July 20, 2009, 6:16 PM — What does amnesty mean? Well it has been years since I thumbed through my Funk and Wagnalls dictionary so I could not actually find it! Instead I hopped on-line and looked it up.
Noun1.amnesty - a period during which offenders are exempt from punishment
Verb1.amnesty - grant a pardon to (a group of people)
If you have not been informed there are many ways to use your CCIE number. A few of these methods are frowned upon by Cisco and can even cost you that hard earned number. Yes, recently I personally witnessed the revoking of a pair of CCIEs who had associated their numbers to a channel they did not work for. This is strictly forbidden by Cisco and can result in severe penalties to the Channel and the CCIE.
I felt pretty badly about the CCIEs losing their certifications and wanted to help prevent this as much as I can. So I called Monica (my best friend at Cisco) and we put our heads together to come up with a solution. From this chat the CCIE Amnesty program was born.
The rules are very clear about CCIEs whose numbers are used to help advance channel partners reseller status. The CCIE must work and live where the company is located.
Number associations have been done in some creative ways both with and without the CCIE’s participation. As I described in February on my blog in the story , "CCIE Hostage Stand-Off", sometimes unsuspecting CCIEs are fooled by a company simply to get them to associate their number. The company in this story after passing the Cisco Audit put the CCIEs on unpaid leave. In other cases the CCIE simply succumbs to the temptation to associate their number because their real employer has no use for it. So they get a small fee for the number and are never utilized by the company, I call this a Rent-A-Cert. This is a name used by a company acting as a recruiting company but in actuality putting certified individuals in harm’s way.
Here’s our plan, for the next 90 days I am asking any CCIE who is in a situation where their CCIE number is associated with a company they are not really working for to step forward and I will have their number released from that employer with no repercussions or penalties. The company will then have nine months to resolve their need and the CCIE will help another CCIE have a shot at a real job.
Think about it, if you have your number associated with a company that needs the number you are taking a job away from another CCIE who needs a job.
How to proceed.
Send me an email eman@ccieflyer.com and I will call you to begin the process. I will keep you out of hot water and help the channel partner replace you with a real CCIE to join their staff. If you are the victim of a channel that is holding your number against your will I will help release your number also without reprisals to the channel partner in question.
Tell your friends tell your coworkers but most of all tell the man in the mirror (ala Michael Jackson) it’s wrong so let’s clean it up! There is an effort to identify the fraudulent associations so please take advantage of this amnesty before you get a letter from Cisco about your CCIE number being revoked!
Peace!
