The Golden Screw
The story of the golden screw.
I’d like to set the scene… Come back in time with me, if you will.
Back in the Day
It’s 1987 and I’m 10 years old. I’m sitting in a windowless supply room in the back of my
parents’ lighting store on a stool and in front of me is an oil barrel filled with screws. Machine
screws, wood screws, drywall screws, phillips screws and… you get the idea… a lot of screws.
And my task, set out for me by my father is to sort these screws into containers.
So many questions fly through my mind…why am I in the back storeroom when my sister gets
to be out on the floor of the store, actually TALKING to people, doing something useful and fun?
Who is the Machiavellian monster who has indiscriminately put screws from every facet of
construction just WILLY NILLY in an oil barrel?! Why does this oil barrel live in the storeroom of
my parents’ lighting store…
Sort
Sort
Sort
In that entire summer, I never made more than an inch’s-worth of progress in sorting those
screws.
But sometime in the middle of that summer I realized I had a choice to make. I was at a
crossroads. I could be furious, resentful, victimized by the mundane monotonous task set in
front of me… or, I could do it well and fast. I could be the best at screw sorting.
Furthermore, it’s possible that hindsight has put that perspective on my young experience.
But certainly as I navigated my first few years of audits with my Tax Law clients, as they handed
me THEIR metaphorical oil-barrels filled with numbers… profit and loss statements for 3, 4 5
years, receipts faded with time and transactions whose recipients had long gone out of
business, I came to appreciate that summer of sorting. Moreover, that training in detail work, that
patience for sifting thought the most minute details.
Today
I discovered that my passion was for the detective work it took to uncover the one piece of
information that made all the rest of a company’s business narrative fall into place. Therefore, I realized it
was like finding a needle in a haystack, a diamond in ice… a golden screw… And that through
that kind of attention to detail, I could help people in their moments of crisis, at their crossroads.
Through diligence, expertise and an attention to detail I can help save people’s businesses,
their families and often, their sense of humor.
