I was in charge of ordering office supplies for my department, and so I bought a red Swingline stapler for a new senior project manager. He didn't understand the reference, and I never felt more alone than I did that day.
@@frenchyroastifyI thought the story went that they reached out to Swingline, they said no so they just painted one red. And after the film it was in high demand that swingline decided to make it.
At my first day at a large corporation, in a middle-management job, I sent an email introducing myself to my reports, and jokingly closed it with “Have your TPS reports in my inbox by Friday.” The joke was on me because the company really did have TPS reports - which are apparently a real thing - and everyone sent theirs right over.
It is ironic that this is your take because I was just talking about how Jennifer was kind of playing herself (as she often does) and how well she does in that part-yet several other characters are severely unique, most notably Steven Root and Dietrich Bader in their respective roles. Either way, the casting for this movie was and still is perfect.
23:35 "You can wear a Hawaiian shirt on Fridays" I worked at a place that had a business casual dress code. The pay was shit, the workload was awful, but people that I worked with (mostly the middle ages ones) reacted like it was the Moon Landing.
I could deal with Milton as a cube neighbor, but that woman answering the phone in her sickening chirpy way every-single-time would make me absolutely homicidal.
People thought cubicles were bad but I'd take that over an open office with no barriers at all, which has become common. In those spaces I find people just never stop interrupting each other with talk, work related or otherwise.
@@joemcdermott1213 The closest I had to a cubical was a full wall behind my desk (with storage cabinets), half walls on either side of my desk, an open area behind me, leading to a set of four drafting computers, bunched together, giving me access to two.
@@jordansweet8054 American Beauty, Eyes Wide Shut, Notting Hill, 10 Things I Hate About You, Cruel Intentions, Blair Witch Project. Also, some great animated films: Toy Story 2, Tarzan, The Iron Giant, South Park Bigger, Longer and Uncut, etc. Amazing to see how good Hollywood was back then, absolutely no comparison to nowadays.
Wait. I'm surely misreading this. Are you saying a guy from your office died in his sleep at his desk and he was dead at his desk for days before people found out?
This is like the Michael Douglas movie "Falling Down" or "A Clockwork Orange" where it feels like the message is So Overt yet everyone is missing it. How many people have to work how many hours producing food, clothing, cars, furniture etc. for those bosses to all have the luxury of wasting everyone's time ordering reports that produce more nothing? No thought given to this hunh? That seems to be the point everyone's missing. We don't grow our own food or make our own clothes. But at least the guys throwing my garbage into a truck provide _something_ of value. What actually is produced in any office, anywhere other than time-filling for the sake of it? Anyone?
I used to watch this movie for “motivation” whenever I went on interviews for a new position. I’m now self-employed and permanently out of the corporate rat race!
Loved this. Thank you! I have a couple of thoughts I'd like to share: 1. I may be wrong, but I think the name "Initech" was supposed to sound like "any tech", as in the company could have been any generic tech company in America at the time. 2. I personally think the restaurant Aniston's character worked at was based on Bennigan's, because their uniforms look super similar to the ones we had to wear in the mid 00's, when I worked there and we had two buttons we were required to wear when we were on the clock (one being our name tag, the other being a button that said, "We I.D.!") and we'd get harassed if we forgot them. I couldn't have asked for a better analysis in this vid though. At the time I first saw this, I was 17 and worked at Bennigan's and my dad had THE EXACT JOB the main character has in this movie, updating billing software for the switch to 2000. My boyfriend at the time also worked in IT, so all of us had a deep connection to this movie.
From what I've heard, the restaurant was based on TGI Fridays, and they were so embarrassed by the flair jab they dropped their flair soon after the film released.
I watched Office Space before I ever worked in an office, and I couldn't fully appreciate it's greatness. Years later, after working in several offices with a multitude of dysfunctions, I came to appreciate this movie so much more. One of the offices I worked in, required us to wear a button-down shirt and tie every single day. The reasoning was that we might have visitors come through the office, so we needed to look presentable. In the 2 years I was there, there wasn't a single visitor.
Echoing many previous comments; Office Space is a movie I came to appreciate later in life, once I had sufficient work life experience. It’s now one of my all time favorites that I rewatch often ❤
One of my favorite movies of all time ❤. Also, there wasn’t a Liar Liar magical moment. It was a moment of clarity when Peter saw the hypnotherapist keel over, and he realized how short life is and that we aren’t meant to spend it in cubicles.
I found it to be a weird experience all around. On the one hand it would sometimes be absolutely egregious to get work from people but there were always excuses and it was tolerated etc. On the other hand you found that honestly a lot of peopke can basically hardly do shit all day ever day and the company still basically runs the same, put in 2hrs a day and fuck off the rest and nothing much changes (though of course some days were full days). Really shows you probably dont need everybody tied to 40 he weeks to do the work that needs to be done.
A friend told me the company he worked for remotely in 2020 discovered that production overall in all departments had increased significantly since employees had been working from home, so when other local companies had their employees return to work in the corporate office, my friend's employer sent out a memo to all employees saying they were to continue working from for another six months.
