I guess I'm a tradesman now
So here's my i don't work here experience from 2 years ago. This takes place somewhere in Europe.
We bought our first house with my wife 2 years ago. As we're both in our early 30s and real estate is expensive af, we could only afford a fixer upper, and after the closing, taxes, fees, etc we had exactly 0 money to our name. Nevertheless, we were very happy to be able to move in (and very scared about the mortgage we're paying until our mid 60s but that's an other story).
Luckily I'm an Eastern European dude so being completely broke was not a new experience for me. So i got to work on the basics, namely the electrical, plumbing and heating, because those things are pretty nice to have in your home. I'm in a tech-related field, but definitely not a proper tradesman, however, i had youtube (i can especially recommend beaplumber). So i started drilling, laying cable, laying pipes, preparing walls, debris and concrete dust was flying everywhere for several weeks. The lack of running water made the situation worse because i could not regularly shower for those weeks. The move was long distance so i had no gym membership in the area, getting a hotel room was out of the question because of the financials, and popping over to the new neighbors asking if i could use their shower real quick would have been weird af.
So here i am, popping down to the local hardware store chain, OBI (their logo is a beaver in a hard hat - probably because construction workers love beavers?). I'm dirty, dusty, borderline crusty, basically running the look of a homeless person who accidentally slept in a cement mixer. The only reason it's obvious that I'm not homeless is because I'm pushing a cart with a lot of expensive stuff in front of me. Also, I'm in a pretty bad mood because this situation is not fun.
Then, suddenly a dude pops in front of me holding 3 different drain traps, and immediately starts off:
-Dude: "Hey, could you help me out real quick? I have this kitchen sink that got completely clogged up, which of these drains should i use?"
-Me: "That depends on your sink mate, but i don't work here."
-Dude: "Yeah i know, you just looked like someone who really knows his stuff, could you help me out?"
This completely baffled me because i was just some random idiot who tried to figure out stuff based on online research and youtube tutorials, and definitely did not think of myself as competent in such matters. Still, we went through his problem, and i recommend him a way to fix it and a set of parts from a company, where I knew that the quality is pretty good (i just installed a toilet using their parts and everything worked nicely for me). Then the dude thanked me and left, and i was there hoping that i did not give him some horrible hack advice. However, my mood shifted considerably because of this interaction. I felt a lot lighter, there was a slight bounce in my step, and was just generally less miserable because some stranger looked at me and thought "hey that guy over there looks competent". I was still miserable though, just not that much.
That's it, i don't know what happened to the dude afterwards, I really hope he did not flood his kitchen because of me. But the sinks, faucets, toilets and general plumbing stuff i installed 2 years ago does not obviously leak so far, so i would like to hope that what i said made some degree of sense after all.