Completing all that grueling and hard work within a month left Zoli continuously exhausted. Luckily, he had his mansion and repurposed the previous CEO's lakeside hut as a beach house. He debated to let R&D research a sailing boat but was informed, that it would take twenty days after the current backlog was cleared, so he postponed the purchase.

  Postponed it, and not scrapped. A CEO needed to have a boat, after all.

  The one-month waiting time for R&D to finish at least part of their tasks was enough to accumulate enough money to buy Upkeep Reduction: Animal Bosses below Level 35, -50%. That purchase set him back to almost zero money in the books, but at least the MPD cost for his few Zone Leaders fell down markedly. Interestingly, the salaries for the Senior Agents and the Deputy Zone Leader stayed at it was.

  Or so Finances informed him.

  “Honored CEO, the acquired Perks are good for Representatives, Agents, and Zone Leaders, but not Specialists, Senior Agents, and Deputy Zone Leaders. Those all fall into different salary categories."

  “Fine, include purchases for the other categories into the Business Plan too. How much time to save enough money to source the Perks?”

  “Around a month each, honored CEO.”

  That was just fantastic – important quality-of-life things for the CEO were pushed further and further back. He didn't even have a company car yet! No private jet, no boat, only a huge mansion, and a beach house!

  “All right. Janine, schedule an executive meeting for tomorrow morning! We will progressively unleash dynamic network metrics in Zone 2!”

  One month was enough time for Zone 1 to settle and it was time to start working on Zone 2.

  The next morning, Zoli surveyed Zone 2. Basically, it was two horsts, free-standing limestone blocks with a small saddle between the two. In the North, the border was defined by the stream, running along Zone 1’s Western border; to the East, the other stream, emptying into the Lake Biome to the South. Besides the two hills and saddle, the Zone only contained a hillside to the South, gradually leveling to the lake, that is Elevation 0. The higher, but smaller hill in the West was around a hundred and seventy meters high, the lower but larger in the East a hundred and forty. Except for the larger hill’s Southern flank and the saddle, the sides were quite steep.

  While the larger hill, the saddle, and the hillside contained sparse mixed woods with a few denser patches, the smaller only sported low grass, flowers, and a few bushes.

  All in all, Zoli had to concede, that the previous CEO did quite a good job in directing her departments in sculpting the whole two-point-two by three-point-five kilometers affair.

  “The Eastern hill even has a small cave…” Zoli commented, deep in thought.

  “Yes, honored CEO.” Dana agreed “Marketing and Operations and Administration put the notion forward to enlarge it into a confusing maze, put puzzles and traps into it, with maybe a Minotaur at the end. Their proposal is attached to the provisional Org Chart and Process Map.”

  “What is HR’s stance on it? Quality Management?”

  “Well, Zone 1 already has a cave system, and so does Zone 5. Not to mention a few of the later Zones. We feel, that while caves do provide access to functionalized quality vectors, interactively harnessing customized applications would mean not to overdo their placements.”

  “You are actually right. Placing a cave system into every Zone would get boring fast and wouldn’t develop client-focused content. We can work with that hole in the ground as it is, no need to expend convergences, we could save for later.”

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  “Of course, honored CEO, sir!”

  “Let’s see the Org Chart. Ah, I see… You kept airborne employees out of the Zone, that’s good. With how steep the Zone is in general, your choice for the Zone Leader position has merit. A Lynx has probably not a too dynamic growth in leadership skills to redefine customer satisfaction.”

  “Of course, honored CEO. The Process Map envisions it to prowl the hills, and try to ambush customers. The recommended Perks are there to empower the impactful results. Dramatically.”

  “I see… So, Silent Steps enhances [Stealth], Silent Running facilitates stealth while running and Silent Death doubles delivered damage metrics while sneaking and attacking from behind?”

  “That is correct, honored CEO. Scaling the Perks with the innate leadership Skills of the new Zone Leader will credibly customize compelling core competencies.”

  “Yes?”

  “The Zone Leader has, with a little bit of tweaking the Skills, a [Stealth] of 250%.”

  “I see. And that is an effective level…?”

  “Yes, honored CEO, sir, 250% is indeed very good.”

  “Splendid! Let’s promote the new Zone Leader!”

  Soon, a Representative Agent of Level 1 was transformed into a Level 4 Zone Leader. Zoli could have sworn, that the new member of the Leadership Team bulked up a bit, and the already impressive claws and teeth grew even more wicked. A fine addition to customer service, indeed. It should provide a unique experience to those, who leveraged existing agile alignments and survived the delivered synergies. Zoli's company delivered training opportunities after all, the harder the training, the more excellence the company provided.

  The Stockholder would and should be impressed.

  “To embrace functional scenarios and streamline the opportunities the steep hillsides and cliffs promote, the Org Chart calls for a herd of Cliff Goats, that is a Team of six, as Senior Agents. Engaging diversity, it is HR’s and Quality Management’s stance, to randomly fashion Perks to each of the Senior Agents.”

  “Recommendations?”

  “As Cliff Goats are innately proficient in [Climbing], and can traverse non-horizontal surfaces, we suggest a 50% chance for them to have Mountaineer. That would enhance the performance even more. 16,66% chance would be directed to either Bonus Movement, Helldiver, Stunt Person, Stormtrooper, and Heavy Bones.”

  “That's a 150% chance to get a Perk. A creative use of mathematics."

  “Yes, honored CEO. With this distribution, we can ensure, that half of the employees have Mountaineer, and there will be surprise compositions in expertise. We could change the Terms of Use without informing the customers without openly informing them."

  “All right. What do the perks do?”

  “Bonus Movement gives extra movement opportunities, Helldiver bonus damage potentialities for attacking while falling or jumping, Stunt Person – it was inappropriately named Stunt Man – decreases the damage from falling, Stromtrooper enhances damage from charging by a huge margin, and Heavy Bones decreases the chance of broken bones.”

  “All right, promote them to Level 4. What next?”

  “We have two positions for Deputy Zone Leaders, honored CEO. Dramatically formulating cross-platform challenges for customers to use the lookout tower, we propose to assign one of them as gatekeepers there. The other one could be facilitated in the small cave as optimal front-desk manager for hidden merchandise.”

  Zoli liked both proposals. One to hinder customers in easily accessing the tower and the second as a guardian for merchandise, they currently didn’t have. Opening the company premises was still some time away, so preparing the field before they had merchandise was not an issue.

  “Possibilities?”

  “We have a Giant Centipede, a Hole Borer, and Creeping Vines for the cave. Only the first two are animals, though, but the Vines could make an out-of-the-box interface."

  Zoli took a look at the possible new hires and discarded the Hole Borer, a kind of large worm, which bored holes into walls and customers out of hand. It was ugly and stupid – bad attributes for a management position. The Vines were basically fine, but were plants, so the salary would be higher, than for animals.

  “Centipede it is.” He informed the department heads. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a Creative Department, so he assigned the task of being creative to Marketing and Customer Service. Both were creative, after all, no? Cooking up different ways to entrap unwary customers and find ways to handle complaints to the company’s satisfaction was applied creativity, no?

  “We envision fashioning the cave as a lair of a scavenger." Jenette immediately jumped on the new opportunity. "Discarded animal parts, bones, detritus, with the merchandise hidden as easter eggs between the junk."

  “A scavenger hunt? I like the idea! With a correct marketing strategy, the customers will expend more funds to find the correct product, than they wanted! Excellent thinking!”

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