I was working AT Microsoft when this film came out. In fact, MS bought all the tickets for my local office to go see it. Naturally, people behaved ... differently ... the following Monday.
I got done watching Office Space for the first time literally 3 or 4 minutes ago, and lo and behold, you uploaded this less than an hour ago! Amazing timing lmao
This is my favorite movie of all time. I like that you compared it to your personal experiences of working in an office. I think that is one of the main reasons I enjoyed the film so much. Your analysis of Peter was spot on. So much depth there.
Your take that Peter is just being whiny while his coworkers aren't is interesting, and I wonder if it doesn't reflect a change in the times. Back when Office Space was released, white collar corporate office jobs at places like that were easy to come by, and it seemed like everyone worked in some cube maze office like that. That was life in suburbia. I, myself, had about the coolest, most fun and creative pop-culture related job imaginable, and even I worked in a corporate environment that just felt...soul crushing. I felt like Peter spoke for the majority of us who wished we could break out of the absurdity of living in a cube day after day, tapping away at a computer, but couldn't because we wanted to be able to maintain our comfy lifestyles. Samir and Michael didn't complain as much, but they seemed pretty dead inside, too (well, maybe Samir a little less so, because he came from a different perspective - but that's the entire point, isn't it? Mike Judge's characters all have different, interesting backgrounds that are fascinating when they're mixed up and played off of each other!). Working in that kind of corporate environment can make you feel like you're stuck there forever, and there's no escape. I always felt like Peter was the champion for all of us cube lemming cogs in the wheel who didn't know how to do something more exciting with our lives without having to sacrifice the benefits (back then, health insurance was fantastic!) and money that came with working that kind of job. A lot of us wished we could just drop everything and go into landscaping or construction - or just something outside in nature where there's fresh air - rather than cube central. I mean, Peter definitely sort of came off like a bit of a spoiled slacker sometimes, sure - but he was that irritated, struggling id inside us all that broke free! I think we all felt where he was coming from, and could totally relate.
4:50 My favorite parts of the movie are all the scenes with the Bobs. Notice how they perk up when they hear that Peter has 8 bosses. They’re hearing “we just found 7 people to cut!”
I was watching this movie more and more when I had my cubicle job, but being a star employee and highly productive did not save me from termination by the scumbag corporate so-called managers. Well, now I work concrete construction and totally loving it! I can relate to this movie. Fuckin-A
Office Space is absolutely brilliant, I stumbled upon this movie a few years ago totally by accident. The multi boss thing was something that would really grind my gears in a job I had in my younger days. 🥴🥴🥴
I don't like these types of videos much, but your voice isn't annoying and you make very good connections and are good at critically analysis. This was very good.
one of the things i wondered about the end of the movie is if lumbergs door was unlocked the whole time when peter put the letter and money under the door then tried to get it back. it seems to me that the door had to have been unlocked because the next day when milton goes in for his stapler the note is still there.
I worked at an office much like that and yup, had a nail clipper lady. Curious points: When Peter gets out of bed on Saturday to check the machine he has grazed knees. I think that was filmed after the scene where he dives at Lumberg’s door. After a few takes of that he’d have burned his knees up pretty good. When Bob Slydell has Tom’s personnel file we see his surname is spelled SMYkowski but Bob reads it as SIMkowski. Either an intentional flub to show he has no connection to the staff or his delivery is so good they just left it in. When Peter meets with the Bob’s he does his monologue of his day at Initech and he says he only does 15 minutes of work in a week but I would bet that was meant to be 15 minutes in a day seeing that was the question but he delivered it so well they missed it or just left it. Always thought Tom backing out of the driveway was a great stunt and great editing.
Ya know, Peter is my hero. Breaking out of cube world to a meaningful life where he actually finds some joy in his day - even if it is manual labor. We get boxed into this 8 to 5 world of monotonous drudgery, a drone fitting into the business machine that uses us up, only to be laid off at the next business cycle hiccup. The only thing we strive for is that golden future dream of retirement... assuming we don't have a cataclysmic heart attack slaving away late on a Friday night for yet another Lumbergh.
I don't think I knew it was Texas till the last time I watched it but it definitely never felt like Texas. I live in Texas now and I saw it when I lived in Pennsylvania and it still felt like LA
"Initech" is a joke on "Any-tech". Pronounced identically, is a comment on the universality of the shitiness of the office workplace, as shown, and a metaphor for the lost-in-nowhere gloom that Peter starts out in. Get it? That office scene could be AnyTech office.
This is like the strangest analysis of a movie I’ve ever seen. Every new scene he went over was another revelation that two people can watch the same exact same movie and interpret what they’re seeing *totally* differently. It was a wild ride.
I have close to 8 different bosses right now, not too much different 25 years later. This is one of my favorite movies and I actually did see it in theater's back when it premiered.
