The first person to ever hire me was the lady who had been my principal in elementary school. By the time she became my employer, she was a college professor and a flight attendant, and I was a sophomore in high school. She hired me to stop by her house once a week, to do some light cleaning and to organize her paperwork. Occasionally, I graded papers. The best activity was updating her flight attendant manual, which required absolute attention to detail — a single misplaced page could cost her thousands of dollars.

My favorite smell there was the Swiffer floor cleaner, which used lemon-scented inserts. It smelled of perfectionism and cleanliness.