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08/29/2003 Archived Entry: "Office Space"

LOOKS LIKE YOU'VE BEEN MISSING A LOT OF WORK LATELY/I WOULDN'T SAY I'VE BEEN MISSING IT BOB!: Movie night at Fort Sinatra tonight was the 1999 comedy Office Space starring Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston, Ajay Naidu and David Herman.

Office Space, directed by King of the Hill's Mike Judge and based on a series of cartoon shorts that aired on Saturday Night Live during the mid-90s, wasn't what we would call a success when it first appeared but it quickly gained a cult following among people who work in cubicle farms and software firms. Three workers, tired of their boss and their programming jobs, decide to pull a scam on their company. It's easy to see why some people are fanatic about this movie; it captures the monotony of corporation not terribly interested in you to the point where you can be downsized at a whim and procedure is often more important than the result.

To a certain extent it's been supplanted by the BBC series The Office (which can be seen on the BBC's satelite service) but Office Space is still one of the best of the genre. It certainly reminded me of the job I was laid off from back in March.

If you ever meet someone with a red Swingline stapler on their desk and they say, "We're not in Kansas anymore!" you know you've met an Office Space fan.

Replies: 4 comments

Try the film Haiku Tunnel too.

Posted by oj @ 08/29/2003 07:21 PM EST

I'm going to have to ask you to go ahead move your comments down a few links..

Posted by Mike van Lammeren @ 08/30/2003 01:55 AM EST

A lot of sitcoms have been set in the workplace, but none have really captured it the way Office Space and Dilbert do.

Posted by W. James Antle @ 08/30/2003 03:15 PM EST

I told Bill if I have to move my comments down a few links one more time, then, then I'm, I'm quitting, I'm going to quit. And, and I told Don too, because they've moved my comments four times already this year, and I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels, and they were merry, but then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn't bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it's not okay because if they take my stapler then I'll set the building on fire.

Posted by Steven Martinovich @ 08/30/2003 03:55 PM EST