the button basket

Roshana is 32, single and still lives at home with her parents. She works as a records manager and has a flair for organization that few people possess - a flair that materialized very early in her life.

"I've been a stickler for order for as long as I can remember," laughs Roshana, "but my vocation in this respect really became noticeable to my parents when I preferred to play with buttons rather than dolls."

Buttons?

"Yes," laughs Roshana. "My mother was a tailor and she had stacks of beautiful buttons that she kept in a huge basket."

"She would always get in a tizzy when she couldn't find the exact color of a button she wanted," explains Roshana, "so she was very happy when I sat down one day and started to sort out the basket of buttons."

"She wanted me to thread the matching buttons together but I didn't want to do that - I wanted to keep the buttons loose so that I could play with them."

"My father had an old tool box with lots of compartments and I begged him to let me have it for the buttons."

"I sorted the buttons according to attributes that I considered to be important," explains Roshana, "and then I'd put them into the compartments in the tool box that I had designated for them."

"For years until school homework took over my life I'd play with those buttons," laughs Roshana.

"My parents expected me to become an accountant but looking at dollar signs and boring columns of figures didn't appeal to me."

"I needed a career with a bit of color in which my organizational skills could be fully utilized," explains Roshana. "I wanted a job where I could play with whatever it was that I worked with."

"I suppose working with records sounds awfully boring to everyone else," says Roshana, "but take a look at my filing room and you'll know what I mean when I say I've gone from buttons to records - there are shelves and shelves of folders designed by brightly colored button stickers!"