Death by Powerpoint

Death by PowerPoint - A Business Thriller by Michael Rossié

Karl Unde had received an invitation to a lecture. It was about insurance: Since K. Unde had just started his own business, he thought it was a good opportunity to do something for planning his future. He could not yet anticipate that it would be about his life. When he entered the conference room "Alpenglühen" in the basement of the seminar hotel, his good mood could not be shaken by anything. The first sheet on the flip chart in the entrance area had been in use since the seventies, but it looked friendly and warm. A curved heart, behind it the syllable "lich" and a "welcome" in child's handwriting. It seemed familiar and personal. The speaker, Bernd Erater, from the headquarters of the insurance company, was widely known and appreciated throughout the insurance industry for the playfully entertaining way in which he presented complex issues in surprisingly simple ways. Unde chose a seat in the third row on the right side, to quickly reach the exit in case of emergency. He took a seat at one of the 60 seats behind one of the 30 tables and spent some time trying to make space for placing a hand or an entire arm among the plastic ballpoint pens, the tin of peppermint candies, the notepad (half adorned with the insurance company's logo), the informational material, the beverage island, and the bottle opener without encroaching on his neighbor.

6:52 PM

Soon, the tables towards the exit were fully occupied, while the inside was completely empty. A ship would inevitably have capsized. The head was slowly emptying. It was about to start.

7:01 PM

After a cheerful welcome (especially warm), expressing joy that everyone had come in such numbers and found their way to the hotel, and a quote from the humorous speaker's repertoire that Unde was already familiar with, there was a thorough round of thanks. Thanks to the audience for coming, to the technology, the hotel, the inviting branch manager, and to the wonderful insurance company that had brought them all together here. It seemed that Mr. Erater didn't have much to say in the insurance company. He kept asking for permission to do things ("May I greet you"), started sentences with "Allow me..." and kept announcing what he wanted to do: Greet, proceed, introduce, execute, explain, come to a conclusion, and eventually end. Why didn't he just do it? His boss seemed to be unavailable today. Finally, B. Erater turned on the projector, where the desktop gained sharpness. Karl Unde would have removed the link www.sexkontakter.de, which elicited a few restrained laughs, before the presentation, but after a brief glance at the speaker, it seemed to be more due to a lack of computer knowledge than an extravagant sex life.

7:08 PM

After a bit of nervous clicking around and searching for the right file, it was finally time. A sailing ship with billowing sails shot out from the slide towards him. The message was clear: there are things more enjoyable than such presentations, like sailing, for example. Now followed a detailed agenda on two densely written pages, outlining everything that would be discussed in the next two hours, so Erater was done in just under 9 minutes. Many maritime metaphors were used. From the winds of life to the calm in the wallet or the family captain arriving in the harbor of the father-in-law, everything was covered. Everyone always had to blow in the right direction. And only B. Erater knew that. After the comparison with a Roman galley, Unde began to feel bored.

7:21 PM

B. Erater now finally began his presentation with a look back into history. Even the hard-working farm laborer of the last century had the problem that in old age he would rely on his grandmother for support. Karl Unde caught himself drumming his fingers on the table, as there was nothing for his gaze to latch onto. Only the wrinkles in the back of the speaker's jacket provided some visual interest, as the speaker consistently turned his back to the audience. Probably he didn't want to be recognized later. None of those present would be able to testify against him later. Words were used that Unde had not heard in a long time. There was talk of "many beautiful hours" spent in "intimate circles" where one "lounges" in the "company of loved ones." Erater looked "beyond one's own nose," criticized "the state" and "the tax authorities," and urged everyone to "engage their upper story." Unde may have stumbled into a seniors' event. The agenda was now replaced by a densely written page in Times New Roman size 10. Perhaps someone had rationed the slides. But that couldn't be the case either. The two numbers 6/125 in the lower right corner indicated what was to come next. Erater must have sensed that the font was quite small and now cautiously read everything out loud again. Unde marveled at the precise formulations that the speaker did not dilute in the oral presentation with any deviations or variations from the written concept. After the second read slide, Unde had a slight headache. He briefly considered whether he should just take the handout the size of a medium-sized county phone book and leave, but there was still enough hope in him that it would get better. The fourth slide then offered some variety. Four different fonts in 3 different colors emphasized the content on different levels. Colorful bar charts and pie charts with at least 120 boxes full of numbers now triggered a real headache. And yellow on orange and dark blue on black may create paintings of immense depth, but in tables, the letters just blur.

7:47 PM

A slide full of arrows followed. The statement that everything was related to everything would have been sufficient. Instead, B. Erater took the opportunity to make use of the laser pointer's capabilities and waved it around like a medieval curved sword. Flashes of light shot through Unde's field of vision and his eyes started twitching. The slight throbbing in his temples intensified. Under normal circumstances, he would have left. But a mix of courtesy and peer pressure kept him glued to his seat. Also, there had been no food served yet. For the next slides, B. Erater had come up with something special to increase attention. Words flew in, swirled around, only to land wonderfully in a table. An intricate click system triggered this word dance. Unde was reminded of school, where even the uncovering of individual lines on the overhead projector had made him clench his fists incessantly. And everything was generously garnished with clichés for better incomprehensibility. From "The point is" to "Pay attention!", from "Let me emphasize it again!" to "clearly." If the presentation had been a text, much could have been omitted. The teary eyes narrowed, and the headache turned into a pounding. If he had had headache tablets instead of peppermint candies on the table, he would have used the whole tube. Go, whispered his instinct.

8:18 PM

The first question from the speaker. Unde was so startled that he flinched. Rustling and fidgeting around him. A finger went up, then another, and another. But Erater was not satisfied. Everything was correct, he emphasized while kneading his fingers, the answers were good to very good, some even exceptionally good. But he continued tirelessly seeking answers until a stocky man, a type of insurance agent (probably a colleague), relieved him and gave the answer that matched the next slide. It could continue. Unde took a sip of water and breathed out. He almost felt an energy boost to fight his way to the exit, but the headache was now so strong that the seminar room had grown to the size of a hall that he could not possibly cross in half an hour. B. Erater was now saying something for the third time, and also emphasized that he had already said it - yes, repeated it again. He was probably taught to repeat key sentences. The throbbing in Unde's temples became unbearable. Redundancy increased with the length of the presentation. "Development processes cannot be depicted in time," "innovative and customized additional services" lost their "negative added value," and "system-oriented knowledge gains" created a "subsuming stability environment." Being bombarded with so much verbal garbage generated another dizziness, accompanied by increasing aggression. Erater preferred using nouns because they could be hurled better into the audience. "When influencing performance processes, you should consider using only financial resources that are not intended for retirement provision." The areas constantly merged. The professional with the private, the athletic with the cultural, the insurance-related with the suboptimal area. The cliché machine thudded in Unde's skull.

8:31 PM

The speaker now began to quickly click through a few slides. Almost no slide was clicked away without the promise to maybe come back to it later if time allowed. Unde wondered if this should be introduced as a torture method in South American prisons. A cruel but certainly not yet banned method to drive people insane. Meanwhile, cheerful slide hopping