I've always been a nerdy kid. I took up programming and web development when I was about 14 and have self-taught myself PHP/mySQL, javascript, and all the various web markup languages from that point on. It doesn't really have anything to do with my career but having a knowledge of programming and how stuff works is definitely helpful when working with any technology. My industry is Excel-heavy, and it's also not a big leap to do some programming-type things in it, so it helps.
I also help to develop and maintain a web game I've played for over a decade which runs on PHP. Plus I always seem to be finding ways to use it for myself on my personal/private website.