I left my last job supporting IT for a large municipality about a year and a half ago after burning out from public-safety support and being on call. Having a newborn daughter made the timing of the career break easier, but I'm now preparing to start a new position with a smaller municipality in about a month.
I recently had trouble remembering how to open Event Viewer while troubleshooting an Outlook issue, which made me realize that some of my day-to-day knowledge has gotten rusty. My new role is officially an endpoint engineer position, but the interview made it clear that I'll be covering a lot of different areas. I have a CCNA, although I haven't worked with Cisco equipment in more than five years. The organization also seems to be moving from traditional MDT imaging toward Intune provisioning, while my previous environment used SCCM.
What would be the best way to refresh my skills before starting? Should I focus on PowerShell, Intune and Autopilot, Entra, networking, or something else? I'd also appreciate advice for joining an organization that may have some turnover and figuring out expectations around after-hours work. Maybe the technical rust is normal and the bigger priority should be building better habits and protecting my work-life balance.
2 Answers
The most important preparation may be setting boundaries early. Confirm how after-hours work is handled, whether there is an emergency contact process, and what qualifies as a true exception. Don’t put work email or chat on your personal phone just because it is convenient; otherwise people may gradually treat your availability as unlimited. A new job is a good opportunity to establish sustainable habits from the beginning.
A small lab would be useful, but keep it focused rather than trying to recreate an entire enterprise. Spend a couple of evenings reviewing PowerShell, Intune enrollment and Autopilot concepts, Entra ID, conditional access, group policy troubleshooting, and the differences between local and domain sign-in. A basic Windows machine plus some switch command-line practice can also bring back the networking muscle memory. You’ll probably need to ask where things are or look up exact syntax at first, and that’s normal even for people who have been working continuously.
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