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Posts Tagged ‘office space’

Case of the Mondays: Office Space – Overrated/Underrated

Monday, May 10th, 2010
by Duncan Kinney

Image via elloh on Etsy

Blogger Sean Keane has an interesting take on the movie using the old underrated/overrated trope. A take that is making me consider stopping the A Case of the Mondays regular feature.

Laughing At Yourself, Not With Yourself:

I have a roommate who works at a tech company. For the purposes of anonymity, I will call him “Mac”. Mac says that people in his office are constantly quoting “Office Space”, which, since “Office Space” is a satire of tech company life. Unfortunately, it seems like a lot of this quoting is like a celebration of misery. When employees who have to do the thankless work of TPS reports, joke about TPS reports, it’s a little sad. When Mac’s boss comes up behind him and begins doing the Gary Cole-esque, “Y-y-yeah” intro to some sort of crappy managerial request, it’s not really funny, because the guy really is a manager, and even though he’s doing a parody of a soulless middle manager, he still really is a soulless middle manager. “Dilbert” isn’t really funny if you are Dilbert.

Also, it doesn’t work both ways. Mac can’t ditch work for days at a time and say, by way of explanation, “Look, dude, haven’t you seen ‘Office Space’?” The manager can make his crappy, office misery-stereotype-perpetuating joke, but Mac can’t, say, burn down the building as a wacky movie reference. The office drones get to laugh at themselves, but are they laughing with themselves?

Perhaps a case of the Monday’s has run its course? What do you say should it stay or should it go? Secondary question, is Office Space overrated? Or underrated?

A Case of the Mondays – Combining my two loves, Roger Ebert and Office Space

Monday, April 12th, 2010
by Duncan Kinney

I present to you, Roger Ebert’s original review of Office Space. Now, if you follow this blog you know that I’m a big Roger Ebert fan. Since losing his lower jaw and his voice to cancer his writing voice has been magnified many times over. His passion, talent and good sense overflow his writing stream. Ebert gave Office Space three stars back in 1999 and his review and while his review focuses on the office drone like existence of Peter Gibbons I don’t think Ebert has had the life experience to sympathize with his situation like a younger writer could. Still he appreciates the dialogue.

The movie’s dialogue is smart. It doesn’t just chug along making plot points. Consider, for example, Michael Bolton’s plan for revenge against the company. He has a software program that would round off payments to the next-lowest penny and deposit the proceeds in their checking account. Hey, you’re thinking–that’s not original! A dumb movie would pretend it was.

I also liked this line. While it’s only a sentence it shows that even Ebert’s throwaway sentences are often worth more than 1000s of words by schmucks like me.

Judge, an animator until now, treats his characters a little like cartoon creatures. That works. Nuances of behavior are not necessary, because in the cubicle world every personality trait is magnified, and the captives stagger forth like grotesques

A Case of the Mondays – PC Load Letter

Monday, April 5th, 2010
by Duncan Kinney

There is precious little crossover between the story of Jesus and that of Peter Gibbons. So I won’t go there. Instead I bring you the PC Load Letter scene.

A Case of the Mondays: 10 Best Office Space Quotes

Monday, March 22nd, 2010
by Duncan Kinney

Finally, a list of the best Office Space quotes of all time. Add your own if I missed any.

10.

Bob Porter: Looks like you’ve been missing a lot of work lately.
Peter Gibbons: I wouldn’t say I’ve been *missing* it, Bob.

9.

Peter Gibbons: Let me ask you something. When you come in on Monday and you’re not feeling real well, does anyone ever say to you, “Sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays?”
Lawrence: No. No, man. Shit, no, man. I believe you’d get your ass kicked sayin’ something like that, man.

8.

Peter Gibbons: You know, the Nazis had pieces of flair that they made the Jews wear.

7.

Bill Lumbergh: Oh, oh, and I almost forgot. Ahh, I’m also gonna need you to go ahead and come in on Sunday, too…

6.

Milton Waddams: The ratio of people to cake is too big.

5.

Bob Porter: We’re gonna be getting rid of these people here… First, Mr. Samir Naga… Naga… Naga… Not gonna work here anymore, anyway.

4.

Milton Waddams: I was told that I could listen to the radio at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven, I told Bill that if Sandra is going to listen to her headphones while she’s filing then I should be able to listen to the radio while I’m collating so I don’t see why I should have to turn down the radio because I enjoy listening at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven.

3.

Peter Gibbons: What would you do if you had a million dollars?
Lawrence: I’ll tell you what I’d do, man: two chicks at the same time, man.
Peter Gibbons: That’s it? If you had a million dollars, you’d do two chicks at the same time?
Lawrence: Damn straight. I always wanted to do that, man. And I think if I were a millionaire I could hook that up, too; ’cause chicks dig dudes with money.
Peter Gibbons: Well, not all chicks.
Lawrence: Well, the type of chicks that’d double up on a dude like me do.
Peter Gibbons: Good point.
Lawrence: Well, what about you now? what would you do?
Peter Gibbons: Besides two chicks at the same time?
Lawrence: Well, yeah.
Peter Gibbons: Nothing.
Lawrence: Nothing, huh?
Peter Gibbons: I would relax… I would sit on my ass all day… I would do nothing.
Lawrence: Well, you don’t need a million dollars to do nothing, man. Take a look at my cousin: he’s broke, don’t do shit.

