A satire of the corporate world combining Marx Brothers-style humor and corporate accounting principles with a Kafka-esque quandary. This story has been performed with a band and a humorous slide show several times in the Philadelphia area.

Contents

Section 1: Welcome to the Ajax Corporation, Shorty

Section 2: This Does Not Bode Well

Section 3: Down, Down, Down Into the Cold, Dark, Lonely Basement

Section 4: A Rapid and Tumultuous Turn of Events

Photography and scratchboard by Karl Richeson

 When he started a six-month contract with the Ajax Corporation, Lloyd (aka “Shorty”) had no idea that his destiny awaited him in the basement of the Ajax Building.

“Think of Mike Walsh’s ‘Man in the Basement’ as a free-flowing riff lamenting corporate culture or an absurdist comedy of manners: whichever you choose, you’ll find something to grab onto...Walsh’s telling is bone-dry and as a squonky backup band needles him along, his assessment of the corporate world grows increasingly acid and, as fate would have it, true.”
Philadelphia Weekly, 12/9/98

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Email: walsh@missioncreep.com