I love this. I became a IT professional through a series of weird-ass events including being mistaken for someone with a clue because I discovered the old Colossal Cave game on a HP3000 back in the days of terminals and line printers. I was mistaken for a computer nerd rather than a game nerd and got offered a job for which I was totally unqualified...so I took it.

So now I'm in charge of an MRP system that process raw materials into outdoor gear and can handle orders and billing and all that. It was written in interpreted BASIC by a company that no longer existed. I printed major parts of it out on green bar. The typical module was 5 pages of boiler plate comments and a GOTO out into space. My process mirrored yours. I'd use color highlighters to isolate sections. I ended up having to do a grand tour of Bay Area office supply stores looking for different color markers!

I tell folks I won my career by having the high score on a computer game.