Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast

Deep Thoughts about Office Space TEASER

• Tracie Guy-Decker & Emily Guy Birken

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It’s not that I’m lazy. I just don’t care.

In this special, patron-exclusive bonus episode, Tracie brings her deep thoughts about Mike Judge’s 1999 film, Office Space. There’s a reason this film about bullshit work has remained so beloved for a quarter century. Judge accurately reflects–and lampoons–a lot about what it feels like to work to live. There’s also quite a bit about 1990s culture that this film reflects without lampooning it at all, including casual sexism, casual racism, and, once Tracie and Emily recognized Milton as neurodivergent, casual ableism. Still, with a great soundtrack and that iconic and satisfying destruction-of-the-copy-machine scene, Office Space remains deeply entertaining–if we can hold it as documenting 90s culture, rather than a sort of role model. 

Hello Listener, what's happening? Ummm, I'm gonna need you to go ahead and come in to Patreon. So, if you could just do that, that would be great, mmmk... 

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Speaker 1:

So the problem, I think, at least as far as office space is concerned, is not with the bullshit job itself, it's the fact that the company treats it as a bullshit job and doesn't care who's doing it or whether or not they're good at it, what others might deem stupid shit. You know matters, you know it's worth talking and thinking about, and so do we. We're sisters, Tracy and Emily, collectively known as the Guy Girls. Every week, we take turns re-watching, researching and reconsidering beloved media and sharing what we learn. Come overthink with us and if you get value from the show, please consider supporting us. You can become a patron on Patreon or send us a one-time tip through Ko-fi. Both links are in the show notes and thanks. I'm Tracy Guy-Decker and you're listening to Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, because pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't? You know what's in your head? On today's special bonus episode, I'll be sharing my deep thoughts about the 1999 comedy classic Office Space with my sister, Emily Guy-Burken, and with you. Let's dive in. All right, Em Office Space, what do you remember?

Speaker 2:

Looks like somebody's got a case of the Mondays. So I mean it's a classic. It was on regular rotation when I was in college and after. There's a lot that has just become part of my lexicon like pieces of flair that would be great, and TPS reports. If ever I need to refer to a random piece of bureaucracy, it's a TPS report. Piece of bureaucracy, it's a TPS report. There's jump to conclusions board.

Speaker 2:

I mean there's just there's a lot in there that is just very much part of the furniture of my brain and is very much like it feels like a very late Gen X, early millennial, you know, kind of like flashpoint for all of us. Because the other thing that I remember was that I understood Jennifer Aniston's character right out of college because I was working jobs like hers, and then, as I got older, I understood Ron Livingston's job because I had jobs like his. And so I feel like my judge really did get to something that we definitely see in work culture and how pointless it all can seem. And you know ways to find meaning in life where you work to live rather than live to work.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So so tell me, why are we discussing it today?

Speaker 1:

Well, um, we've been trying to bring more. I have been trying to bring more comedies in to our repertoire. We spent some time on, you know, dramas and horror and heartfelt things, and so we've been doing a little bit more comedies, and so I was thinking about some of the like, really like foundational comedies for Gen X, and this one just kind of rose to the surface and so and it also seemed like one that, as you say, like it was such a touchstone for our generation we decided to make it a bonus for Gen X and other patrons. So thanks for being a patron. So you know that's why, but not much more than that. You know, it's just it's one of the ones that's kind of I know is in there as furniture of the brain.

Speaker 1:

And, uh, there's some stuff I want to talk about, like some of the things as you named, that like what it's still kind of gets right in lampooning and some of the things that I guess were funny at the time. And now I look at it and it's lands like more like a documentary of like that's how things were. It's not really funny stuff around like casual misogyny and casual racism, but yeah, there's.

Speaker 2:

There's definitely the the plot point of Ron Livingston changing how he feels about Jennifer Aniston's character when he thinks she slept with his boss.

Speaker 1:

Uh-huh.

