I really like trains and thought it would be fun to work on them for a few years before calling it quits. So, i went to a hiring session for a few job openings at a small train stop out in the boonies.
Applicants that got over the first few hurdles and were invited to interviews was about 5 to 1 ratio, applicants to openings. There were a lot of us in the older generation, me included, and some had come quite a ways for the interview...so they would be dealing with re-location expenses for a job that paid no hourly rate (paid by the miles that you traveled with the train, on call 24/7 and had to respond within 90 minutes, with good possibility of getting bumped to other locations several hundred miles away on short notice).
Most of these guys had been unemployed for quite a while. I thanked my lucky stars for my job. There but for fortune and a college degree went I. I know its been rough out there, but it makes more of an impression when you see it up close and personal.

No, I didn't get a job offer..so my train playing will stay restricted to getting out the train set each Christmas...but that's OK, someone who really needed the job probably took my place. I'm still employed, and off to work on Monday, on the road, for a job that will take a week or two.