Hey Pandas, When A Seemingly Useless Skill Or Knowledge Turned Out To Be Very Helpful? (Closed)

I am in JROTC and we had an academics competition coming up called Brain Brawl. This one was different from usual, as instead of having paper tests, it was more of a game show format. In the game, your team would answer a normal question based on navy knowledge but if you got it right you got a bonus question which could literally mean anything. However, every single time my team got a Geography question, I somehow knew the answer before anyone else. My team was stacked(one of the kids, who was a senior, had a pilots license) but I still was the main Geography need in this sense. We ended up winning and are going to nationals in New Jersey. Wish us luck!

Not one specific skill, but working in a restaurant, specifically serving tables has given me alot of tools that I use alot for my life outside a restaurant. Learning patience is probably the biggest for me. Also multi tasking, memory, conflict resolution, and staying calm when everything is going to hell.

i learned about what a flower was made of (useless) then took a test about it (usefull)

When I was a kid my dad used to make me read him the instructions and the find the parts required in the next step and give them to him.
This has helped me so many times in building things at work, home, etc. The ability to read and follow instructions seems to be something a lot of people struggle with.

I was shuffling through the airport back in the day before cell phones and overheard someone speak the time. A moment later someone asked ME the time and I was able to tell them confidently, though I had no watch of my own.

I’ve actually learned a decent amount of c**p in Chemistry that turned out to be useful(I’m planning on becoming a librarian BTW, so the odds of me actually needing to know this stuff for my job are pretty slim). One example was when I was baking a couple of weekends ago. One of my favorite recipes requires peanut butter, and if you’ve never baked with peanut butter, it’s awful to work with. I always have a problem with it sticking to my measuring cups. But recently, in chemistry, I learned that peanut butter is nonpolar and water is polar(which is more complicated than I feel like getting into right now. It basically means they hate each other and will not mix). So, I rinsed my cup out with water first before measuring out my peanut butter. I’ve never had an easier time removing it from the cup. Chemistry will not help me with my job, but it saved me time and effort in my kitchen.

I like doing killer sudoku (basically sudoku with simple addition and subtraction). From it I obtained the skill of being able to see up to four single-digit numbers and can tell the sum before others have a chance to think. It really helps on timed math and science tests, especially since I read and write very slowly.

My parents made me take piano lessons from age 7 on up. (Not useless, but wasn’t part of my career. Although I played from time to time for fun.) I hadn’t played classically in at least 15 years, but when my job imploded after Covid and I was suddenly out of work, I was able to start teaching beginner piano lessons and make enough money to keep paying the bills. It was almost a seamless job transition.

ah yes the ability to weild a lightsaber as a weapon got carried over to the bokken and now if one of the large dogs in my neighborhood gets out and finds me i can safely run away while screaming for help as i have a fear of large dogs and if that doesnt work i can use a large stick as a sword