Martin’s waiting by the car for me in the morning. Anders and one of the others are also waiting, apparently for me to arrive so they can go. We’re the second vehicle to leave, as the other one has already left with Marie and everybody else.

I’m the smallest of the three of us and offer to take a seat in the third row. What it lacks in direct legroom, it makes up for in my having two seats to spread out across. Besides, it’s only going to be for a few minutes and I can take a little squashing in.

Anders is keen to learn more about my games, so I point him towards my website and he’s soon watching gameplay videos and offering comments on them.

“And you are working on another one?” he asks.

“Yes. It is a bit more ambitious, but still a platformer at heart. Even such a long-standing genre has moved on a long way in the last thirty years. Now, you need a real story to tell to have any chance of success,” I explain.

“So, unique music and graphics?”

“Yes. That’s why Erik is helping me with the music and sound effects. They need to be more polished than I’m capable of. The community are helping with some of the graphics, but I often pay for stuff like that on Fiverr and some of the other marketplaces. There is sometimes a language barrier, but I already have some of the assets and getting more in a similar style is fairly cheap and easy.”

“Do you make a lot of money, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Not really. A few hundred pounds a year maybe, mostly from Steam sales. Like I said yesterday, I don’t do it for the money although I wouldn’t mind if it was another Minecraft. I’d be quite happy to retire like Notch did!”

“Really?”

“Well, okay, not at all like he did. I’m never going to say stupid shit on social media, for example and I’ll be dancing down the street in the middle of any pride parade, not calling for a hetero alternative.”

“We handled some business for him in the Stockholm office a couple of years ago,” Anders informs me. “You’re nothing like him. I think most of us are better off wishing we were billionaires than actually being one.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I need billions,” I add with a grin. “A hundred million dollars or so would be enough.”

Having someone to talk to and leaving the driver to do his job has made the trip into the city seem to fly. It feels like only five minutes or so have passed and we’re already pulling through the barrier and down into the garage.

All of us have different floors to go to, but Anders suggests that I come and find him for lunch and he’ll take me to one of his favourite places. I readily agree and head off to my empty office.

My first visitor is Serena, one of the local ladies who I met last night at dinner. She is one of the HR managers and I knew she would have plenty for me to work with.

“Good morning, Will,” she says breezily as she knocks on my open door. “Are you almost ready to meet your new team?” I had been listening to the bustle of new arrivals getting organised, but had decided to check my notes and send some emails while I waited for everybody to get organised.

“Yes, is everybody here?” I ask as I stand and retrieve the printed notes from my printer.

“We have one who hasn’t showed,” she tells me as we walk down the corridor together. “They haven’t called in sick, so if I don’t hear from them, I’ll call one of the alternates in for this afternoon.”

“Is this normal?” I ask.

“Let’s say that it isn’t unusual. It’s usually down to family. A call from home is still considered more important than a new job, even when work is hard to come by. I’ll handle it.”

One of my emails this morning was from Andy asking when we could get together to work on the office layouts, but there’s currently only one place where my new employees can possibly be and we head quickly towards the main conference room.

Serena makes the introductions quickly, but I know I’m going to have a hard time remembering almost thirty names and faces.

“I’ll let you know about the other one,” Serena tells me as she heads for the door. “Don’t work them too hard on their first day,” she adds with a smile for everyone else before she closes the door and leaves me to my fate.”

Everything that I need for the morning is at hand. Andy has made sure that the laptop and big screen are set up and ready to go. All I need to do is log in and access my presentation. I don’t normally do this for more than two or three people, but it is quite familiar territory.

I’m standing in front of a sea of uniform faces, an even mix of men and women who all appear to be in their early twenties. If I had to guess, I’d assume that they are all keen young recent graduates, staring their first proper jobs. I remember the feeling only too well.

“I’ve really only learned one or two words of Kiswahili so far, but I do have one that works right now. Karibu – welcome!” That seems to be enough to get everyone, myself included, to settle down and relax a little.