Thanks for sharing. Normally I would watch a video with this type of theme to the end, and then say that was kind of amusing, but I really don’t want to like and subscribe. However, I appreciate that you have interjected your own personal experiences to show how you can relate to the film. I agree with your summation of the story. I work in a slightly different field, but it was relatable experiences of my my own that fostered my love for this show. I look forward to seeing other content from you.
To me this movie and Clerks have at lot in common- trapped in a crap job you HAVE to go to so you can pay your bills, frustration, relationships, stupid people, etc etc. Both movies have a million quotes, both have aged well, both awesome :)
I've always wondered if hypnotherapy works for things like verbal ticks! I hope it would, but fear it wouldn't. For this movie, I think they're asking us to just suspend a little belief for the sake of the plot. Believe in an alternate universe where everything is pretty much the same except hypnotism is very real.
I was one of the best salesmen in a Chicago based online university for about six months. I felt guilty, and asked my manager to fire me. He refused, because I was making numbers, and I spent three days reading Harry Potter in my cubicle before I got fired. It was totally worth it!
In the 90's, computers were used to generate reports. If you paid attention, you'd realize what the reports were lacking, thinking management was actually using the reports, and you would create new reports, and the client, would then want both. Because they considered a higher report stack, to be an indication of their importance.
I was attending a post-secondary not-college and this movie came on a few days after administrative professionals day (which I would rather nor talk about how the school treated that) and it really spoke to me and was a wakeup call to a 19 year old who had only worked at Burger King which was hilariously corporate!
Personally I don’t see the hypnotherapy scene as a literal hypnosis. To me it’s more like Peter is lulled into a daydream due to his boredom with the situation, and then when the doctor dies it’s an epiphany for Peter. He realizes what really matters in life and it enables him to finally let go of what doesn’t. It’s like he was hypnotized by the absurd circumstances rather than the therapist himself.
Funny, you telling that story about needing to go and change. I once started a brand spanking new job as a consultant. In Sweden, no less. So I emigrated, bought a suit, put it and a tie on, reported to the customer (which was the Swedish pension fund authority) in it, and was met by my supervisor/customer: A guy with a three month beard, shorts, teva sandals, and a batik t-shirt. He looked me up and down, and said "welcome, but where's the technical guy?" Didn't wear a suit again for the next ten years of my life.
I just recently took my first step into the unknown, accepting a promotion that i really didnt want and isnt in my safe little comfort zone. But i know there is no reward without risk. Fingers crossed it works out.
Went to corporate head office with 2 co-workers for two weeks of training and we three show up wearing golf shirts and jeans our regular office attire. Walk into class and it's mostly local workers dressed in fancy suits. I only owned one suit for funerals and a yearly awards ceremony. The instructor insisted we go buy some better clothes😂. Us Hicks didn't know how to dress for the office 😮. Like Peter Gibbons I quit office work and am a truck driver now. Much better pay and job security.
It's a TGIFriday's knockoff. Friday's actually required their servers to wear the buttons (flair) on their uniforms. Only after Corporate executives saw this movie, did they remove this requirement.
Excellent dialog! Loved this movie then, and through up to this very day. As i evolve in this crazy-CRAZY-world we are all now living through...this movie's energy appeals differently each time i re-watch. ✌🌱
I always thought the Joke about the company name was IniTech pronounced Any Tech, meaning this movies applies to any Tech company of the day. By the way my #2 Comedy movie next to Airplane.
I got so lucky in that when I worked in offices that were cubicle farms, I spent only a few hours a week in them because I was always an outside rep. But I remember beautiful, thin, young ladies at cubicles in the office, and 3 years later, they barely fit in their chairs from spending all day just sitting and doing reports and answering phones.
I suggest checking out, "Head Office". ;-D There was an Engineer who complained, I didn't work fast enough, so one day I told him; "I've got two speeds, if you don't like this one, sure as hell, you'll hate the other one. ;-) After transferring to another group, I was in the previous group's building (looking at mock-ups) and was told by some employees that the Engineer was complaining they weren't as productive as I had been. While leaving I encountered the Engineer, who asked if I was coming back to work there, and I replied, "When are you retiring?"
So I like to tell people that im like peter from office space. I have education, i worked in IT as a network engineer for 10 years out of college when that job market got swamped in 2008 and pay dropped to almost minimum wage because of it. I wored for a guy that needed help building a house for his kid, so I helped out to score some extra cash and help pay my student loans. When my full time work dried up, i went right down to the local union hall for the carpenters and signed up. Im actually making more money now, than other people in IT with the benefit of lower stress. F**kin' A man.
office space was a revelation, a life altering experience, like when I read a book by J Krishnamurti. you just arent the same anymore. I saw it for the first time in 2020 when working from home for a bank, it felt incredibly satisfying to see the madness of the office portrayed so well and such humour. I think the concept of work is mad, cruel, and is no different to being a slave except in some cases its worse since many who work cant even afford food or shelter. I hope one day, if humanity doesnt self desctruct, we will look back at this mad world in horror at how we used to slave our days away instead of enjoying and living. this movie inspired me to quit my bank job and travel the world, currently in portugal, not sure where Im headed but will see.
