What do I love to do at work? 1. Creating order out of disorder.Whether it’s methodically re-organizing a warehouse, or pulling out meaningful statistics from an Excel spread sheet, I find great satisfaction in being able to find logic in apparent chaos. Categorizing, compiling, analyzing, synthesizing; these activities utilize both sides of my brain in a most rewarding fashion. 2. Using my hands.In a digital age, my body and soul still long for the tangible. Perhaps that is why most of the companies I have worked for have been purveyors of tactile goods: clothing, footwear, fabrics, trims, etc. 3. Generating sales (in my own way).In retail, it’s called “the silent salesman”: creating a space that captures the sale. I will be the first to admit that I’m not the most assertively charismatic sales person, but give me an opportunity to create a beautiful, organized, welcoming environment and I will excel. 4. Helping others by becoming an “expert”.I take pride in becoming an expert on the products I sell. In my current industry I have gained a reputation as the go-to source for identifying thousands of different fabric patterns. “Do you recognize this fabric?” a designer might ask, showing me a picture they found on Pinterest, “…my client wants to find something just like it”. If I don’t recognize it, chances are I can find something similar. 5. Preserving heritage. Years ago I was given a side job of digitally archiving an acquaintance’s family photo album. The photos went back over a hundred years, and I painstakingly scanned, retouched, and stored the images using Photoshop. I am a conservationist at heart. The everyday products, places, and people in our lives tell us about where we came from. The fabrics I sell are lively time capsules of the artistic movements and societies that came before us: The Renaissance, Louis XV, Art Deco, Modernism, etc. In these designs we have a window into what came before us, and what ideas continue to shape us.