More significant than troubleshooting the family router, my first foray into IT began with the Geek Squad. Due to Best Buy’s fanaticism with employee training, I was given over 100 MB of text heavy PDFs, and significantly more video tutorials, from which to learn the basics of customer oriented IT. Most of this was absorbed over two weeks time and reinforced through the daily grind of the job. I only call it a grind because Geek Squad was not really a technology help desk; it was a customer service store, with heavy stress on sales. My true passion of education was squandered. Just as I realized this, I was given the opportunity to work for a genuine help desk: the VCU helpIT Center. There, my already sharp customer service skills were refined by the help-oriented goals of the position and my educational bent flourished. With the additional screen time afforded to call-center analysts, I was also able to take on additional projects which required me to learn new skills. One such project was a XUL, CSS, and JS constructed toolbar for Firefox which provided easy access to university resources and tools related to eDir, AD, Banner, etc. The former two languages were familiar to me through my recent work in web design, but I had avoided the use of Javscript due to its seemingly complicated nature. I was forced to pick up the latter language quickly using resources like Codecadamy, w3schools, and real paper books.Simultaneous to all of this, I have maintained a career as a vocalist and pianist in the Richmond area, providing sectional leadership to choirs as well as soloing for various churches and musical organizations, such as St. James’ Episcopal Church, the James River Singers, One Voice Chorus, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, and Classical Revolutions RVA among others.