The interesting thing for me is that my job is the only satisfaction I find in my life. If I didn't have my job, I literally would have nothing. I know it's sad, but it's the truth.
Be careful. You will not adjust well to retirement. Also, what if you lose that job through lay off or if you are self employed, downturn in the economy? Please find a balance. My ex-husband's whole identity was tied to his job title. He worked til he was 70 and his Facebook and Linked In was never updated that he ever retired. I don't think he wanted to admit it.
When I first saw this getting hired as a data processor for Southwestern Bell (AT&T) as a fresh college grad. I related so much to this movie But fast forward 23 years later as a professional who worked his way up. Biggest thing I realized is learn to love what other people hate doing, because thats where money is. Best of all, working is not so bad because it gives you purpose in life. Doing nothing and sitting on your ass all day is only fun for the fist 6 mos but after that you feel each day you get dumber and dumber
Everyone compares The Office to Office Space, but I can't help but wonder if anyone has ever tried to do a comparison between The Office and other workplace-from-Hell films. Like The Caine Mutiny, or Glengarry Glen Ross, or even Swimming with Sharks, for instance.
I work in a supermarket. Literally everyone who is senior to me (I've only been there a year) is my 'supervisor". I answer to so many people I haven't counted them. Worse yet, they all seem to follow different policies and then get after me when I don't adhere to them...because they violate the opposing policies upheld by the other 'supervisors'.....
I'm a simple man. I see Office Space content, I watch it and thumbs up.
same... always
Usually the same, but as a Texan I don't "take kindly" to asshats that disparage the greatest state in the union.
I was in charge of ordering office supplies for my department, and so I bought a red Swingline stapler for a new senior project manager. He didn't understand the reference, and I never felt more alone than I did that day.
They specially made the red stapler for the movie.
@@frenchyroastifyI thought the story went that they reached out to Swingline, they said no so they just painted one red. And after the film it was in high demand that swingline decided to make it.
At my first day at a large corporation, in a middle-management job, I sent an email introducing myself to my reports, and jokingly closed it with “Have your TPS reports in my inbox by Friday.” The joke was on me because the company really did have TPS reports - which are apparently a real thing - and everyone sent theirs right over.
@@Get_yotted I do believe you have my limited edition red stapler.
Peter ending the meeting so nonchalantly is THE power move.
I think Office Space is Jen Aniston's best work. It's the one movie where she doesn't play the same character she always does.
Jennifer was a hottie back in the day
It is ironic that this is your take because I was just talking about how Jennifer was kind of playing herself (as she often does) and how well she does in that part-yet several other characters are severely unique, most notably Steven Root and Dietrich Bader in their respective roles.
Either way, the casting for this movie was and still is perfect.
@@SupaEMT134 She's hot today
I think it’s Horrible Bosses for that reason (and to a lesser extent We’re The Millers) but this is up there.
@@SupaEMT134Jennifer is a hottie today dude.
“This is me expressing Myself.” As she flips off the boss and the whole line of customers. God as a restaurant employee I felt that and still do 😂😂
23:35 "You can wear a Hawaiian shirt on Fridays" I worked at a place that had a business casual dress code. The pay was shit, the workload was awful, but people that I worked with (mostly the middle ages ones) reacted like it was the Moon Landing.
I could deal with Milton as a cube neighbor, but that woman answering the phone in her sickening chirpy way every-single-time would make me absolutely homicidal.
People thought cubicles were bad but I'd take that over an open office with no barriers at all, which has become common. In those spaces I find people just never stop interrupting each other with talk, work related or otherwise.
“ *Corp*orate
accounts payable, Nina speaking.
*Just* a mo*ment*
@@globetrekker86 𝑎𝑐𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑝𝑎𝑦𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑒, 𝑁𝑖𝑛𝑎 𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑎𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔.
𝐽𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑎 𝑚𝑜*𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡
Must. Suppress. Simmering. Rage
@@joemcdermott1213 The closest I had to a cubical was a full wall behind my desk (with storage cabinets), half walls on either side of my desk, an open area behind me, leading to a set of four drafting computers, bunched together, giving me access to two.
@@joemcdermott1213 no, because in an open office you can avoid them all the time.
yeeeeah, if you wouldn't mind just going ahead and making more Office Space videos... that would be great
mmmmkay? Thaaaanks.
😅
It's everyday linguistics in the wild!!
Maybe you could do them on saturday.
“Not now, Lumbergh, I’m busy. I’ve got a meeting with the Bobs in a couple of minutes”
My favorite line "What what do you say you do here?"
My favorite line: "It's not that I'm lazy, it's just that I don't care."
My favorite one:
Bob: Looks like you've been missing a lot of work lately.
Peter: I wouldn't say I've been "missing" it, Bob.
😂
This is a definite classic. A truly hilarious film from start to finish. Cool to see you talk about this.
1999 had a lot of amazing movies.
The mummy, matrix, this, there were tons.
@@antigrav6004 Fight Club,Sixth Sense,The Insider. Good year.
