Powerpoint Eulogy

by Mark Wilson, Mark Baldacci

Three corporate hours have been allotted to commemorate the life of enigma, Bill Motluck. Employee memories of his life are crudely recounted onto a dusty projector. No one has ever been quite sure of his purpose. No one is quite sure who wrote the PowerPoint...but it seems to be exposing them all, one by one.

72 pages, Paperback

Published April 16, 2021

About the author

Mark Wilson a.k.a. Mark Baldacci

Reviews

[Arlene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another short from Fly On The Wall Press to give you nightmares. This verse novella is brilliantly dark and, in places, disgustingly graphic. The most disturbing thing is that, if you work in an office, bits of the impersonal corporate dystopia will seem worryingly familiar.

[SueJanna Truscott · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story of life and death in corporate America is uncomfortably familiar, visceral, and heartwrenching. I couldn’t help but see myself in the descriptions of vertebrae collapsing into the office chair, or longing for that precious pen to be returned, or that slice of free pizza being the highlight of the day. We are all Bill Motluck.

[Anne Donnelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent little book, very original and satirical

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

First greeted by the in your face despair and shocking description of what appears to be a fictional world of hatred you slowly start to weep as you proceed through the book, knowing that Mark Wilson is providing an accurate depiction of the sad, meaningless life you are slogging through on your way to the unattainable Shangri La of a retirement rotting away in a bingo hall with a colostomy bag neatly strapped to your leg.

Like an urban explorer finding beauty in the failure, excess and decay of the past, Mark is able to paint a maddeningly accurate portrait using hilarious adjectives and situations that we have all seemingly been forced to live through. A true masterpiece of the Covid times. Strong caution to anyone mentally unstable or under the age of 17 before reading, as this book may cause you to severely question your existence and develop a strong aversion to plain yogurt.

[Cassie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Want to be reminded that your body is a slowly decaying meat sack and until the inevitable heat death of the universe you'll be opening PDFs in Microsoft Word? Well then this is the perfect book for you.

[Iza · Rating 5 out of 5]

Creative, freaky, funny, too real 😔

[Lisa O'Hare · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a fantastic book. Absurd and inventive of corporate dedication gone too far. Way too far. So many powerfully funny lines and sad reflections of corporate life.

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this to my office monkey partner and while he laughed there was a strange wild flicker in his eye. Absurdist satire or fly on the wall documentary? Tragically familiar.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fellow coworkers of Bill Motluck reluctantly gather round for a three hour PowerPoint eulogy. They look back on what little memories they share of the 70 year old man and are unsure of who wrote the PowerPoint. The PowerPoint has been quickly put together with outdated animations, little care or attention has been made. The coworkers start to see that some of the slides are about them and begin to wonder if their lives are as sad as the old man’s or maybe if they are dead? On Bill’s poorly-made plywood coffin sits bar graphs and pie charts in hope that he will do one last round of pointless analysis. Wilson paints an eyeopening picture of how even after death the work still piles up, a sad truth that life goes on. Work stops for no one.

This short story is told in presentation slides from different employees who worked with Bill. We quickly learn that no one seems to have been extremely close or remember much about him. They are unsure of what his purpose was. No one looked forward to seeing him or appreciated anything he did. One Christmas he gave everyone in the office a one hundred dollar bill out of his own money. They later found out that it was from his life savings and he starved for the rest of the month. No one offered to help him and each spent their gift regardless. This style of narrative was interesting to read and I admire Wilson’s unique technique. You learn snippets of information in quick succession over a short period of time and feel educated on a life that was barely lived.

