Many years ago, make that many, many years ago, I was a penniless student, such was my lot that I considered giving up my studies and get a full time job. By way of good fortune a fellow student's father had his own staff agency, hiring out skilled workers to companies who needed short term hire to cover things like staff shortage, staff annual leave, sickness absence and other temporary vacancies.
Following a chat with that staff agency fellow and with some financial help from my own father, I took lessons to drive, and gain, the heavy goods licence required by UK law, in order to drive trucks. I drove for the agency at weekends and occasionally during holiday periods when the college was closed.
Fast forward fifty years or so, retirement was upon me but I wasn't ready for it. Talking to one of the managers of a company that traded with the firm that I worked for, he was surprised to learn that I held such a licence and asked if I had kept it up to date. Indeed I had. He smiled and said: "You could be just the fellow that I need. His fleet of trucks and trailers were serviced, repaired and maintained by a company about twenty miles from his firm, would I be interested in running those vehicles to and from the service centre? Yes please!
A couple of months ago, retirement loomed again, the insurers of the transport company were getting quite pedantic about my age, so off into the sunset I had to go. But it was enjoyable whilst it lasted, it wasn't industrial work in the sense of having to get my hands dirty and I got to engage with others. All in all it really was more a hobby than work, though I didn't object when the wage went into the bank.