Speaker 2:

When it's just you either like this person or you don't.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, there's a number of moments like that. There's a number of moments like that. That, yeah, and that language that I just used that sort of documentary of how it was that. I'm borrowing that from another commentator on Office Space and I will link to that. You know, credit where credit is due. Some of the ways that we've talked about it on Deep Thoughts are that these are things about which I'm not angry with Mike Judge. I'm angry with the culture, like he was reflecting what was happening in the culture at the time. So I'll get to those things, but first let me see if I can give a uh as quick as I'm able synopsis of the plot of this film. So, as we've noted, this is Mike judge, uh, wrote and directed this film. So he's the guy that gave us Beavis and Butthead and um and actually Idiocracy and uh, which I feel like we're living right now. But anyway, um, and this was based on the comics Milton that he did for SNL. So this was like a live action version of some cartoons that Judge had done for Saturdayurday night live, okay.

Speaker 1:

So we meet the protagonists in traffic like as they're commuting to their job. So each of the well, I don't even know if they're all. I. I think actually peter is the protagonist, but we meet each of the main characters as they're commuting to their job, like you know. So we see Peter, like his lane of traffic isn't moving, and so he sneaks over to the one to the right which was, and as soon as he gets into it it stops moving. In that sort of game, we meet um Michael Bolton who hates the singer by the same name, by the way who's in his car listening to like rap and singing along, rapping along to rap music. And then when he sees a black dude on the street who's like selling something I don't know, like from the median, he like turns the music down, locks the car door, like avoids eye contact. And we meet Samir, who is just like having temper tantrums at the bad traffic, just like just really agitated.

Speaker 1:

So these are our three main characters. They work for a like nondescript software company called Inateck. This is Texas based, and as soon as Peter gets to his desk we see all of the like little annoyances. So there's a woman who sits in a cubicle, like across the aisle from him, who is answering phones, and she says the same thing over and over again in a very annoying way. And then Milton, who was the star, I suppose.

Speaker 1:

And Milton, who was the star, I suppose, of the Saturday Night Live cartoon, so I don't remember them is the squirrely little dude who mumbles, who, I think, looking at it with 2024 eyes, I think, must be neurodivergent though obviously they never say that, but he's just kind of weird. And he is listening to the radio, like talk radio that's a little bit loud, and so when Peter asks him to please turn it down, he says well, I was told I could listen to it at a reasonable volume. Volume because so-and-so blah, blah. You know he's like mumbling, he's not gonna do that. Okay, so we've met these guys in this like mind numbing work situation. Then we meet the boss, um, bill Lundberg, bill Lundberg, whoberg, who is like well, they're all caricatures, but he's particularly bad character caricature who like shows up and asks these rhetorical questions actually the same one over and over again peter, how's it going? But he doesn't actually want an answer and then either reprimands or voluntold volun tells peter to do things. He tells peter he forgot his cover sheet for the TPS report, which you named as sort of now the symbol of unnecessary bureaucracy. And then we watch Peter say like no, I got the memo, I just forgot, it was just a silly mistake. It won't happen again. And then Peter gets reprimanded at least three more times in the viewers, like while we're watching, by different people.

Speaker 1:

So somebody else comes over to his cubicle to tell him about the TPS report and asks if he got the memo. And then he gets a phone call. So he gathers up his two friends, samir and Michael, and they go across the parking lot to a TGI Friday's coded place called Shoshki's for coffee. Jennifer Aniston is one of the servers there. Peter has a crush on her. So his friends say well, why don't you talk to her if you like her so much? He says no, I'm trying to work things out with Ann and like he, just he. And oh, he also names himself as a pussy, he uses that word and the three of them talk about like. He says you know we're all pussies. And Michael and Samir say well, I'm not, don't call me that Whatever. So we learn about this, this girlfriend, ann. On their way back to the building where they work they're met in the like grassy part of this like nondescript office park by Tom who's freaking out because they've hired consultants. And Tom is sure this means there's going to be layoffs. So they go to a staff meeting where, like the worst kind of like motivational posters, like is it good for the company Question mark, like on these big banners. And in fact there are these consultants who Tom's right? So we watch each of them get sort of interviewed by these two guys, both named Bob, who are the consultants who are figuring out where they can um these so-called efficiency experts.