@@jordansweet8054 American Beauty, Eyes Wide Shut, Notting Hill, 10 Things I Hate About You, Cruel Intentions, Blair Witch Project. Also, some great animated films: Toy Story 2, Tarzan, The Iron Giant, South Park Bigger, Longer and Uncut, etc. Amazing to see how good Hollywood was back then, absolutely no comparison to nowadays.
Dark city, 13th floor
Waiting would be a great workplace movie to cover, it's actually pretty damn accurate to working in a restaurant and it's absolutely hilarious
What a great movie. 1 of my 3 most favorite comedy's of this type. Office Space, Waiting & Grandma's Boy.
I literally worked in an office where a guy that slept at his desk all the time actually died. Nobody knew for a couple of days. 😮 7:55
How sad is that
Wait. I'm surely misreading this. Are you saying a guy from your office died in his sleep at his desk and he was dead at his desk for days before people found out?
I think every office has one of those.
This is like the Michael Douglas movie "Falling Down" or "A Clockwork Orange" where it feels like the message is So Overt yet everyone is missing it. How many people have to work how many hours producing food, clothing, cars, furniture etc. for those bosses to all have the luxury of wasting everyone's time ordering reports that produce more nothing? No thought given to this hunh?
That seems to be the point everyone's missing. We don't grow our own food or make our own clothes. But at least the guys throwing my garbage into a truck provide _something_ of value. What actually is produced in any office, anywhere other than time-filling for the sake of it?
Anyone?
I'm surprised it wasn't a couple of months. I mean, people are so slow to notice things sometimes.
I used to watch this movie for “motivation” whenever I went on interviews for a new position. I’m now self-employed and permanently out of the corporate rat race!
I have seen Office Space multiple times. Now that I have seen Silicon Valley, I see the similarities. Glad to see the clips included.
Loved this. Thank you! I have a couple of thoughts I'd like to share:
1. I may be wrong, but I think the name "Initech" was supposed to sound like "any tech", as in the company could have been any generic tech company in America at the time.
2. I personally think the restaurant Aniston's character worked at was based on Bennigan's, because their uniforms look super similar to the ones we had to wear in the mid 00's, when I worked there and we had two buttons we were required to wear when we were on the clock (one being our name tag, the other being a button that said, "We I.D.!") and we'd get harassed if we forgot them.
I couldn't have asked for a better analysis in this vid though. At the time I first saw this, I was 17 and worked at Bennigan's and my dad had THE EXACT JOB the main character has in this movie, updating billing software for the switch to 2000. My boyfriend at the time also worked in IT, so all of us had a deep connection to this movie.
From what I've heard, the restaurant was based on TGI Fridays, and they were so embarrassed by the flair jab they dropped their flair soon after the film released.
I watched Office Space before I ever worked in an office, and I couldn't fully appreciate it's greatness. Years later, after working in several offices with a multitude of dysfunctions, I came to appreciate this movie so much more.
One of the offices I worked in, required us to wear a button-down shirt and tie every single day. The reasoning was that we might have visitors come through the office, so we needed to look presentable. In the 2 years I was there, there wasn't a single visitor.
If I ever see Gary Cole, I am definitely doing the "yeah" thing to him. And then maybe apologize.
He was good in this, and in the two Brady Bunch movies.
Yeeeaaah, if you would see him, you could do that, that would be ter-ri-fic. Mmmmkaaay?
I mean, you have to right? He should just consider it a greeting at this point.
Echoing many previous comments; Office Space is a movie I came to appreciate later in life, once I had sufficient work life experience. It’s now one of my all time favorites that I rewatch often ❤
Literally everytime I hear the word stapler “ my stapler” “I’ll burn the fucking place down”
The idea of cleaning a fish without running, or… any- water nearby, is horrifying.
With Flair!
It’s not a Applebees it’s a TGIF restaurant
Isn’t it Chotchkie's Bar & Grill?
@@MulverineIs that a joke? It’s a TGI Fridays KNOCKOFF.
@@Mulverinedid you forget when you said Applebees 3 times ?
I love that the red stapler translated from an in-universe gag to a beloved piece of real-life stationary
I had quite a few jobs after this movie was out and ordering a red swingline was a priority each time. Kept my last one...
Fun fact, Swingline didn't make a red version of their stapler when the movie was filmed.
I think seeing the death woke him up from his slump and the hypnotherapy gave him the excuse he needed to unravel. A little bit of a placebo effect
This exactly. This guy took no effort into dissecting this movie.
One of my favorite movies of all time ❤. Also, there wasn’t a Liar Liar magical moment. It was a moment of clarity when Peter saw the hypnotherapist keel over, and he realized how short life is and that we aren’t meant to spend it in cubicles.
Working remote in 2020 taught a whole lot of people that working in the office is a complete shitshow in comparison.
I found it to be a weird experience all around. On the one hand it would sometimes be absolutely egregious to get work from people but there were always excuses and it was tolerated etc.
