Wacky, melancholic satire with exaggerated absurdity. Topics include capitalism, poverty, demeaning service jobs, miserable office politics and required niceties, classism and social status worries, misplaced hope, and other mundane ills. Often, there's an interesting blur between a character's (complex, bizarre, anxiety-ridden) internal life and his external life. 
 Huh. I enjoyed this way more than I thought I would. I can definitely see why Karen Russell lists Saunders as one of her influences. 
 Related links: 
 The Art of the Sentence: George Saunders (Tin House) - Interesting dissection of the central character's continually-imperfect fantasies in "The Barber's Unhappiness".