I was rescued by a job offer that was the professional equivalent of a blind date: A former colleague had been interviewing for a job when she realized that she wasn't interested in it, so she told the interviewer,whom she'd just met, to call me. She thought we were soulmates. We met for drinks in a hotel bar. (I wish I were making this up but I'm not.) She was an attractive woman, old enough to be my mother, and she seduced me. She offered me more money, more freedom, more responsibility. And I turned her down at first because I feared the unknown. (People in my office justified staying in place by saying, "The devil you know is better than the devil you don't know.")

But I'd been interviewed by a temptress--my very own Mrs. Robinson--and she promised to prepare me for bigger and better things. Six months after I went to work for her, she resigned. How dare she! She was the reason I'd taken this job at a smaller, less prestigious magazine. I was distraught. She animated the office and my life there. Without her, my job was mundane and meaningless.

Well, she had promised to teach me things and she was true to her word. I learned that having passion for your office or your colleagues is a dangerous thing. I learned that the workplace is governed by a perversion of what they used to call the Golden Rule ("Do unto others as you would have others do unto you"); if you put your bosses' interests before your own, then so will they. I learned that if you give yourself fully to your job you may be giving away too much. I learned that loving a job, like loving a person, is more fraught and complicated than you initially expect.