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I would say that everyone should watch and understand Office Space, but I did watch it and didn't really understand it until I lived it - I thought it was a com
by hotpotamus 4y ago
I would say that everyone should watch and understand Office Space, but I did watch it and didn't really understand it until I lived it - I thought it was a comedy just because it's funny, but really it's a Gen X cautionary tale about burnout that I was too inexperienced to understand. The quote from the movie that you reminded me of was "I did nothing and it was everything I thought it could be."
But the creator, Mike Judge, (of Beavis and Butthead fame) worked in early-mid Silicon Valley - he understood the culture he was skewering.
- bityard 4y agoI watched Office Space when I was younger and believed at the time that it was a gross over-caricaturization. It was a comedy movie, after all. No _real_ company could ever be that demoralizing to work for, there's no way you could put that much cluelessness, self-interest, and passive-agressive managerial evil into one building and not have it spontaneously combust, right? (Which I guess it did in the movie.) Until I got a job in a mid-size financial services company. It was all that and a whole lot worse. It was literally forbidden to pin Dilbert comic strips to your cubicle wall. Not _any_ comic strips, only Dilbert ones weren't allowed. Up all night fixing an issue in prod caused by someone else? Tough, better be in your chair at 8:00 a.m. like any other day. I lasted 10 months. It was horrible, but I don't actually regret it because it made me appreciate the value of a _good_ workplace run by and staffed by intelligent well-meaning people. Which still isn't as common as it should be, but definitely exist.