DIY VIRAL
The author Robert Scucci
| Published
Mike Judge Office premises is one of those cult movies that has staying power because it satirizes corporate culture. Anyone who's ever had to sit in a cul-de-sac wearing a shirt and tie (and properly creased trousers) to sit in a windowless room full of cubicles doesn't need to suspend much disbelief when Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingstone) steals an Initech printer. let him and his work buddies find out they're being fired, to bust the ever-living nonsense in the middle of an empty field. But one Office premises plot point I've never heard anyone talk about “the Bobs” and how Peter's initial meeting with them wasn't just to air a bunch of petty grievances while justifying his lack of involvement as an employee, but an accurate representation of how Initech-level corporations actually working inefficiently.
Also, The Bobs, who are deceptively smart to the point of looking like complete idiots, are 100% correct in their assessment that Peter Gibbons is “a straight shooter with top management written all over it.”
Bob
Office Space introduces us to Bob Slidell (John C. McGinley) and Bob Porter (Paul Wilson), fondly known to Peter as 'Bobby', as a pair of consultants brought in by Initech to help improve Initech's day-to-day operations. efficiently while maximizing profits (read: lay off a ton of people). It doesn't take long for Tom Smikowski (Richard Riley) to “jump to conclusions” that he's going to lose his job, which threatens Michael Bolton (David Herman, not the pop singer) and Samir Nagheenanayar (Ajay Naidu) as hard workers who are willing keep your head down and work as programmers for fear of losing your job.
Working in middle management as an auditor for a company that actually processes TPS (which, by the way, stands for Transaction Processing Summary) reports, I found a new appreciation for The Bobs. Office premises after going through five of the worst years of my professional life. Consultants like The Bobs are not fiction and are contracted by real corporations just to downsize to cut costs and appease their shareholders.
Peter's mental state
Peter's character is inside Office premises is simple: he has a session with a professional hypnotherapist, Dr. Swanson (Michael McShane), who puts him in a trance that makes him no longer care about his work. Dr. Swanson has a heart attack and dies while Peter is in complete bliss, meaning this is a version of Peter meeting The Bobs and setting up the others Office premises plot in motion.
No longer afraid of losing his job, Peter quits his job only to return when he has to remove his personal belongings from the cubicle, not yet realizing how hard he will subconsciously stick them to the man.
Walk through a normal day
When Peter meets Bob for the first time Office premisesMichael and Samir are convinced that he will be suspended immediately for being lazy, and there is no compelling reason to believe otherwise. When Bobby asks Peter to spend a normal day at Initech, Peter's rant, coming from a completely nonchalant place with no real motive other than being stupid, actually points to every inefficiency the two consultants are looking for. to do your job.
On the surface, Peter is just having fun mocking the counselors, and in his mind, that's all he's doing. However, his mundane life is so irritating to The Bobs that they practically jump over the table to shake his hand and give him a promotion when he's done. If you run through every point that Peter introduces Office premisesno wonder why the Bobbies like Peter's attitude, no matter how much he seems.
Peter arrives 15 minutes late every day and enters through the side door so that no one calls him out. He ends up telling The Bobs that executives like Bill Lumbergh (Gary Cole), does not supervise his employees and is lazy himself.
Peter “leaves at his desk” and does “about 15 minutes of real, actual work” that goes unnoticed by upper management; he is still on the payroll and has job security. Peter may be exaggerating how little he works to get out of The Bobs, but he's actually unwittingly telling them that his entire department isn't essential to the day-to-day running of Initech, leading to both Michael and Samir being fired.
Explaining that if he “works his ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, he won't see an extra penny,” Peter tells The Bobs in so many words that there's no incentive program like bonuses or commissions in place to reward hard work. employees the extra mile.
Salary release
In this moment of Peter's epic rant Office premiseshe still hasn't delivered the death blow, which comes in the form of announcing to The Bobs that he has eight different bosses. As soon as Peter drops this ball, Bob Slide's jaw drops and he leans forward for more information. Again, in Peter's mind, he's just complaining about why he doesn't like working at Initech because he's being managed at an unimaginable level, but to The Bob, he's just pointing out a huge pay cut.
Remember, the only reason Initech hired efficiency experts was so they could properly downsize the company and get rid of non-essential employees. Although it's never made clear, the consultants immediately sit Bill Lemberg down and ask him how much time he spends each week reviewing TPS reports because they want to see if his work is even needed after sitting down with Peter.
In other words, Peter is completely unaware that he's been doing all of The Bobs' work for them, which is why they're so eager to promote him and give him stock options, even though everyone else thinks he's the next employee to get the ax. Even if Peter gets a big raise, it's a net gain for Initech as they can potentially lay off several highly paid employees without even missing out on what they have to offer.
The Bobbies know this, and their intelligence becomes clear when they're still scrapping a consulting contract with Initech in the third act, even after Peter has given them all the information they could possibly need to wrap things up and move on to the next gig.
The subtle genius of office space
You don't have to have an office drone to fully enjoy Office premisesbut having an inside knowledge of how Bob works in the corporate world will greatly enhance your enjoyment. On the face of it, The Bobs can be enjoyed as useful idiots who want a promotion, who hates his job, who is offensive to his colleagues and inherently funny. The Bobs, on the other hand, are a lot smarter than they think, as they base every business decision they make for the rest of the movie on Peter's invaluable information that came from a bit of frustration.
You can stream as of this writing Office premises is on Hulu.
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DIY VIRAL
