Office Space (90 minutes)
Times were good. Times were too good. And everyone was fucking bored with their very decent lives.
There’s really never been a better time to rewatch Office Space. In late August, TikTok was abuzz with the freshly-minted turn-of-phrase “Quiet Quitting”. Coined by Gen Z just entering the workforce, it’s defined as doing the bare minimum at work or “doing the least.” It reflects our pandemic malaise while also taking into account the years of working life before it. And while young adults may think they’ve stumbled across something new, it is really only new to them, the rest of us have been here for years. I’m thinking of Gen X in particular, fondly remembered as the “forgotten generation” and defined by movies like Office Space, because they are the parents of these fresh-faced, little office workers.
Now 23 years old-- and in fact a Gen Z kid itself-- Office Space (1999) tells the story of Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston), a software engineer who, dissatisfied, discouraged, and disappointed with his life, attributes all that is wrong with him to his boring, soulless job. But in a freak hypnosis accident, Peter is left with a new lease on life, one in which he simply does not care about work anymore. He cuts out early, goes fishing, and ignores his boss’ phone calls on Saturday. He ultimately takes things a little too far when he convinces his office mates, Michael Bolton, no relation, (David Herman) and Samir (Ajay Naidu), to steal fractions of pennies from the company using a computer virus:
Around the time this movie was released, Americans were feeling trapped and bored by their own comfort. Think of Ed Norton’s Narrator in Fight Club or Neo in The Matrix. (All three of these were released in 1999 by the way.) Times were good. Times were too good. And everyone was fucking bored with their very decent lives. Leave it to humans to be unsettled by tranquility. And leave it to Americans to find a downside to living well.
So, you would think, being the most visible dissection of this particular moment in time, that Office Space would have killed it at the theaters, right? But it absolutely did not; It barely broke even during its theatrical run and everyone involved wrote it off as a failure. That is until it was released to video and purchased for cable viewing by Comedy Central. It was then that it finally found its Gen X audience who were already embracing slacker culture and seeking work-life balance in a way the Boomers did not. It became a cult classic.
I see a lot of similarities between Gen X and Gen Z. They’re more alike than any other two generations. Gen X were latchkey kids, commonly left to their own devices, and the first generation to experience divorce and single-parent homes in large numbers. They drifted, growing up with new technology in a time of great excess and greed. Gen Z are the first generation to have always had access to the internet via computer and smartphones. They’re more diverse, more educated, and, just like their parents before them, they too are coming of age in a time of excess output. Gen Z is joining the workforce as Millennial “girl bossing” and “hustle culture” are cycling out. (The pandemic has, thankfully, sped up this natural process.) While Gen X were the ones to emerge from the Wall Street-greed-is-good years.
So, whatever you want to call it--quiet quitting, slacking, pulling a Bartleby the Scrivener (Melville’s character who famously told his boss “I would prefer not to”)-- avoiding the soul-sucking characteristics of capitalism is something most office workers are attuned to. And as that fact became more explicit to CEOs and workers stopped pretending they loved their jobs, corporations shifted their game plan in the late 2000s. Byran Lufkin, in his article for the BBC, posits that the rejection of the environment depicted in Office Space in particular, is what ultimately led to the facade of a “fun” office: dogs at work, foosball tables, and beer on tap. This rejection of corporate doldrums at the turn of the millennia created workplaces like WeWork or Facebook… which ultimately were and are still toxic corporate environments.
It would be interesting to imagine Peter’s boss, Bill Lumbergh in a WeWork office environment. Being a Boomer, I imagine he would excel in that kind of one-upping environment, proving himself to Adam Neumann by working every Saturday for a year. But on the other hand, his monotone voice, Gordon Gekko suspenders, and office lurking may have very easily been left behind.
If Lufkin is right, then this 90-minute movie that made just over $10 million at the box office has left a deep imprint on American life. It captures not just a specific period in time, but also a specific restlessness that has come to define corporate workers even today, the youngest of whom are coming to realize that working harder doesn’t necessarily get you more. Where Millennials took a look at Office Space and thought “I can do better” and imagined a world where work could be fun, Gen Z is taking a look and thinking, “There is no better” and learning to live within the confines of a working life and finding joy elsewhere.
For Peter Gibbons, he had to be hypnotized to come to this conclusion. He finds that joy is derived by our relationships, our hobbies, and home environments. The seemingly simple changes he makes to his life like asking out Joanna, going fishing, doing his job as described instead of going above and beyond, all bring him a joy he hadn’t known before. Where the plot of Office Space really succeeds is sending Peter too far over the edge. He decides that doing the bare minimum is no longer enough and that Initech, his employer, must suffer for their wrongdoing. This is like the journeys of our protagonists in both Fight Club and The Matrix, who seek out revenge on the systems that have trapped them.
When this plan goes sideways, he fully realizes what a lot of us come to understand. Joanna sums it up neatly a few scenes earlier: “Peter, most people don’t like their jobs. But you go out there and you find something that makes you happy.” When it comes to work, you do your best to find something nice enough but should resolve to understand it won’t come to define your life. This is where Gen Z and quiet quitting are winning, and where Millennials (yes, like me) failed. If Peter is the Gen Z character of the movie, then Samir is the Boomer/Millennial. Peter asks him, “What if we’re still doing this when we’re 50?” And Samir replies, “It would be nice to have that kind of job security.” Oof.
Quiet quitting has older generations freaking out. Perhaps they see a slippery slope from setting boundaries to really quitting, or seeking revenge like Peter, or even worse, an opportunity for someone like Milton to do their worst. Milton, the bumbling office worker known to be looking for his stapler, becomes so fed up he burns down Initech. (This is what ultimately saves Peter. All evidence of his theft is destroyed in the fire and he is able to move on with his life as a construction worker.) I can see how generations raised to believe that hard work and hustle are the gold standard would be threatened by a generation who just wants to take it easy. Because no matter what we do, we’re just like our parents. Gen Z, raised by Gen X slackers, are looking to slack and Millennials raised by Boomers have tried to make capitalism work for them… It hasn’t. This is the great divide between Millennials and Gen Z currently playing out on social media.
But that aside, I am fascinated by movies about and made by Gen X. Is it because they came before me? Is it because they’re “forgotten”? Even now they’re treated like the generational middle child, often left out of TikTok content that instead focuses on Boomers, Millennials, and Gen Z. Is it because I was born dangerously close to being one? (I missed the cut off by only six years.) I’m never sure, but if you find yourself like me, consistently curious about them, here’s some other films worth checking out (mostly culled from this amazing article):
Slacker - Richard Linklater’s 1990 movie that is credited with coining the term
Heathers - Cemented Winona Ryder and Christian Slater in the zeitgeist
Empire Records - Gen X kids try to save their record store from a corporate buy-out
Do the Right Thing - Racial tension of New York City and the US boiled down to the microcosm of a Brooklyn neighborhood and pizza shop
Clerks - A day in the lives of store clerks, a snapshot of middle class life
Sources:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Generation-X
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20190606-the-films-that-defined-generation-x
https://nofilmschool.com/soul-crushing-boredom-cubicle-movies
Wonderfully written and incisive! 1999 was such a great year for films, and as you wrote, there is a strong connection of theme between Office Space, The Matrix, and Fight Club (I would also add American Beauty into that mix). As a Gen Xer, I saw all those films in the theater that year and they resonated with my own life at the time. It's very interesting to look back on that time and place, and then put it in context to today's labor shortages, quiet quitting and Gen Z. Thanks for the great post!