would have been good to know to whom you were replying, not in To: or in pre-quote text.
I have noticed that a lot of very well-paid, sometimes well-qualified, networking folks spend some of their time on "rack & stack" tasks, which I feel is a very unwise use of time and talent.
It's not a waste, it's therapeutic, breaks the monotony of a desk job, you get a bit of exercise. Doing something mindless can help clear your thoughts, engineering yoga.
Imagine if the CFO of a bank spent a big chunk of his time filling up ATMs.
That'd be a good idea, it's too easy to become remote from reality. obviously you need the right balance - s/big//
i configure routers, admin servers, and occasionally rack and stack in my own research racks [0]. aside from giving me a base in reality instead of all research papers and power point (a major benefit), it's like housework or doing the dishes, shut up and do your part. it's also damned useful to maintain layer zero skills. once upon a time, when i was playing at vp eng, a london routing hub was supposed to be turned up. the equipment sat in co-lo receiving for weeks, and no respose from the london techs (i am sure they had ccnas, whetever the hell that is). so i grabbed my toolkit and got on a plane and walked into redbus and started turning it all up. the local techs appeared pretty damed quickly and started doing their jobs. of course, a few weeks later they were told to get jobs elsewhere. maintain your skills, you may need them again some day. randy --- [0] - deep thanks to (in alpha order) cisco, equinix, google, juniper, nsf, and others for contributions.