My job has me doing all sorts of funny things.

One of them is being detail oriented. I am not a highly detail-oriented person—I mean, does “The Indiana Jones School of Management” imply that I am, how you say, detail-oriented? Not really.

I can be detail-oriented. It is just not my modus operandi. I have to make myself do it, and while it’s taxing, it’s also stretching me and having me be more detail-oriented in my entire life.

For example, I now make grocery lists. I never really did that before—I just went in with a vague notion of what I needed, what I had to spend, and figured that was good enough. Now, I plan.

It’s actually quite scary.

The other thing about being detail-oriented is knowing where data is and what it means. My reaction is always to want to say, “Let me get back to you on that,” but not being great at follow-up, well, that’s a problem. Work forces me to do that, and as a result, I remember all sorts of minutiae. Does this mean that I can remember how old my grandparents are? Not really. [I have only been able to fix that in memory in the last year. Draw from that what you will.]

I just find it all very amusing.