“In case anyone didn’t catch it, my name is Will and I’m here to help you all to become experts in the different software solutions that the company works with. I know that all of you are already familiar with the basic support for our PC platforms and Microsoft software, so I’m not going to spend too much of our time on that.”

“My main focus will be on the in-house software that our business uses every single day. We will deal with a bit of everything and cover the basics extensively, but it is all about our custom solutions at heart.”

“I’m going to apologise in advance for probably getting your names wrong at first. I don’t normally work with such a large group. If you ask a question, tell me your name first and that will help a lot.”

These first few training sessions are going to be almost exclusively about orientation. The big issue with working in a support role is that you have to know more about each piece of software than the users do. This required knowledge is then multiplied across the many different tools that we use in daily business.

One of the things that I’m going to try with such a large group is to see if we can’t get to the point where there is an expert in each particular tool on each of the two team shifts. Everybody will need to know enough to answer the routine queries, but then they will also have somebody to hand the call off to if they get out of their general depth.

To this end, I’ve modified my first few session presentations to help me see if I can pick out people who have an affinity for each of the departments. Just because you are a graduate in a particular discipline doesn’t mean that you know nothing about anything else. I’m looking for those among this group who have those key affinities that I think can make them experts.

Even so, a first two-hour or so session is only going to scratch the surface of what we need to know. I’ve learned to keep these sessions sensibly short enough to be easily absorbed and then to allow time for questions afterwards. This very first one is little more than an outline of our overall responsibilities, but even that takes quite some time to lay out and explain.

“In conclusion,” I say, “I know that it is a lot to take in in one session. That’s why we will be working on it for the next couple of days. By the end of the week, we should have at least some of the office space ready for us to actually practice what we are learning in here. Any questions?”

There are a few, but they are easily answered because we’re making progress and I’m happy to call for a long break. “Check your notes over a long lunch and we’ll have our next session at two,” I tell everyone as I shut the screen and laptop down.

It’s not yet noon and I’m not due to meet with Anders for lunch until one, so I’ve already suggested that Andy and I have a quick meeting before lunch. I want an office with some hardware up and running by the end of the week if I can and I need him to deliver.

When I ask him as we are standing in the main foyer, Anders assures me that we don’t need an escort, as the two of us are together and only going a short distance to a familiar location.

“Sorry,” I tell him as we go down in the elevator to a ground-level foyer that I haven’t actually seen yet. “I’m still not quite used to what’s safe and what I need to be careful about.”

“Here in the heart of the business district, there’s a small chance of getting your pocket picked, but not really much more than that. Keep your phone and wallet in your front trouser pockets. It’s probably no worse than London or Paris, really,” Anders explains as we step out into the heat and bustle of the lunchtime crowds.

“I can see why,” I tell him, having to almost shout to be heard over the general background of the milling crowd and the traffic that seems just as busy as it did during rush-hour this morning. “Where are we going, anyway?”

“It’s a little local place. I didn’t ask, but I hope you’re not a vegetarian?”

“No, I can and do eat meat,” I assure him with a grin.

“Their speciality is ‘nyama choma’ which really doesn’t do much more than tell you that it is grilled meat. Usually mutton or goat, but they do chicken as well. It’s almost a fusion between Indian and Mexican, as it’s usually spiced and wrapped in a flatbread. You’ll like it. Trust me.”

Luckily, the little place is less than two hundred metres from the office entrance and it is much bigger on the inside than the tiny narrow store-front suggested at first glance. Still, it’s packed enough that we have trouble finding a place to sit, eventually having to go almost all the way to the back and into a corner.

“Karibu Mister Anders,” the petite waitress says as she comes up to our tiny table. “Who is your new friend?”

“This is Will. He’s going to be here for three months and this is his first day in the city.”

“Karibu,” she tells me with a smile.

“I must learn some Kiswahili,” I tell her in reply. “Thank you. It is good to be here.”

“Thank you is ‘assante’. If you wish to say it more strongly, you say ‘assante sana’. ‘Sana’ means very much,” she tells me brightly. I make a mental note to download Duolingo or something later and start to learn. It can’t do any harm after all.

