I worked with an ex-Microsoftie who was responsible for getting Excel onto the Mac, in the 1990s. He quit and swore off computers for a couple of years, and we had to convince him that (a) we were a great company and he should definitely interview with us, and (b) we weren't going to treat him the way Microsoft had.
He was pretty good, but there were parts of his psyche that seemed . . . damaged.
True: hiring non-programmers from top schools and then giving them tasks like "fake out multifinder enough that WinHelp runs" is a unique form of cruelty. But most work in the 1990s was like that. He should be glad he landed at Microsoft instead of Commodore or 3DO or half a dozen other places.
"Welcome to hell. Here's your 15 year old MSC code base to port to OS X."
You couldn't pay me enough... not because I wouldn't want a fat salary, but because I literally do not think I could actually bring myself to do it. It would require drugs.
You could still take the fat salary until they found out it's not working (because, of course, it cannot possibly work). If they decided the code base is too crufty (instead of deeming you incompetent) you could still keep the fat salary and land in another realm of the company. Unfortunately for you, the odds of them deciding the codebase is too crufty (and, therefore, that the very senior exec sitting on it managed its aging poorly) are not good.
The poor soul that had to port that stuff..