Nose In a Book

So my manager is paying for me to earn a new credential. It's called a CPP, or a Certified Protection Professional credential. He actually had to spend six months trying to convince me to do it, even with him assuring me that VSP would pay for the whole thing. For one, I have more than my fair share of useless and semi-useless credentials and degrees. For two, I did not want to make the kind of commitment to security that a CPP would bring. Sheesh, people are going to go around elbowing each other and snickering, "There goes Christina (my professional name at work). She's a CPP which means she had to study to be in security!" Ugh, no thank you. For three, I didn't want to have to join something. And sure enough, one must join ASIS to become a CPP. Of course, how involved with the group you get is up to you, but I just hate group organizations who push their own objectives onto everything. Blah. For four, I didn't want to study for and take a test on boring security subjects. Yawn.

But here I am, studying for the blasted thing. I have one year to study and take the test. It's totally at my own speed, so I could wait until Dec to take it, or I could take it next week. If I don't pass the first time, I have two more tries within the year to pass. It's very much like how I got my teaching credentials. I'm pretty familiar with the whole concept. High stakes testing, pass or fail only, no teacher or tutor to guide you. Studying, managing my time, taking notes that work best for me, all of that is old hat too.

The first book I read for it really got me discouraged. It was confusing. I was so far under my "student" hat that it took me a long time to remove it and look at the book from my "teacher" hat. And you know what? The book was poorly written. No wonder it was confusing! Incomplete thoughts, poor organization, poor writing, poor everything. Why? Because it was written by a group of men whose only qualifications was the CPP. None of them were writers, that's for certain! How was I suppose to learn anything if all the books were going to be like this?! In dread, I skimmed the other material. Luckily, the majority of other books were true books. Something I could actually read.

I'm fairly happy with the book I'm on now. It's about management. It's related to security, but really it's about management and I like a lot of the author's points. My manager has been real supportive too. If I get an idea from the book, tweak it to suit our particular environment, and present it to him, he's usually impressed with it and tries to see it implemented. He claims he hasn't "mixed things up around here this much in a decade, at least." So, I'm certainly getting positive reinforcement from work.

Currently, I'm about a quarter of the way through the material. Kinda sad considering the year is a little over a quarter of the way finished. I really need to step up my pace. It's hard though with a kid underfoot.