a Microsoft Certified Partner. We know two things from this.

First, Cousin Larry has an MCP. Could be anything. I'm personally very proud of my Windows 3.1 MCP -- and the fact that my MCP ID has only six digits. But that just makes me old -- not currently qualified.

Second, we know that Cousin Larry needs another MCP of any kind to "earn" the moniker of Microsoft Certified Partner. Being a registered partner isn't good enough for Cousin Larry!

I hope he realizes that he ALSO needs to go earn a competency or two.

From the advertisement, it sounds like Cousin Larry isn't making a bunch of money. It also sounds like Cousin Larry is NOT willing to actually hire a second person to grow his business from one to two people. It's much better to abuse the rules and call it winning.

This kind of abuse will always exist. And it makes life difficult for those of us who play by the rules. I actually pay people to work for me! Oh, and I pay them to take exams. And I give them raises when they pass. And I buy them books and software. In other words, we invest in our company in order to become better at what we do.

Our most recent milestone came a mere 19 days ago when Manuel passed the new SBS 2008 exam.

How foolish we are when Cousin Larry will soon have the exact certification we do.

I sure hope Microsoft addresses this when they revise the Partner Program. I know it's an annoying little issue, but it makes me feel stupid for playing by the rules.

:-)



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2 comments:

  1. There's all kinds of crazy stuff on Craigslist.

    I have an RSS feed reader set up to alert me for relevant ads in the "wanted" section as it's too depressing to trawl through all the idiots offering services for peanuts ($30 flat rate repair, $99 websites, etc).

    Having said that, I can trace a good 5-figure income having come from Craigslist clients which is what keeps me there.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well obviously I was there looking for something. ;-0

    A lot of people don't know what they don't know about technology. So they think they want the $30 flat rate repair, but can easily be enlightened into a "real" network operation.

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