Medium Management

“Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude “

- Zig Ziglar


Vaseline was as happy as a Hivean can be.

50,000 printers sold to the American government in the first week of earth market entry was sure to get him promoted within the Hive. Emotion overcame him for a moment and he blinked.

Once.

He sighed and opened his black book to write down his innermost thoughts.

'Sold 50K printers, ready for promotion' he wrote in intricate Hivean characters, then paused, pursed his lips and finished with 'time to get rid of VP...'

Far away he could hear the pandemonium of early system tests of the printers and he frowned slightly. Maybe he should order that any testing should be done at customer premises. The screams of incinerated Hivean security testers was after all annoying...

He returned to his black book and added 'need sound proof test areas, estimate 51 needed'

Satisfied at his work he closed the little black book and mused...

K'izz (or Lemon as he now called himself) started to become a problem. All in all he seemed to become too close with the earthling, Agnew Tudisz.
And Tudisz, well he was a major nuisance as well...
Why he had hired Agnew Vaseline had forgotten. The recruitment agency had apparently delivered on the skills part of the job description:

"Many discipline sales manager with all languages. Must be clean, earth person, know many people..." and more

But for some reason, Agnew failed miserably on the most important criterion. Vaseline had insisted that this was put in small print at the very bottom as this was the first place any Hivean would look at:

"Earth person must do as he is told by me"

From day one (and this was his first day!), Agnew had completely failed to deliver on this major item.

Vaseline for a moment looked as if he was trying to swallow a medium-sized spunge. This was not good. He had hired Agnew Tudisz, and if Agnew failed this would reflect badly on him.

Again he swallowed a spunge as he calculated the damage that a recalcitrant Tudisz could do to his promotion. VP would just love to rub his face in it!

Vaseline decided that this would not do. He took his black book and again wrote down his deepest thoughts.

'Investigate on incinerate Tudisz'

Just as he closed the black book, the door burst open and Noo and Lemon burst in.

"Stop the sale! Stop the testing", Noo shouted incoherently and out of breath from six miles of running through endless corridors.

"Noo meeting now!", Lemon grinned deliriously.

Vaseline looked at the disheveled twosome and this time swallowed a large indeed.