My career started as many do, as a result of nepotism. The first half of my tenure as a clerk at an international corporate law firm, involved ordering office supplies and keeping the supply rooms on each of the floors stocked with legal pads, a colorful assortment of pens and post-it notes, and endless reams of printer and copier paper.

Later I was asked to help the IT department with computer maintenance, and the AV department with videotaping and editing. For nearly a year I reviewed highlighted pages of deposition testimony and spliced together video, ultimately collaborating with a local production company to turn the S-Video footage into an indexed Laser Disc, which was state of the art technology at the time.

Although I ultimately left that experience for a remote mountain homestead run by old hippies, those years allowed me to develop both the discipline and interpersonal skills which, in retrospect, were an essential part of my working life.