On the other hand you found that honestly a lot of peopke can basically hardly do shit all day ever day and the company still basically runs the same, put in 2hrs a day and fuck off the rest and nothing much changes (though of course some days were full days). Really shows you probably dont need everybody tied to 40 he weeks to do the work that needs to be done.
A friend told me the company he worked for remotely in 2020 discovered that production overall in all departments had increased significantly since employees had been working from home, so when other local companies had their employees return to work in the corporate office, my friend's employer sent out a memo to all employees saying they were to continue working from for another six months.
I was working AT Microsoft when this film came out. In fact, MS bought all the tickets for my local office to go see it. Naturally, people behaved ... differently ... the following Monday.
I've seen this movie a Billion times... now I'm gonna have to watch it again. Good review Chris!
I got done watching Office Space for the first time literally 3 or 4 minutes ago, and lo and behold, you uploaded this less than an hour ago! Amazing timing lmao
This is my favorite movie of all time. I like that you compared it to your personal experiences of working in an office. I think that is one of the main reasons I enjoyed the film so much. Your analysis of Peter was spot on. So much depth there.
Your take that Peter is just being whiny while his coworkers aren't is interesting, and I wonder if it doesn't reflect a change in the times. Back when Office Space was released, white collar corporate office jobs at places like that were easy to come by, and it seemed like everyone worked in some cube maze office like that. That was life in suburbia. I, myself, had about the coolest, most fun and creative pop-culture related job imaginable, and even I worked in a corporate environment that just felt...soul crushing.
I felt like Peter spoke for the majority of us who wished we could break out of the absurdity of living in a cube day after day, tapping away at a computer, but couldn't because we wanted to be able to maintain our comfy lifestyles. Samir and Michael didn't complain as much, but they seemed pretty dead inside, too (well, maybe Samir a little less so, because he came from a different perspective - but that's the entire point, isn't it? Mike Judge's characters all have different, interesting backgrounds that are fascinating when they're mixed up and played off of each other!). Working in that kind of corporate environment can make you feel like you're stuck there forever, and there's no escape. I always felt like Peter was the champion for all of us cube lemming cogs in the wheel who didn't know how to do something more exciting with our lives without having to sacrifice the benefits (back then, health insurance was fantastic!) and money that came with working that kind of job. A lot of us wished we could just drop everything and go into landscaping or construction - or just something outside in nature where there's fresh air - rather than cube central. I mean, Peter definitely sort of came off like a bit of a spoiled slacker sometimes, sure - but he was that irritated, struggling id inside us all that broke free! I think we all felt where he was coming from, and could totally relate.
4:50 My favorite parts of the movie are all the scenes with the Bobs. Notice how they perk up when they hear that Peter has 8 bosses. They’re hearing “we just found 7 people to cut!”
I was watching this movie more and more when I had my cubicle job, but being a star employee and highly productive did not save me from termination by the scumbag corporate so-called managers. Well, now I work concrete construction and totally loving it! I can relate to this movie.
Fuckin-A
I went from an awful office job to construction work too. Fuckin-A.
Lol - loved how you call her Rachel! That's how I refer to her in this movie! 😂
Office Space was filmed deep in the heart of Texas in Austin 🤘
Office Space is absolutely brilliant, I stumbled upon this movie a few years ago totally by accident. The multi boss thing was something that would really grind my gears in a job I had in my younger days. 🥴🥴🥴
I have a meeting with the Bobs
I don't like these types of videos much, but your voice isn't annoying and you make very good connections and are good at critically analysis. This was very good.
one of the things i wondered about the end of the movie is if lumbergs door was unlocked the whole time when peter put the letter and money under the door then tried to get it back. it seems to me that the door had to have been unlocked because the next day when milton goes in for his stapler the note is still there.
Yeah, that's the joke. It was unlocked the whole time.
I always assumed that some Secretary probably unlocked the door so Bill Lumberg would not have to.
I worked at an office much like that and yup, had a nail clipper lady.
Curious points: When Peter gets out of bed on Saturday to check the machine he has grazed knees. I think that was filmed after the scene where he dives at Lumberg’s door. After a few takes of that he’d have burned his knees up pretty good.
When Bob Slydell has Tom’s personnel file we see his surname is spelled SMYkowski but Bob reads it as SIMkowski. Either an intentional flub to show he has no connection to the staff or his delivery is so good they just left it in.
When Peter meets with the Bob’s he does his monologue of his day at Initech and he says he only does 15 minutes of work in a week but I would bet that was meant to be 15 minutes in a day seeing that was the question but he delivered it so well they missed it or just left it.
Always thought Tom backing out of the driveway was a great stunt and great editing.
"Corporate accounts payable, Mina speaking, JUST a moment."
Ya know, Peter is my hero. Breaking out of cube world to a meaningful life where he actually finds some joy in his day - even if it is manual labor. We get boxed into this 8 to 5 world of monotonous drudgery, a drone fitting into the business machine that uses us up, only to be laid off at the next business cycle hiccup. The only thing we strive for is that golden future dream of retirement... assuming we don't have a cataclysmic heart attack slaving away late on a Friday night for yet another Lumbergh.
