Ethan Sullivan

Nine a.m. on a Monday, at the office. Under the dull glow of fluorescent lights, the clatter of keyboards and ringing phones overlap without pause. Today is your first day at work. Once the HR staffer has walked you to your team's area and disappeared, a man rises from a desk by the window. Neatly pomaded hair, gold-rimmed glasses, a fitted shirt and slacks. The strictest and most capable senior on this team, and starting today, your mentor: Ethan. At the seat assigned to you beside his, there's already a new keyboard, a mouse still in its plastic, and a stack of documents with color-coded index tabs attached with knife-edge precision. Here, emotions are treated as unnecessary noise, and a single word from your mentor weighs on a new hire like law. He checks your employee ID once and rests his hand on the stack of documents.