The new address was on the third floor of a moderately old building near the fire station in Prabhadevi. I found the office after a little asking around and arrived there at twenty minutes past nine.

As you might imagine, Diary, I was sweating profusely, absolutely exhausted and had no idea how I was going to explain my tardiness on the very first day of my very first job.

However, that’s when I realized that there was only one other person in the office. He was sitting in the little cubicle in front, by the door, playing Spider Solitaire on the flat-screen monitor of his computer.

There was no one else. In fact there was nothing else at all in the office. No computers or files or anything. Just individual workstations with empty tables, chairs and a few printouts lying around.

I waited for a few minutes before clearing my throat to grab his attention. He looked up, smiled at me, wished me good morning and continued with his game. So I gently told him that I was new and that I was supposed to be joining Dufresne Partners today.

He immediately stood up, shook my hand warmly and asked me to sit anywhere I wanted to while he arranged for my papers. I asked if I could just choose a workstation at random and he said that Dufresne followed a ‘hot seat’ system in the branch offices where consultants could sit anywhere they wanted with their laptops. I nodded, astonished at the simplicity and efficiency of the system and impressed by the professionalism of this wonderful company.

I chose the cubicle right in front, next to the window that looked out into the hallway. I sat there for a few minutes before Shailesh, that was his name, arrived with a huge file full of papers. The file had the words ‘Robin Were Geese’ printed on it in big black letters and he told me to read it in complete detail from the first word till the last. He said this was critical for my smooth joining.

I was on page eleven of the Dufresne Partners and the Flat Organization: A Handbook when another man entered the office and walked towards me. Shailesh wished him and told him I was a new joinee.

The man was wearing a sharp brown suit, had a BlackBerry in one hand and looked very very serious. He told me that he was happy to see me join and that I had to go sit somewhere else as I was occupying his place. I was slightly puzzled; what he was saying was clearly in violation of the ‘hot seating’ philosophy. I was going to remind him of this when Shailesh rushed up and told me that ‘Debajit Sir’ always sat in that seat and no one else was allowed to.

I was quickly moved to the opposite corner of the office and Debajit sat down, pulled out his laptop and began work.

By the time I was done with the file it was just past twelve and the office had around six people parked in various workstations. The letter in the file had said that the first day would involve a classroom training session with lunch, followed by a night of drinks with the Mumbai office team in order to ‘break the ice’.