I don't think I knew it was Texas till the last time I watched it but it definitely never felt like Texas. I live in Texas now and I saw it when I lived in Pennsylvania and it still felt like LA
Filmed all over Austin Texas
I remember being a kid in Houston in the early 2000s most of the buildings were like this back then
"Initech" is a joke on "Any-tech". Pronounced identically, is a comment on the universality of the shitiness of the office workplace, as shown, and a metaphor for the lost-in-nowhere gloom that Peter starts out in.
Get it? That office scene could be AnyTech office.
The 90s were a time of blissful, weirdly self hating luxury.
This is like the strangest analysis of a movie I’ve ever seen. Every new scene he went over was another revelation that two people can watch the same exact same movie and interpret what they’re seeing *totally* differently. It was a wild ride.
I have close to 8 different bosses right now, not too much different 25 years later. This is one of my favorite movies and I actually did see it in theater's back when it premiered.
It's a Bennigans knock-off, lol, not Applebees.. I know it's trivial, but Bennigans was so much more than your average Applebee's 🎉
The stripes are reminiscent of TGIFridays.
Thanks for sharing. Normally I would watch a video with this type of theme to the end, and then say that was kind of amusing, but I really don’t want to like and subscribe. However, I appreciate that you have interjected your own personal experiences to show how you can relate to the film. I agree with your summation of the story. I work in a slightly different field, but it was relatable experiences of my my own that fostered my love for this show. I look forward to seeing other content from you.
i could burn down the building👀
To me this movie and Clerks have at lot in common- trapped in a crap job you HAVE to go to so you can pay your bills, frustration, relationships, stupid people, etc etc. Both movies have a million quotes, both have aged well, both awesome :)
This movie is basically Ferris Beuller but after he has grown up and has an office job. LoL
I'm sorry, but Ferris Bueller would never settle for a job that demeaning. Cameron Frye, maybe. But not Ferris.
@@plissken2156Then it’s Cameron Frye the movie. Even better
Appreciate the angle here. Great work
My favorite movie almost ever tbh, endlessly quotable, a pleasant look back into the era that I grew up in, and also just fucking funny and biting
Yes, it's my thing. Please continue. 😂
Thanks for making my morning slightly better. I’m pretty close to changing companies or buy my own.
Going fishing and watching tv is literally the definition of doing nothing
At least in 1999, today he would just play with his smartphone all day.
I've always wondered if hypnotherapy works for things like verbal ticks! I hope it would, but fear it wouldn't. For this movie, I think they're asking us to just suspend a little belief for the sake of the plot. Believe in an alternate universe where everything is pretty much the same except hypnotism is very real.
I was one of the best salesmen in a Chicago based online university for about six months.
I felt guilty, and asked my manager to fire me. He refused, because I was making numbers, and I spent three days reading Harry Potter in my cubicle before I got fired.
It was totally worth it!
Oh man the 2 chicks at the same time bit got me rolling. Thanks I needed that!
In the 90's, computers were used to generate reports. If you paid attention, you'd realize what the reports were lacking, thinking management was actually using the reports, and you would create new reports, and the client, would then want both. Because they considered a higher report stack, to be an indication of their importance.
I really appreciate you calling "Rex Kwon Do" Oswald. I love The Drew Carey Show but rarely hear it referenced!
I was attending a post-secondary not-college and this movie came on a few days after administrative professionals day (which I would rather nor talk about how the school treated that) and it really spoke to me and was a wakeup call to a 19 year old who had only worked at Burger King which was hilariously corporate!
Life got more interesting for Peter when he jumped into Normandy.
Personally I don’t see the hypnotherapy scene as a literal hypnosis. To me it’s more like Peter is lulled into a daydream due to his boredom with the situation, and then when the doctor dies it’s an epiphany for Peter. He realizes what really matters in life and it enables him to finally let go of what doesn’t. It’s like he was hypnotized by the absurd circumstances rather than the therapist himself.
Funny, you telling that story about needing to go and change. I once started a brand spanking new job as a consultant. In Sweden, no less. So I emigrated, bought a suit, put it and a tie on, reported to the customer (which was the Swedish pension fund authority) in it, and was met by my supervisor/customer: A guy with a three month beard, shorts, teva sandals, and a batik t-shirt.
He looked me up and down, and said "welcome, but where's the technical guy?"
Didn't wear a suit again for the next ten years of my life.
Even Neo struggled in an office space in the Matrix.
you nailed it pretty good!!! I love the movie.
morningwood apartments!
5:20 Chotchkie’s is, supposedly, a TGI Fridays knockoff
"...that would be great."
-Bill Lumburgh
Mmmmkay?
I just recently took my first step into the unknown, accepting a promotion that i really didnt want and isnt in my safe little comfort zone. But i know there is no reward without risk. Fingers crossed it works out.
