Officially obtaining my VCP

This weekend, I had a nice surprise.  When we returned home from errands on Saturday, I found our mail waiting on the front steps instead of inside the mailbox, as normal.  There was a larger envelope which I flipped over to quickly find it was from VMware.  At last, my official welcome package as a VMware Certified Professional had arrived.

I opened the package and quickly read the letter enclosed.  It outlined the program and how to access the VMware website to access logos and my free copy of VMware Workstation (thanks, but I’m on Mac…).  But that wasn’t the exciting part, I opened a crisp blue envelope, embossed with the VMware logo to find a certificate stareing back at me with my name in blue, 50 point font across the middle.  That was it, in my eyes it was official.

Since passing the exam at my local Peason Vue location, I hadn’t had any official communication from VMware.  I’d met the requirements – the exam and the VMware official courses – but there was still the anticipation of it being official.  Having the official word was a great feeling of accomplishment.  I consider it my first (real) certification.

In all my years working in the industry, none of my employers have ever put a major emphasis on certification.  This year, however, I included obtaining my VCP as a goal on my evaluation.  I’m happy to cross that item off my list for the year.  And it wasn’t at the insistence of management, this was something I wanted to do for myself.  I hope that it also helps the company (if not my group, possibly our sales engineering team) by having a VCP on staff.

Anyways, I wanted to take a moment to post an update and to take a few minutes to enjoy my accomplishment…  I hung the certificate in my office today… Picture below.