9-Year-Old Girl Becomes Microsoft's Youngest Employee

Passing and MCSE test doesn't mean you're a Microsoft employee, switched needs to hire someone new for the headlines that actually knows stuff.

Where does it say she is employed by Microsoft?

This is like saying I work for A+.

Brian's right. An MCSE cert is just that: a certification. It's not Microsoft employment. It's too bad there isn't some sort of certification or IQ test to write articles for AOL or Switched.

Actually she is working on the MCSE it says so. she is now officially an MCP.. NOT MCSE. that one is a lot harder. first test you pass you get MCP. you have to take and pass like 6 tests to get the MCSE. and for 9 yrs it is an absolutely fantastic accomplishment. MCSE is Micrsoft Certified Systems Engineer. For anyone who doesn't know the class is very very fast paced. and definitely not easy. the class I went to we lost over half the class when we got to thebinary ip addressing math.

Great, just what the IT world needs, another body with an MCSE certification that can't apply any of the knowledge.....

AOL's writers seem to be studying at the school of PEOPLE, InStyle etc journalism. The content seems to be aimed toward a market of junior high school students. Any chance this is going to change or am I going to have to find another internet connection?

There is book smarts, test smarts and tool smarts, but passing the CompTIA A+ and any Microsoft exam, does not get you a steady pay check from Microsoft. A six year old child may sing "Over the Rainbow" perfectly, on a talent show, but not win a recording contract. I want to extend best wishes to all young students of technolgy, and I wish them sucess in their path of education and employment. I suggest parents allow their children to grow up enjoying childhood for their first 11 years.

oh great! so we not only have a language barrier when calling customer service, now we have to deal with children. But hey........dont have to pay them more than what .....a buck a week right? sheesh!

Right on, Anna-Marie!!

I am sick to death of having to weed through a lot of mindless fluff just to get to a "real" news story. And a lot of "stories" are full of mis-spellings and grammar errors that would give a 5th-grade English teacher a heart attack. Come on, folks. If you want your ideas taken seriously, at least write them in proper English and spell the words right. Don't write like someone who slept through elementary school, high school, and college. Yes, college. I could show you blog posts written by college graduates that a 5th-grader would get a failing grade for.

AOL, you publish the written word. That makes you a guardian of the language. If you publish a mistake, people are going to see it. They will say "Well, the folks at AOL are professional writers. If they wrote it that way, it must be correct." And the next thing you know, the mistake spreads and becomes "correct" itself. And that is wrong.

I don't know what else to add. Any comments are welcome, whether you agree with me or not. I am signing my real name to this so that you know I am serious about this issue.

Bernie Zuccarelli
Seattle, WA

Excuse me, Bernie... don't you mean "for WHICH a 5th grade student could get a failing grade." Ahem. I agree w/ you, but practice what you preach, huh?

Miss New England,

Yes, in the strictest sense "for which" would be correct. But as we all know, English is always evolving and adapting itself to an ever-changing world. Certain rules that used to be "iron-clad right and wrong" have softened. One is the rule that says not to end a sentence with a preposition. Modern spoken English does not lend itself to what is actually a clumsy construction.

I'm sure you know the famous quote from British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. He was criticized by a journalist for saying "This is something I will not put up with." The journalist pointed out that he had ended his sentence with a preposition. Mr. Churchill re-phrased his comment. "This is something with which I will not put up." The journalist *again* pointed out that the sentence ended with a preposition. An exasperated Mr. Churchill finally said: "This is something up with which I will not put." So...for the sake of clarity and brevity, English has allowed us to "bend the rule" a little. We can indeed end sentences with prepositions, we can use less stilted and clumsy constructions such as "for which" and we can split an infinitive if we find that to actually do that helps make the meaning of our sentence more clear. (That was a joke, by the way)

I love English for its flexibility, for its colorfulness of expression, and for its very ability to paint vivid word pictures and images.

I welcome discussion with whomever would like to explore this issue further, either here at this venue or by individual email.

I look foreward to any comments anyone may have.

Bernie Zuccarelli
Seattle, WA