There’s no menu on our tiny table, just a board on the wall that’s all in Kiswahili. At least it’s a language that uses a Latin script, or I’d be totally lost. I recognise ‘nyama choma’ and also assume that ‘kuku choma’ is the chicken option.

“Meat or chicken?” Anders asks helpfully. “You should keep it simple for the first few days, then you can try some of the more varied local options.”

“I’m happy to try the meat. Chicken sounds a little too safe even for me.”

“And beer or a soft drink?”

“I’m sorely tempted to have a beer, but I have too much work to do this afternoon, so soft drinks please.”

“Coke, Sprite, Fanta Orange, Stoney?” the waitress asks helpfully.

“Stoney’s the only one I don’t recognise,” I suggest.

“That’s ginger beer. It’s really very good,” Anders tells me. “Very British!”

“Sure, why not. You have to try whatever is on offer,” I agree.

Our food and drinks arrive in less than a couple of minutes, clearly the place has a very high throughput. I’ve seen people leaving and new customers arriving in just the five minutes we have been here so far.

I can also immediately see why Anders favours the place. The food is hot, plentiful and very tasty indeed. It’s almost certainly goat-meat, as it is more subtly flavoured than lamb or mutton would be, but the spicing is spot-on and the flatbread is perfectly cooked and piping hot.

The soft drink is a little sweeter than I expected, but it does have that really nice ginger beer kick to it and is icy cold. It’s served in its brown glass bottle and there’s no sign of a glass being offered. Our dessert is a light and fluffy slice of sponge cake that has a delicate vanilla flavour and a dusting of powdered sugar. It’s all really, really good.

There’s enough time between bites to chat amiably about ourselves. Anders is apparently looking forward to a visit from his girlfriend. He is out here for long enough that he is due a break in a few weeks’ time. I feel safe enough in our quiet corner to tell him that I’m single and unlikely to be looking for a partner in a place that’s not entirely safe for the community.

He's smart enough to pick up on the ‘community’ reference and simply nod in understanding. We spend the rest of our break with him telling me that he is going to take his girlfriend on a proper safari for a few days. It sounds intriguing, but I won’t have time for anything like that for a few weeks.

Anders somehow signals to our friendly waitress that we are ready to leave and she waves in understanding before tapping some keys on the cash register system. It looks to be much more complicated than I thought it might be as it has a screen and a keyboard as well as a more conventional keypad.

“They do take phone payments using the local app, M-PESA, but you won’t have that yet, do you?” Anders asks.

“I haven’t even had time to get any cash yet. I’m hoping I can use a credit card when I go to the supermarket later.”

“You will be able to use a card in all the big stores, but download M-PESA and put some credit on it as well. While it isn’t really known in the west, anyone can sign up with a credit card. It’s much quicker and accepted as readily as cash. No problem, as I invited you today. You can pay tomorrow?”

“Of course. I feel so unprepared for life in a foreign city. Thank you… Assante sana!”

“Said almost like a native,” Anders tells me with a grin. The waitress brings us a bill and he takes it to the register to pay, scanning a code with the app on his phone. I couldn’t fail to notice that he slipped a banknote into the waitress’s hand as he took the little receipt from her.

Once outside and walking back to the office, I ask him about it.

“Tipping is normal?” I ask him.

“Fairly. It’s much more like Europe than the United States, though. I gave her the equivalent of about a dollar or euro. It’s about 150 shillings to the euro or dollar, so a little more to a pound. She probably earns 100 to 150 euros a month. She looks after me, though, so it’s worth it.”

“I just wanted to get an idea how much cash I might need,” I tell him. “It will take me a little while to get used to the cost of living here. Eating in the restaurant is great, but I actually like to cook and eat what I’ve made for myself.

“Well, I’d get maybe 10,000 shillings in cash from the ATM and that will last you for a week or two for shared lunches and tips.” It doesn’t sound like a lot, but I did see the prices on the board in the café and the math does add up.