My post secondary was Business Management. I turn down promotions because I don't want to work in management. I know too much about it! 😂
Went to corporate head office with 2 co-workers for two weeks of training and we three show up wearing golf shirts and jeans our regular office attire. Walk into class and it's mostly local workers dressed in fancy suits. I only owned one suit for funerals and a yearly awards ceremony. The instructor insisted we go buy some better clothes😂. Us Hicks didn't know how to dress for the office 😮. Like Peter Gibbons I quit office work and am a truck driver now. Much better pay and job security.
It's a TGIFriday's knockoff. Friday's actually required their servers to wear the buttons (flair) on their uniforms. Only after Corporate executives saw this movie, did they remove this requirement.
Excellent dialog! Loved this movie then, and through up to this very day. As i evolve in this crazy-CRAZY-world we are all now living through...this movie's energy appeals differently each time i re-watch. ✌🌱
I always thought the Joke about the company name was IniTech pronounced Any Tech, meaning this movies applies to any Tech company of the day. By the way my #2 Comedy movie next to Airplane.
I got so lucky in that when I worked in offices that were cubicle farms, I spent only a few hours a week in them because I was always an outside rep. But I remember beautiful, thin, young ladies at cubicles in the office, and 3 years later, they barely fit in their chairs from spending all day just sitting and doing reports and answering phones.
Sounds like somebody's got a case of the Mondays
Kind of a convoluted description of "Initech." I thought it was like we work "In a tech."
I suggest checking out, "Head Office". ;-D
There was an Engineer who complained, I didn't work fast enough, so one day I told him; "I've got two speeds, if you don't like this one, sure as hell, you'll hate the other one. ;-)
After transferring to another group, I was in the previous group's building (looking at mock-ups) and was told by some employees that the Engineer was complaining they weren't as productive as I had been.
While leaving I encountered the Engineer, who asked if I was coming back to work there, and I replied, "When are you retiring?"
Head Office, film or a tv show?
@@Mulverine movie in 1975.
So I like to tell people that im like peter from office space. I have education, i worked in IT as a network engineer for 10 years out of college when that job market got swamped in 2008 and pay dropped to almost minimum wage because of it. I wored for a guy that needed help building a house for his kid, so I helped out to score some extra cash and help pay my student loans. When my full time work dried up, i went right down to the local union hall for the carpenters and signed up. Im actually making more money now, than other people in IT with the benefit of lower stress.
F**kin' A man.
This movie is in large part why I became a mechanic.
office space was a revelation, a life altering experience, like when I read a book by J Krishnamurti. you just arent the same anymore. I saw it for the first time in 2020 when working from home for a bank, it felt incredibly satisfying to see the madness of the office portrayed so well and such humour. I think the concept of work is mad, cruel, and is no different to being a slave except in some cases its worse since many who work cant even afford food or shelter. I hope one day, if humanity doesnt self desctruct, we will look back at this mad world in horror at how we used to slave our days away instead of enjoying and living. this movie inspired me to quit my bank job and travel the world, currently in portugal, not sure where Im headed but will see.
The interesting thing for me is that my job is the only satisfaction I find in my life. If I didn't have my job, I literally would have nothing. I know it's sad, but it's the truth.
Jobs can bring purpose!
Be careful. You will not adjust well to retirement. Also, what if you lose that job through lay off or if you are self employed, downturn in the economy? Please find a balance. My ex-husband's whole identity was tied to his job title. He worked til he was 70 and his Facebook and Linked In was never updated that he ever retired. I don't think he wanted to admit it.
When I first saw this getting hired as a data processor for Southwestern Bell (AT&T) as a fresh college grad. I related so much to this movie
But fast forward 23 years later as a professional who worked his way up. Biggest thing I realized is learn to love what other people hate doing, because thats where money is.
Best of all, working is not so bad because it gives you purpose in life. Doing nothing and sitting on your ass all day is only fun for the fist 6 mos but after that you feel each day you get dumber and dumber
Everyone compares The Office to Office Space, but I can't help but wonder if anyone has ever tried to do a comparison between The Office and other workplace-from-Hell films. Like The Caine Mutiny, or Glengarry Glen Ross, or even Swimming with Sharks, for instance.
You left out Superstore.
For a large part of this film, you could have, easily, plugged people from my job into these characters without changing this movie much.
Enjoyed this video!👍
Awesome, thank you!
…damn it feels good to be a gangsta.
Great review Chris. I have loved this movie and seen it about as many times as Napoleon Dynamite (which is a lot).
Because people don't know when thier happy because they don't recognise the pleasure in pain.. but they do.
The ending has a Good Will Hunting ending vibe
The manager of "Rachel's" restaurant job is actually Mike Judge, the creator
I would not have been back that day with the jeans and t-shirt.
Worked in an office and was sent home game day because I forgot my jersey. Started to keep one in my car just incase. Our town is football 🏈 crazy LoL
Nice take on a classic.
When I got fired, "damn, it feels good to be a gangsta"
I work in a supermarket. Literally everyone who is senior to me (I've only been there a year) is my 'supervisor". I answer to so many people I haven't counted them. Worse yet, they all seem to follow different policies and then get after me when I don't adhere to them...because they violate the opposing policies upheld by the other 'supervisors'.....