"Jesus Christ, Amelia. Are you always this useless, or are you making a special effort on my account?" It was clear that Brian Balton hadn't been brought in as the new CEO of GenoTech for his bedside manner. Nevertheless, he did have an impressive record of saving biotech companies on the brink of bankruptcy; he had taken Biosure from near-failure to record profits in a mere 17 months, and the board had been singing his praises at top volume for weeks. While I was certainly in favor of keeping the company afloat – to the extent that it ensured I remained gainfully employed and out of my parents' mildewed Pennsylvania basement – I could already tell that this was going to be a taxing period in my employment history. Sure, taking abuse came with any corporate job. To some extent. But it wasn't exactly as if I'd gone through six years of postgraduate education, five years of resume-building grunt-work across several top pharmaceutical companies, and three years as Operations Director at GenoTech to deal with the petulant rantings of some overgrown manchild. Nevertheless, that seemed to be exactly where my career trajectory had taken me. I swallowed my reply and deposited a stack of folders on the conference room table.