@nepd The earliest forms of my negotiation and networking skills came from getting to know teachers, how they "tick", what limits I could push. While I wasn't the best student for most of my teachers, I had a good rapport with all of them.

Strangely enough, most of them saw what I was doing as a way of "taking initiative", though different than the usual "do all of the homework all of the time, pass the bubble sheet test and move up the grade".