Company want CCIE, but they don't support my efforts

Hello all,

I have here an ethical problem, more than a technical one and I said to ask you guys, maybe somebody can give me an advice.

Scenario is the following.

For some time now I've been preparing for CCIE entirely on my own costs (learning in my spare time, rack rental / equipment acquisition, exam fee, accomodation, travel...).I sit to an exam a while ago (about a year) and fail. Came back home and start preparing again.

Now I want to sit to another lab in some months and I was thinking that maybe a bootcamp will help. I've ask around some friends and one of them confirmed that he was in a bootcamp (company name not important, location Germany) and costs were about 20.000 euro ( 3 weeks bootcamp, accomodation, travel...). This is a lot of money for me and I was thinking to ask my company to support me. I've found a cheaper bootcamp (5 days around 2.200 euro + accomodation and travel, let's say up to 3.500 euro). I've presented the above numbers to my company and their answer was that they are willing to support me, but only for the efective cost of the exam itself.

Maybe it's important to say that I have other certifications (CCNP, CCIP, CXFS...) which are registered to my company for Cisco partnership.

Finally we arrive to my issue:

I will keep on supporting my way to CCIE on my own costs (let's say that the 5 days bootcamp I could afford to pay by my own, or buy the workbooks and practice on my own rack). I this case, my question is, if I will get a CCIE number, this will be automatically assigned to the company that I'm registered with? I've tried to explain to them that if this is the case, I would find it a little bit unfair to use my number. The cost of the exam itself is nothing compared to the rest of efforts.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm fully satisfied with the company that I'm working on and I don't want to leave it. From financial and social perspective I'm happy with my position. I just want them to understand that nothing in life is free and CCIE comes with a costs that I have to either recover somehow or they need to sponsor my efforts.

Any input will be appreciated (especially to my question about CCIE number - company relationship).

Thanks for reading this long e-mail!

Calin

Blogs and organic groups at http://www.ccie.net
Received on Mon Sep 12 2011 - 04:09:08 ART