When you work in Operations and you tell your internal clients that you work as a network engineer, they often think that you are “Mr All-computer-stuff”. That is often the case regardless of where the client is in the company hierarchy. They expect you to fix any computer issue they have at hand. Onsite interventions feel like you were dropped in a tribal region in a forest while equipped with a Swiss-army knife.

You try to explain many times that you are responsible only for networking. But customers keep querying your attention for a server issue or a defect in a printer. But over the years I realized how powerful working as a network engineer really is; You think you must solve a technical issue. You gets exposed to additional technical and non-technical issues and you leave with a stronger human network. The last one is the most important result of the equation.

When you work in network engineering, the goal is not to show off skills. It’s solving a combination of technical, organizational and human problems all while being exposed to the environmental conditions (lack of sleep, hunger, heat, etc.) and stress (customer deadlines, sometimes stubbornness, quick unnecessary escalations, etc.).

And by logical extension to other endeavors, this can be argued to be valid for all other occupations.