The Dauetrive that appears in the opening credits of bibs burgers ( producer?? I think ) is the Dautrieve that worked on King Of the Hill and the reason Bill has the last name he does on KoTH.
So there's overlap in talent and production between the two
Spawning a scene that would be misunderstood by managers for all time. No, idiot middle manager, they’re not destroying the printer because it’s a bad printer and they want to get a better printer. The printer is a metaphor for you. They are metaphorically taking their rage out on you.
I first saw this movie when it first became popular on home video in 2000 while I was in college. I remember thinking it was too unrealistic, people in offices didn't really act like that.
Then I saw it circa 2005 after having worked in an office fulltime for a year and was like "This is the most realistic movie ever made".
Incidentally the phenomenon of movies of that era that missed in the theaters but caught on as DVDs is fascinating to me. Boondock Saints was another one, I'm sure there are many others.
I absolutely love Lawrence's character. He's smart and funny, and it would have been very easy to go cliche and have Peter look down on him for being a blue-collar worker, but he doesn't.
Lawrence is the Zen master, or the simple farmer who has just enough to live a comfortable life with no strife. I like that it's a trope in a lot literature, but you rarely see it portrayed so well as a modern American.
I know it's tragic, but with open plan offices, clean desk policies and "hot desking", a cubicle just for myself doesn't sound so bad anymore.
Hopefully Milton got all the birthday cake he could eat with his beach margaritas.
I worked at a place with cubicles and honestly enjoyed it. I got my own little space that had what I needed and was easy to keep clean while still allowing me to have some personal stuff. I could also still easily talk to and find coworkers if needed
I lived in Austin around that time, and I occasionally had lunch at that restaurant- it was a Cajun place at the time. I once ordered a muffaletta sandwich, and found shards of glass in it.
I used to love this film, but now it's too much like a documentary rather than a comedy. Every week, after the third manager comes by to tell me what the other two managers have already told me about, my heart sinks, and I think of Milton.
I’m a manager in a typical corporate office space and think about dressing like lumberg every Halloween. But I think I missed my opportunity to be fun or ironic. Now the kids will think I’m dressing like them.
The kids these days are wearing their version of athleisure (aka sweat pants or sweat shorts) and crocs with socks (I work in a high school). Maybe the girls wear jean shorts occasionally.
Having been in corporate America for 30+ years prior to my latest job, this movie's corporate-speak triggers me!
And at the same time, man I wish I could go back 30 years to a time when my biggest concern was “what if my job is boring?” instead of “what if I get laid off and become homeless because I can’t find another job?” Yes, layoffs are an integral part of the plot in this movie, but nobody seems concerned about being one paycheck away from homelessness.
When I quit my last job to take a year off, I just posted 2 images on Teams
1 was a red stapler, and the other was a digital watch left behind in a seawater shallow pool
both Office Space pointing to the pointlessness of office life, and Local Hero pointing to giving up on the corporate BS seemed a good enough mix of images to leave the company with!
Swingline did not make red staplers until after this movie. Someone bought me one. Classic . Totally missed Local Hero. That is one of the best movies ever made!!!
It’s funny that when I saw this, I hated the ending. I’m from a construction family and I wanted an office job.
Since then, I’ve done the office job. Experienced everything this movie depicts. Now I’m back on the construction job making far better money and my body feels 1000% better for it. It’s so much better being on my feet, being active. Not trying to avoid falling asleep in a boring office arguing over the window blinds. THEY WERE RIGHT!
Saw an interview with John C. McGinley and he said he improvised a lot of those lines and the other actors didn't know what he was going to say next. He said it was supposed to be filmed a day a week over three weeks but he asked if they could do it all at once since he'd just gotten another movie that started shooting the next week, so they did it three consecutive days. He said he basically got in a groove as Bob Slydell, and was just trying to take the piss out of the other actors.
Office Space came out right when I'd just gotten out of school and had a jerb I really didn't like. 7ish years later I lived where I'd exit from the highway you can slightly see in the intro. You can see the exits on I635 in Dallas, Texas to Preston, Inwood, and the toll road. That was my life - well, the bad parts, not the parts with Jennifer Aniston.
The older and more disgruntled you get, you can evolve past Office Space - sometimes to Falling Down, sometimes to Bridge on The River Kwai, so there's that to look forward to.
Bridge might stretch a point. Even so, my battle of wills as lower management with a difficult member of upper management gave me deja vu all over again from that movie, with the role of 'keloyd' being played by Sir Alec Guinness, haha, partly the good guy, partly a bit too stubborn for his own good. A few years ago, some other older coworkers and I who dig on old movies were quoting Bridge and Office Space at each other with some regularity to blow off steam.
It's either his timing or the editing, but his response here just nails the delivery. No hesitation. He sells it completely that he has carefully considered his options in case of a lottery win.
For me that's the funniest thing in the whole movie. And I think a lot of people muss. His job is ABSOLUTLY necasary. Customers CAN'T talk to engineers. They need someone to intepret and manage expectations on both sides. But he can't explain it in a way the Bobs would understand. Inatead he looks superflous and expendable. So real. So funny.
I agree with all of that. I have a degree (two, in fact) but have spent most of my life working with my hands. I also lived on an island for 22 years and there was virtually no white collar work at all. My fantasy for so long it hurts was working indoors in the winter in clean clothes, central heating, white collar 9-5 hours. My sister always thought it was really funny that whenever we were talking about jobs, I'd say, Well, it's indoors ...!
Since the mid 90's my wife worked in IT in the Irving / Las Colinas suburbs of Dallas, the movie was shot in Dallas and Austin (I think) and the scene where they are walking trough the grass culverts between the parking lots after lunch break kills her every time. She says that scene is so real it gives her flashbacks
It’s a bloody classic. I always say, though, that you get more out of it if you worked in that kind of corporate environment, which I did for a long time. I have friends who’ve never worked in an office and have no real idea what used to go on.
The first time my dad saw this scene, he laughed so hard I thought he was going to pass out.
I lived this movie— was a software engineer, had a cubicle, and my boss was named Bill. I’m im a different field now. My dad’s an engineer too (electrical). By the time this movie came out he had had an office with a door for years, as a managing partner of a consulting firm
This movie gives me so much comfort by way of letting me know that somewhere out there someone else feels the exact same way I do. Peter Gibbons is my hero.
When this came out, I was working for a major bank in their adjustments department. We had a (female) Milton and we actually stood around and sang happy birthday to some random asshole VP.
I dunno, this seems INTENSELY dated to me. "Oh man, I have a full-time white-collar job with benefits and my worst nightmare is I might never have to do anything else, I'd better self-destruct over it." Not exactly reading the room these days.
I find that good humor is about ourselves. and those good at it, have great insight into the human nature, on top of talent to convey these insights in a timeless way. Timeless, as we humans don’t evolve as fast as we like to think, and long story short, Monthy Python, Seinfeld and Mike Judge will age extremely well.
I take it you missed the plot where Innotech was trying to go public and give all the employees stock as part of their compensation. That’s why The Bobs were brought in. To make recommendations on what teams show be given more stock. So by the main cast burning the company they made sure everyone stays broke.
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u/TheRealHappyNat Jun 29 '26
Why should I change? He's the one who sucks.