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Certify This |
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Within the scope of my career, the advent of technical certifications
is possibly the worst thing that ever came down the pike.
I have already written some material on this subject, but
this practice has caused me so much anguish, I wanted to add
more fuel to the fire. If one is willing to overlook the fact
that certification testing was originally introduced by software
and hardware vendors as a means to produce additional streams
of income, there are other issues that make this practice
even more distasteful.
One analogy would be to imagine that someone was interested
in hiring you to build a house. For purposes of making the
story interesting, let us say you happen to be a master builder.
Before you build the house for the customer, you must satisfy
their confidence in your credentials by proving your skills
before you are allowed to start work. You have agreed to take
a test that was put together by other builders. On the day
of the test, you have a general idea what the test will be
about, and with your knowledge of house building, you decide
passing the examination will not be much trouble for you.
When you arrive on the testing site, you are ushered into
a room where you find a pile of materials. You are then told
you will be required to construct a home using only the information
you have in your head, and you are not allowed to refer to
specifications, plans, tools or references associated with
building the type of home the authors had in mind when they
created the test. In addition, you will also have to know
where each nail, screw, bolt, and fastener is recommended
to go, and what angle is optimal for holding the structure
together. You are allowed to make a few mistakes, but if the
structure you build does not resemble the model intended,
you will not pass the test. Also, you will have to complete
the project within a predetermined amount of time, roughly
equivalent to what the test creators determined as reasonable
for kind of house you are assigned to build.
Of course, on the first try, you fail to complete the task
successfully, but being a master builder, you take mental
note of the various materials you saw while you were in the
room. Your customer is willing to give you another try at
passing the test, so you take what you can remember about
the first crack at the assignment, and spend some time researching
building plans before the next test date. You discover a set
of plans that contains the same materials you remember from
the test, and memorize as much as you can from the specifications
you dug up in your research.
On the second try, you go right to the task, but discover
there are now some slightly different materials included in
the pile that were not there the first time, and decide the
plans you studied were perhaps not the correct model for your
project. You have failed again.
Using all the knowledge you gathered from the first two attempts,
you are expected to take the test one more time. Your research
before the test shows two slightly different models are possible
from the materials you have memorized from your tests, and
depending on the presence of a specific kind of guttering,
you will be building one type of model or the other. On the
third try at the test, you manage to struggle through completing
the structure, and successfully complete the test with a passing
grade, despite some errors you made in the design.
Feeling very good about yourself, you are satisfied that
your credentials for building houses have been satisfactorily
verified. Just before your customers agree to hire you for
building their home, they suddenly have some real questions
associated with their particular job. They decide you must
also be equally qualified in how to build boats, automobiles,
telescopes, and small aircraft as well. After all, building
is building isn’t it? They ask you if you would be willing
to pay for the tests to prove your acuity for building the
other items associated with their dream home, and if not they
will just have to go on looking for a master builder who can
satisfy all their requirements.
At this point in the negotiation, you smile, wish your potential
customer luck, and push away from the table. Though certain
aspects of this tale may be slightly exaggerated, welcome
to the world of current technology expectations. The situation
is enough to make you want to turn away from further interest
in the industry, and ask those who participate in these practices
to “certify this.”
About the Author:
Author by John Dir - Director of Software Concepts BHO Technologists
- LittleTek Center HTTP://home.earthlink.net/~jdir Please
provide a rating for the article to help us determine future
content choices.
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