Office Space (Mike Judge, 1999) – Doing Nothing

[ADeMeo]

"Although Peter Gibbons expresses the ardent desire to “do nothing,” isn’t he already effectively doing nothing, as evidenced by his admission to the Bobs that he only does 15 minutes of actual work per week? If that is the case, and he is getting what he wants, why is he so miserable?"

Peter is miserable because he hates the idea, the very principle, of getting up and going to work every day to a very boring and unfullfilling job. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t do “anything” at work, because he has to be there in order to get paid. He is miserable because he doesn’t get to choose where he wants to be when he does “nothing.”

A lot of times, when people are asked one of those stock, hypothetical questions such as: “What would you do if you had a million dollars?” People say “nothing” as a way to get out of thinking too hard about something they don’t care to think about. But I think when Peter gave that answer to that question, he was referring to the idea that people with lots of money don’t have to work at all, that they can afford to do nothing wherever they are.

Everything in "Office Space" had a very generic appearance. The license plates didn’t even have the name of a specific state on them, and the characters’ living and, of course, working spaces were very nondescript. So, of course none of the main characters, especially Peter, have a very interesting personality, or, if they did, they would look especially strange showing it within the context of the bland suburban setting. It made perfect sense for Peter to answer “nothing” to that question, because we, the viewers, have come to expect nothing better then an answer like that. If we were to ask that question to a group of characters in another movie, such as Richard Linklater’s 2003 comedy School of Rock, then we would get far more interesting answers.

Peter is full of misery because he knows he wants something different, something better, but he isn’t yet sure what it is. Not being able to fully articulate your desires can be a very stifling thing.

[chillburke]

Doing nothing is a common goal for modern people. The American dream of my generation is not a house in the suburbs with a picket fence and 2.5 children; it is becoming ridiculously rich, so that we may live like Paris Hilton- a person with no job, passion, or purpose. No one in the film Office Space has any ambition or passion, until Peter, Michael, and Samir decide to rip off Initech with a computer virus. Money is their only motivation, and as Michael openly admits, once he has it he will do absolutely nothing. I like how AdeMeo points out the irony that his greatest goal, “doing nothing,” is what he is already doing at his job. This just shows rather painfully that he has no idea what he truly wants, as he is that sort of infantilized man-child that America is so good at breeding. I like how Judge makes a point to show that money does not actually change anything for people. I believe this is evident in Peter taking a blue collar manual labor job, and looking generally fulfilled with this choice, as well as in the ending with Milton at a beach resort. Milton finally has money, and has escaped the job that abused him. He goes to a place which Americans (like the Peter from the beginning of the film with the dream of doing nothing) think of as paradise, and yet, he is still unhappy. He cannot escape who he is. He is still unable to relax and enjoy life, still complaining about mundane, nit-picky details, only now it's the salt rimming his tropical drink, not a stapler or not getting a piece of cake. He is clearly not enjoying his new life.

A final observation is that the film seems to be making an understated comparison between the Americans that dominate the movie, and the two non-Americans: Samir, and the waiter on the beach at the end. Samir is generally more grateful than the other workers for what he has:“that would be great job security,”, and feels more duty to be virtuous: “I've never done anything wrong my whole life,”. The other non American, the beach side waiter, says in Spanish to an uncomprehending Milton, “pinche gringo.” He voices what I felt during the whole film- Americans are lazy and childish, and complain way too much. The film is funny because the characters are so pathetic, and disturbing because they are so easy to relate to.

[E Black]

What I love so much about the movie is how Mike Judge portrays flawed characters. And when I say flawed, I mean, normal, everyday people. Nobody is rather “Hollywood-esque,” apart from perhaps Jennifer Aniston, whose role in the film only goes to show how different, or normal, the others truly are. Even her character is flawed, stuck in a bad job she hates, like everyone who hates their job she says. So when the goal is determined in life, to become rich and not have to have a boring job, these flawed, normal, everyday people seek, particulary Peter, Michael, and Samir, seek an equally flawed route to that goal. If it were up to them, they wouldn’t get fired, they’d get promoted like Peter, and end up living a comfortable life, a short business career with an early retirement. But, in reality, we have Smykowski, who, after barely escaping death, recieves a huge settlement that will support him his whole life, and we have Peter’s desperate plan to rip off Initech — lucky perhaps for the former, but severly illegitamte for the latter, so much so that they have to look up how to launder money in the dictionary in their final hopes of not getting caught. All this in the attempt to someday not have to do anything, even though, according to Peter, that’s already what he does.

The huge realization comes to Peter at the end of the movie, touching on chillburke’s point about his lack of an idea of what he truly wants, when he makes up with Joanna, saying that as long as he was with her, he didn’t care what happened to him. He makes peace with his decision to turn himself in, to take the full blame for what he had coerced Michael and Samir into doing, even if it means he has to go to a “pound me in the ass prison.” Despite him leaping into Lumbergh’s door, trying to pry the money back into his grasp, even before the fire destroys all traces of his crime, he has accepted his fate. O, the irony, that he would find his meaning in shoveling up the remains of his once meaningless occupation.

[ehiggins]

When Peter Gibbons, tired of his job and his life, expresses that if he had a million dollars he would “do nothing” is a very extreme statement about the average American. Obviously this statement is not wholly true. He means that he would sleep, eat, watch TV or movies, and convert oxygen into carbon dioxide. None the less this tells us that the average American is a lazy unfulfilled type of person. I like how ADeMeo adds that everything in “Office Space” has a very generic appearance. This means that this isn’t just a movie about a certain office in Atlanta or a group in Iowa. The generic appearance states that this is Any-town, USA, meaning this is all of the US.

