All that seemingly stupid worthless sysadmin experience fixing one-off issues that seems like a complete waste of time, pays off a lot later, trust me I’m proof of that.
— SwiftOnSecurity (@SwiftOnSecurity) February 13, 2019
It does pay off, and help desk experience, too. You see more strangeness and learn more about computers and systems (if you’re trying) on the help desk than you’ll experience anywhere else, including in college. I already knew a lot about computers before I ever worked helpdesk but after I did I knew more than god.
Then becoming a sysadmin, you actually get to apply that knowledge and see yet more strangeness that further deepens your knowledge.
People always ask, “But how did you know that was the problem? We’ve been working on this for a week.”
And the answer is always something like, “Back in 1999 or so, I saw something very similar that reminded me of this. Did some searching to confirm it and then was able to find an old registry hack I saved from ages ago.”
It seems like a magic power, but really it’s just a lot of trial and error, experience, and thinking hard about things for a very long time.