I found this article hard to follow. I feel like there's a deliberate coyness and "buildup" but it's way too playful for what it is and all but guarantees the "payoff" ends up falling short of expectations, which it does. The playfulness is distracting.

The supposed payoff is semantical nonsense, where the manager who agrees to deliver on the request doesn't explicitly specify that the cost would go up. But that's only because it's related as a summary, and in a real conversation, costs would be discussed.