I felt sorry and a little disgusted at times for Bill. He is a character of simple pleasures and basic needs. He enjoyed eating at Subway once a week and would savour every single bite. He would say sometimes you have to live a little but in all truth he wasn’t really living. He kept a garden of dying dandelions next to his desks and liked the idea of living in a snow globe. A place where the seasons never changed. His character was desperate to fit in at work, he went as far as paying a mother to use her baby for bring your child to work day. Wilson has created a character that you are unsure if you should laugh at or feel deeply sorry for. You sort of want to root for him but then you are grossed out by his unusual behaviour. The poor guy didn’t help himself. He was beyond odd and doesn’t fit in which brings an uncomfortable vibe to the page. The more you learn about him, the more you wonder why he was this way. What happened to make him lead what appears to be a pathetic, worthless life? Wilson pulls you in as you want to understand Bill but you also start to think that maybe to him, this is a life well lived and you start to question your own stance on life.

Wilson uses strong themes of depression, giving up and how work can become your life, taking over your very existence and grinding you down into the ground. The corporate lifestyle can quickly become your life. And what kind of life is that? On Bill’s 20 year anniversary working at the company he is allowed to pick a gift from a catalogue. When the gift arrives however and he opens it, is has been smashed into pieces. All that time for it to only account to broken glass. It’s a depressing realisation that transpires brutally into the reality of today’s world.

I give PowerPoint Eulogy By Mark Wilson a Four out of Five paw rating.

A raw reflection on how bleak and tragic life can be, this short story will leave you wondering if your own life has been worthwhile and if you will leave a legacy. Will you have your own PowerPoint eulogy and what would it say…

[Jenna Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Managerialism” is an ideology that glorifies businesses and business practices above the wishes and rights of the individual. It is often regarded as being tightly entwined with neoliberalism – the system which has ensured our health and wellbeing are determined by our value in the marketplace. Most people struggle against these systems and ideas, if only in small and personal ways. People can choose to prioritise their families, friendships, hobbies and passions outside of work and can, at the very least, refuse to define their worth through work and status. But what happens when the individual wholly internalises the ethos of managerialism? What if we submit fully to our corporate gods?

Well, “PowerPoint Eulogy” presents us with the life and times of one such man: Bill Motluck. This book (ingeniously) catalogues his life highlights through a powerpoint presentation. The author manages to make this exercise absurdly hilarious, despite the underlying pathos. By the end, it’s clear that Bill truly embodied the principles of managerialism – to the point he never really needed an external manager at all. In some ways, he also exemplifies Foucault’s idea of “internalised surveillance”; so keen to appear as a model employee at all times, and so eager for even the tiniest crumb of validation.

The author (Mark Wilson) has commented in interviews that he’s a bit “horrified” to hear that many readers feel that the story of his life is “relatable”. But he should be satisfied that his satirical offering can at least operate as a cautionary tale – reminding us to develop our identities outside of work and to take a walk, love someone, create something…

[Eva J · Rating 5 out of 5]

What may come across initially as absurdist fiction inevitably mutates into the realism of your sad, day-to-day existence in the office. Wilson cleverly illuminates the travesty that is corporate America, capturing words that are never spoken because they're stifled by post-Agile methodologies and prioritization meetings. The imaginative progression of Wilson's book will provoke images of tragic familiarity and the realization that none of us can escape the fate of Bill Motluck.

[Katie Golownia · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can go to all the happy hours you want with coworkers and complain about how miserable your job is at your soul-crushing company. And maybe you’ll feel a little better when you get home—like you stuck it to the man by venting. But the truth is you’ll go back to work the next day and the next day and the next ad infinitum and put up with the drudgery. The half-off cocktails and mediocre “pub food” are simply a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound. Powerpoint Eulogy rips that Band-Aid off and does nothing to stop the bleeding.

This novella makes it so you can’t hide from your reality. Anyone who’s ever worked a corporate gig will connect with these passages and laugh (or cry—maybe both) at just how universal it is to sit at a desk from 9-5. Wilson, in sometimes sickening detail, exposes how we truly feel about corporate life through Bill Motluck, our atypical protagonist. He’s the reflection in the mirror we avoid. And if Powerpoint Eulogy preaches one thing so poignantly, it’s that there is no escaping.