I also like how ADeMeo brings up that by Peter’s definition, he does “nothing” while at work as well. Perhaps it’s the principle of coming in to work at nine every morning and sitting at his desk that makes him miserable, and in turn does “nothing”, but I also wanted to add that Peter clearly states in a conversation with Michael that, “Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day.” In other words his job is in a sense inhumane and cruel. The conditions he works under with the repetitiveness of just the voice of the secretary repeating, “Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking. Just a moment,” feels, to me the viewer, like a torture technique.

That Peter would find joy in actually doing labor work outside seems to contradict his “nothing” answer, but I agree with how ADeMeo finishes his writing. Peter cannot “fully articulate” what he desires to do, or hasn’t found it until the end of the movie.

[nlipton]

In Mike Judge’s Office Space life is shown in its most mundane of forms. Office life, more importantly, cubical life, is not glamours. If a child was asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I find it difficult to imagine that child saying, “Oh, sign me up for a cubicle, I want to crunch data and file paper work all day!” The obnoxious and obviously dim side cast in this movie only further proves that the office life is filled with people who are either avoiding their potential, or incapable of reaching a better lifestyle. In this sad world, where Peter says he only does 15 minutes of real work a week, it isn’t the work that bothers him, like ADeMeo has stated, it’s the fact that he has to be there, that he needs the pay check, and that he envisions a life free of mindless work. The, “I want to do nothing.” approach isn’t to say he is lazy, or that rich people get to do nothing, it’s the desire for a break. The desire to be allowed the chance at simply enjoying life, day in and day out. Think about the situation we are all in. Every one of us must take classes, and sometimes a class must be taken that you have no interest in, but it needs to be taken. Now think about students with jobs. Those jobs fill up more time, they aren’t fun filled, and they are necessary for those students to eat, pay rent, etc. I’m sure if you were to ask yourself on an especially busy week, “What do I want to do today?” Knowing papers, tests, work, reading, and going to and from school was looming over your head, your answer might be surprisingly similar to Peter’s. You may want to just lay back, turn off your alarm, and do nothing.

Why this idea of “nothing” is so appealing is because we all are expected from birth to death to do “something.” That something is also not supposed to be fun, it is just something you must do to survive. While everyone had a teacher or parent say, “Do what you love.” Not many ever will. Those that do though also have days where they would like to, do nothing, and fortunately, they have that option. But for the rest of the general population, hoops, ladders, and busy work stand in the way of you and your dream lifestyle. I think all Peter was trying to express was that he was sick of jumping threw hoops, sick of spending countless hours doing something that amounted to nothing, and sick of the fact that it was a necessary evil.

[ledmands]

The way we define nothing is important when we are talking about what we want to do. When Peter says that he wants to do nothing, he means a different kind of nothing than what he does at Initech. At Initech, he literally does nothing, staring at his desk for hours on end, yet he continues to follow the same routine day after day so that he can get his paycheck. When he poses himself with the question of what he would do with a million dollars, he responds with “[n]othing.” Of course, he doesn’t mean literally nothing, though he might think that, because subconsciously he has goals. We all have goals, but oftentimes they can only be achieved through sitting and allowing our minds to wander aimlessly. When Peter sits in his cubicle, his mind is not free. He is focused on the clock, counting the seconds until he goes home.

When Peter’s mind is set free by the hypnotherapist, he can finally focus on those goals. He spends a lot of time working on what he thinks are his goals, chiefly getting a girlfriend and making money quick. In the end, his true goal turns out to be getting out of the office. All he really needed was a change of pace. His situation at the end of the movie isn’t all that different from his situation at the beginning. He’s still doing grunt work, he still lives within the same social class, and he still has the same friends. In five years, Peter may need another change of scenery, or maybe he’ll be able to work his way up the construction chain of command, but his personality dictates that he’ll need a change.

Along a similar line, working construction matches Peter’s personality better than an office did. Though there are still bosses telling him what to do, they won’t be pestering him for reports or asking him to come in over the weekend. Construction workers change job sites fairly frequently, so Peter won’t be forced to show up at the same gray desk every day. Lawrence, his neighbor, is want Peter wants to be like. Lawrence is carefree, happy with his situation, but we don’t know what he does that makes him so happy until we discover he’s a construction worker at the very end of the movie. Shoveling debris may be just as mundane as updating software, but being outside, Peter is not constantly reminded of his boring job by walls and dull colors. We find that this is why Lawrence always seems so happy. He never has work he has to take home, no deadlines, no overbearing pressure, just physical labor for eight hours, then he can do whatever he wants. Fuckin’ A.

[kwallace]

“Peter is full of misery because he knows he wants something different, something better, but he isn’t yet sure what it is. Not being able to fully articulate your desires can be a very stifling thing.”


The thing that stands out the most about this argument is the above statement. Imagine being out of school and in a full time job that is entirely unfulfilling. Obviously that isn’t hard to imagine, but the difficult thing to come to terms with is being in that situation and yearning for something better; yet not having any inclination as to what is “better”. That, to me, is the scariest aspect of this film. Being so completely unfulfilled, without any type of direction as to where you want to go can be a scary thing. It’s as if you are lost in the Redwood forest, with no map or compass and you are supposed to get yourself out. Where is it that we are even to suppose to begin to make our way to a clearing? Every direction you turn is another tree impeding your escape. Every time Peter attempts to make an exodus Lumbergh is there to stop him. Maybe the problem isn’t Lumbergh at all, but Peter’s lack of direction. It seems that Peter has this feeling of being uncontrollably lost in the forest. His answer to the question regarding a million dollars is the epitome of zero direction. At least Lawrence knows that he wants to do two chicks, Peter can’t even give a physical desire for an answer. This truth is what makes Office Space scary.

[ADeMeo]

I should clarify that the beginning question in quotations is actually one of the prompts that Professor Brence wrote, not something I came up with on my own.