This is definitely a cultural shift we've seen over the past 20 years. Then, the bogeyman in our collective psyche was the soul-destroying nature of the office job. In addition to the other movies...
Early on, during a late-night gripe session with Peter, one of his pals suggests that the stability and consistency of their work may have its merit, and gets summarily dismissed. That Peter and the film itself consider a reliable paycheck a fate worse than death may baffle an 18-year-old today, reared in a world of few jobs for young people, inhumane conditions at the world’s biggest corporations, and millennial burnout. A new generation is leaning in favor of socialism to stop widespread poverty and viciously exploitative business practices. Peter’s idea of suffering is being bored – did we ever have it so good? Take a step back, and a viewer can see people growing more desperate, aware, and politicized in their rebellion.
This is definitely a cultural shift we've seen over the past 20 years. Then, the bogeyman in our collective psyche was the soul-destroying nature of the office job. In addition to the other movies mentioned in the article this feeling was epitomized in the Drew Carey Show and Dilbert, not to mention the cultural baggage that became attached to cubicles. Now, however, the stable office job of the '90s is a dream compared to precarious employment and the gig economy.
As much as we may look back at the jobs of the '90s with a rueful "you don't how good you had it" attitude, though, movies like Office Space still have a point. Many "good" jobs still are soul-destroying in the ways the '90s railed against. This quote from the article:
Peter’s idea of suffering is being bored
misses the mark I think. Aside from the banal Hell of irritating coworkers and TPS reports I think the movie was making the point that Peter found his job meaningless. One key scene was what seemed like a throwaway joke from Peter's neighbour when he says, "I gotta wake my ass up at 6am every morning this week, drive up to Las Colinas—yeah I'm doing the drywall at the new McDonald's." The neighbour says this with obvious pride and the expectation that Peter should know of the new Las Colinas McDonald's and be impressed, but Peter doesn't care.
Before I started working I agreed with Peter. I just thought this was a joke at the expense of the redneck neighbour. But now I get it. Installing drywall at a McDonald's isn't glamorous or world changing but it's building something useful that people will care about and you can see and feel the product of your labour. Compare this to Peter's job: he was essentially doing tedious bug fixes in financial software. No one would see or care about his work, the functionality of the software wouldn't even change, and Peter didn't even care himself about the end product of what he was doing. Compare this to how happy he is at the end of the movie when, despite not caring about the drywall at the new McDonald's earlier in the movie, Peter is now happily working on a construction crew with his neighbour.
We dream of the relative stability of work in the '90s (or at least our imagination of how it was) but even if we manage to achieve that we'll still have to confront the dehumanizing effect that much of the work we do can have on us.
Interesting. I haven't watched that move for quite a few years, and i've only now just realised i'm actually doing the exact same thing now. I left my Project engineering career because there was...
Interesting. I haven't watched that move for quite a few years, and i've only now just realised i'm actually doing the exact same thing now. I left my Project engineering career because there was nothing interesting to look forward to in my work. Just documentation, and relaying problems from the workers on-site to the drafties, and organising subcontractors. Eventually I just snapped and left the job (twice actually) without any preperation of getting another one.
Luckily I had enough in savings to do this (because long hours meant I didn't have time to spend it), but I'm most likely going to end up working with my hands in my next career. All for that satisfaction at the end of the day, when I can look at something that I did myself, rather than something I simply told someone else to build.
Guess I'll have to watch that movie again tonight.
This is definitely a cultural shift we've seen over the past 20 years. Then, the bogeyman in our collective psyche was the soul-destroying nature of the office job. In addition to the other movies mentioned in the article this feeling was epitomized in the Drew Carey Show and Dilbert, not to mention the cultural baggage that became attached to cubicles. Now, however, the stable office job of the '90s is a dream compared to precarious employment and the gig economy.
As much as we may look back at the jobs of the '90s with a rueful "you don't how good you had it" attitude, though, movies like Office Space still have a point. Many "good" jobs still are soul-destroying in the ways the '90s railed against. This quote from the article:
misses the mark I think. Aside from the banal Hell of irritating coworkers and TPS reports I think the movie was making the point that Peter found his job meaningless. One key scene was what seemed like a throwaway joke from Peter's neighbour when he says, "I gotta wake my ass up at 6am every morning this week, drive up to Las Colinas—yeah I'm doing the drywall at the new McDonald's." The neighbour says this with obvious pride and the expectation that Peter should know of the new Las Colinas McDonald's and be impressed, but Peter doesn't care.
Before I started working I agreed with Peter. I just thought this was a joke at the expense of the redneck neighbour. But now I get it. Installing drywall at a McDonald's isn't glamorous or world changing but it's building something useful that people will care about and you can see and feel the product of your labour. Compare this to Peter's job: he was essentially doing tedious bug fixes in financial software. No one would see or care about his work, the functionality of the software wouldn't even change, and Peter didn't even care himself about the end product of what he was doing. Compare this to how happy he is at the end of the movie when, despite not caring about the drywall at the new McDonald's earlier in the movie, Peter is now happily working on a construction crew with his neighbour.
We dream of the relative stability of work in the '90s (or at least our imagination of how it was) but even if we manage to achieve that we'll still have to confront the dehumanizing effect that much of the work we do can have on us.
I love you. I always felt like that line had a purpose, but I never quite nailed down what it is. Those writers, man. Fuckin' A.
Interesting. I haven't watched that move for quite a few years, and i've only now just realised i'm actually doing the exact same thing now. I left my Project engineering career because there was nothing interesting to look forward to in my work. Just documentation, and relaying problems from the workers on-site to the drafties, and organising subcontractors. Eventually I just snapped and left the job (twice actually) without any preperation of getting another one.
Luckily I had enough in savings to do this (because long hours meant I didn't have time to spend it), but I'm most likely going to end up working with my hands in my next career. All for that satisfaction at the end of the day, when I can look at something that I did myself, rather than something I simply told someone else to build.
Guess I'll have to watch that movie again tonight.
Semi-related article from a few weeks ago:
https://tildes.net/~movies/a5m/the_oral_history_of_office_space_behind_the_scenes_of_the_cult_classic