This is similar to what I did.
As I said in another post, my job was limited as a network admin, but I learned other skills in the company. One of them was to take over the SQL-based business applications server. I went as far as to build a test machine, even copying the database to my local hard drive, so I could break it and learn how it worked.
This actually did pay off for the company because when it came time to create the new year on the live server, we had practice on test system. We had that time, and plenty of it, to go through the parameters and switch settings prior to going live. So, when Jan 2 came along, we were able to edit the live server, and we were up and running the next day ready for finance to do the reporting.
I agree this too has a nice value-add too for the CV because it showed that I took the initiative to learn something new, and to implement the final results into production. My MS-SQL classes paid off because I was able to also rebuild the live database after a database crash, which was rare but after 10 years of continuous operation, what would you expect!
