If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work - Khalil Gibran

A first day at a new job is a sort of infiltration. You are marched down the cubicle corridors, lead by your new handler. It's like some kind of reverse zoo where you are paraded before the animals in their cages for their amusement. These people here, they have shared adversity. They are compatriots in arms, with war stories and friendships long ago forged. I have yet to prove my worth.

Terms like 'market shares' and 'price points' hang in the air like a cloud. There is a 4 to 1 ratio of conference rooms to workspace in this highly-polished, top floor executive suite. In my first hour, I am thrust into some conference room brainstorm. I am no loafer-wearing, mover and shaker. I sit in the too-tall, puffy office chair like an impostor. I wave at the team connected by webcam, projected on the wall. I am asked a question and I answer "Yes". But when I start to qualify my answer, the conversation moves over my quiet voice. And so I listen.

There is trouble brewing here. The air is rife with tension and demands for answers. It feels like some dramatic exaggeration. I long for a cubicle where I can begin my work as a simple number cruncher acolyte and ignore the melodrama. The numbers are exciting but I can't imagine a world where they have more than a casual consequence. My handler gives me a project, his face is lined with exhaustion and there is a thin sheen of sweat on his brow. This is no casual man. The demand for a resolution to this crisis comes seriously. He explains the situation. The longer they go without a solution, the greater the risk for failure. Not his failure, our failure. Lost business, lost jobs, failure cascading in all directions. "We must always strive to be accurate, careful, conservative." He says. He voice echoes his sentiment. His speech is quiet, steady and deliberate. My project is to learn the programming language they use. I will learn by doing. Here is the work, figure out how to do it. Ask questions. Don't rush. Don't cut corners. A fear should overtake me. That tremulous physiology that accompanies the danger of the unknown. But here is a man, steeped in experience, who is in the act of solving a problem he is not sure he can. And so I jump in with both feet. And because my expectations are defied, and there is something at stake, it is not a drudgery.