2.

Tom Smykowski: Well-well look. I already told you: I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don’t have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can’t you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?

1.

Milton Waddams: Excuse me, I believe you have my stapler…

A Case of the Mondays – You Must Have At Least 15 Pieces of Flair to Read This

Monday, March 8th, 2010
by Duncan Kinney

Flair is an important part of any servers uniform at Chotckies, a delicious send-up of terrible chain restaurants like TGIFridays in the movie Office Space. Jennifer Aniston plays the love interest in Office Space and though she’s not the best part of the movie (in fact, she’s probably one of the weakest) the parts of the movie that play out in Chotckies are awesome.

The forced cheerfulness, the plastic ferns, the assorted knick-knackery, Chotchkies captures the terribleness of sit-down dining in North America. But back to the flair. Aniston’s character wears only the minimum amount of flair, something her boss reminds her of during work.

Wow. I know everyone reading has dealt with passive aggressive tactics from employers but I get angry just watching it and this is a movie I’ve seen five times. Of course Peter, the hero in Office Space has some bon mots in regards to her flair. Click below.

Indeed, Peter indeed. Of course this all leads to Aniston’s character finally quitting. It’s no “take this job and shove it” but she does manage to be quite clear how she feels about her flair.

A Case of the Mondays – Coversheets on the TPS Reports Edition

Monday, February 22nd, 2010
by Duncan Kinney

A case of the Mondays is back after a short hiatus due to Family Day, Louis Riel Day, Islander Day or Presidents Day if you’re in the US. If you’re of the 40 per cent of Canadians who didn’t get a holiday last Monday, I guess your government doesn’t love you.

Ahh, TPS reports. Apparently the acronym comes from a real protocol used in software engineering but the term has taken its own place in pop culture as a symbol of the mindless paperwork and meddling middle management present in corporate life. Lumbergh is introduced and the first things he talks about are the lack of a coversheet on Peter’s TPS report and wondering if he got the memo. See the exchange here. It doesn’t end there though, here’s an exchange between Peter and some management type who is never seen again.

Dom Portwood: Hi, Peter. What’s happening? We need to talk about your TPS reports.
Peter Gibbons: Yeah. The coversheet. I know, I know. Uh, Bill talked to me about it.
Dom Portwood: Yeah. Did you get that memo?
Peter Gibbons: Yeah. I got the memo. And I understand the policy. And the problem is just that I forgot the one time. And I’ve already taken care of it so it’s not even really a problem anymore.
Dom Portwood: Ah! Yeah. It’s just we’re putting new coversheets on all the TPS reports before they go out now. So if you could go ahead and try to remember to do that from now on, that’d be great. All right!

Middle management at its finest.

Samir and Michael Bolton also jump on the TPS reports train.

Mention TPS reports and coversheets casually in conversation and see how it goes over. If you get a smile or a nod, you know you’ve found a fellow Office Space fan.

A Case of the Mondays – Office Space Won This Guy $250 000

Monday, February 8th, 2010
by Duncan Kinney

Who Wants to be a Millionaire is a cheesy game show but it’s also a decent way to dip your toe into the cultural zeitgeist. When questions relating to Office Space become $250 000 questions you know you’ve done something right. The reaction of the contestant to hearing this question is truly awesome. He might be a bit of a fan.

A Case of the Mondays – Everybody Breakdance

Monday, February 1st, 2010
by Duncan Kinney

The most notable role for Ajay Naidu might very well be the character of Samir in Office Space. A look at this IMDB profile certainly bears this out. His resume is full of bit parts, cameos and parts where he doesn’t have a name. Naidu’s credits will typically describe the job he’s performing, for example he gets into the credits as a perfume expert in Hannibal and as a medic in The Wrestler.

Still don’t let this fool you. He’s hilarious in Office Space and can actually cut some rug as well. Check out this swipe in his office clothes, it’s no airflare to suicide or anything, but it’s still pretty rad.  Unfortunately embedding has been disabled on that video so I’ll leave you with some highlights from IBE 2009, a gathering of the world’s best breakdancers.

A Case of the Mondays – Office Space as Thriller/Slasher Movie

Monday, January 25th, 2010
by Duncan Kinney

If you’ve never seen a recut trailer I’ll introduce you to the concept. A new trailer is recut from the films footage, a new voiceover is inserted and the humor is found from misrepresenting the original film. For example, a favourite of mine changes the Shining into an uplifting romantic comedy.

For A Case of the Mondays we’ve found a recut trailer for Office Space. One that changes the tone into a dark thriller. I will never look at Milton the same way again.

A Case of the Mondays – Ummmm Yeahhh

Monday, January 18th, 2010
by Duncan Kinney

Bill Lumbergh as played by actor Gary Cole (little known fact, Gary Cole was the voice of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law) is truly a great characterization of the micro-managing, professional lackwit middle manager. His particular vocal inflections are particularly well done. In the following clip we get about six of them in a row as he leaves them on Peter’s answering machine. Drink in the Lumbergh.