It's not just bureaucracy - and yes, of course that goes back to Kafka, at the very least - but specifically the horror of the workplace, and not just any workplace, but that of the corporation, the firm, the private sector. The Blaine Company's stated mission to become a leading player in the global marketplace.
Coming back on a 2 points.
1 - I think one aspect of corporate horror or
horreaucracy that seems to slot into a more definite Lovecraftian continuum is the lurking sense of the unknown. Thacker (In The Dust of This Planet) argues that there is a particular philosophical horror of being aware of a lacuna of knowledge... Of course, we can see this in the hinted, barely glimpsed sense of The Old Ones in Lovecraft and in the 'behind the veil of this world' strategy that Ligotti employs so well. But, in a contemporary sense, this lacuna of knowldeg is not giant beings under the ocean or dreamlike existential crises but financial and corporate. The anxiety of being liminally aware of what one cannot fathom could be taken as the horror of laissez-faire capitalism... The sudden cancellation of projects because of an occult funding decision, the obscure reasons for company reorganizations or the mystical magics of high finance trading that our savings and pensions are affected by are the modern day 'old ones'. Many of us, now, do work - but the impact of our work can not be gauged.We do not know why we are working, nor why our work is suddenly changed, or why our vocational networks are suddenly re-structured 'for greater efficiency' or even why our skills and experience are no longer useful to the world.
So, for me, corporate horror is less about interactions (manager-qua-wendigo) but more about the spectre of the market, the gnawing anxiety of unseen forces. Most economists use climatological vocabulary... and weather forecast, of course, is not an exact science.
I went through a phase of feeling this sense of vertiginous precarity, I often tweeted 'part of an ever expanding network'.
2 - This is about Ligotti. His control is supreme. I always appreciate how most of his stories could be anywhere between 2016 and 1800. He rarely references technology, occasionally a phone is referenced or a car is mentioned, but he is never specific, It lends his pieces a timeless quality. Most characters use notes to communicate. I think, because of this, even when specific technology is mentioned, like headphones in The Bungalow House, I assume them to be vaguely steam-punk and lifted from an alternate reality.