Speaker 1:

Hypnotherapist with his girlfriend and the hypnotherapist we hear Peter say since I started working, every single day of my life is worse than the one before. So whatever day you meet me, that's the worst day of my life. And the hypnotherapist is like, really like today, today's the worst day of your life. And Peter's like, yes, today is the worst day of my life. So the hypnotherapist is like that's really messed up day of my life. So the hypnotherapist is like that's really messed up. But anyway he says Peter's asking if the hypnotherapist can just make it, make him think that like when he gets home from work, that think he's been fishing all day, and just like like just not be there, just not be present. The guy says it's really not what I do, but I think I can help you. And he like takes him down into a hypnosis and then promptly dies, right, so the hypnotherapist says you won't leave this state until I snap my fingers and then dies of a heart attack.

Speaker 1:

So the next morning after the hypnotherapy, peter was it's a Saturday, but Peter had been conscripted to work and he just doesn't. He just stays in bed and he's just like super chill and like just doesn't. And we see that Bill Longberg, the caricaturist boss, has left 17 messages on his answering machine. And then we see Peter take a call from Anne, the girlfriend, who can't believe he just sat there while Dr Swanson, the hypnotherapist, died and like why didn't you go to work? And he's like I just didn't want to, so I didn't. He's just still in this sort of hypnosis almost state. She breaks up with him over the phone and confirms what his friends had been telling him, that she's cheating on him.

Speaker 1:

So the next we see Peter he actually goes to Chachkis where Jennifer Aniston works and like asks her to lunch and in fact she initially thinks he's asking about like lunch specials at the restaurant. He's like no, I, I'm asking what you're doing. And sort of says he's going to go next door and get a table, and if she wants to join him then that would be great. She does. And they're. They have this like weird sort of conversation because he's behaving oddly. You know. She's like well, what do you do for work? And he's like well, you know, I work for Inateck, but I don't think I'm going to go anymore. And she's like so you're going to quit? And he's like no, not really, I'm just not going to go. And she's just like what you know. Anyway, he says do you want to come over and watch Kung Fu? Well, she loves Kung Fu, so that becomes a through line. So he goes to the office to get his address book, which certainly dates the film.

Speaker 2:

Oh my goodness does that date the film? Yeah, even more than the uh the uh answering machine yeah, and I mean the reason that we learn.

Speaker 1:

What peter does is go through lines of code, like computer code for banks, to fix the Y2K thing and add extra characters for years. So that also dates it. But yeah, so he goes into the office to get his address book to write down Joanna that's Jennifer Aniston's character's name Joanna's phone number because he doesn't want to lose it. And he shows up just at the moment that he's actually scheduled to meet with the Bobs, who are the efficiency experts. So he goes in and he is completely honest with them. He tells them like they want him to walk them through, like an average day for him. He tells them straight out in any given week I only do about 15 minutes worth of work. And he says another kind of like iconic line it's not that I'm lazy, I just don't care. And the Bobs are like enamored with his candor and actually like, really like it. They think he's like upper management material because he's so honest and like pointing to like problems in the system, right, the fact that he's got all these bosses and the fact that there's no nothing in it for him. And you know hello listener what's happening.

Speaker 1:

Um, I'm gonna need you to go ahead and head on over to the Patreon if you want to listen to the rest of this episode. So if you could just do that, that would be great. Okay, do you like stickers? Sure, we all do. If you head over to guygirlsmediacom slash, sign up and share your address with us, we'll send you a sticker. It really is that easy, but don't wait, there's a limited quantity. Thanks for listening. Our theme music is Professor Umlaut by Kevin MacLeod from incompetechcom. Find full music credits in the show notes. Until next time, remember, pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head?