Simon had been staring at the logo for a while now, his stomach churning at the sight of the thacky graphics. He was finding it exceptionally difficult to choose the right words to express his feelings.

“Well?” whispered loudly Mr.Parabat, too close for confort, but not close enough to activate the HR subdermal “This is your last chanche to give me any feedback on it before I slap it on YOUR presentation to the clients” His thick Punjab accent always gave Simon an excessive sense of urgency, nay, anxiety.

Simon could not bring himself to express everything to his direct supervisor “it’s a bit… Busy?” he managed, shifting his weight on his other leg and pulling awkwardly at his tie.

He hated ties, they were always too tight, too bright, and too in the way of everything.

Mr. Parabat slapped Simon’s hand away from the tie with a sharp, practiced movement

“Look Simon, my boy, time is UP. I looked the other way everytime, because I think you are very talented, oh so very talented, so it’s ok that you wanted to personally rewire all of the antennas on the SatPark we are using, and it’s ok that you made all programmers extra EXTRA hours to remove all of those ‘icky bugs’, and it’s ok that you always came to me asking if I was really REALLY sure that I wanted the App to work that way, and all of this because you bring the home runs home, as they say.”

Simon was transfixed, following the constant bobbing of Mr.parabat’s head, left to right, as his supervisor continued

“But you sent this logo back to design a mILLION times already. So now this is it, it has my signature on it, it has my stamp, I approve it, it’s done, you’re gonna present the Non Aligned App with this face on it, and that’s final!”

Simon’s brows furrowed upwards “Even the mascot?” he asked, his voice almost a whine

“What’s wrong with the mascot?! It’s AI Generated!”

“You mean Aleph itself drew it?”

“With the blessings of Lakshmi and of Nadia of the HR department” concluded Mr. Parabat with the tone of absolute certainty commonly used only by those who know absolutely nothing.

He swiftly slapped Simon’s hand away from his tie again.