About this show "The Office" that seems to be, or have been, such a big hit. Being the fan of Britcoms that I am, I attempted to watch the original when it was first being run on BBC America. I found it enraging and infuriating. I hated it so much that I would start channel surfing just to avoid the commercials for it. Last night I allowed myself to witness a few minutes of one of the American version shows and it stills enrages me.
You know all those things they exaggerate for purposes of satire? Well, I worked at a company where all those things happened, pretty much literally and without exception. It was not funny. It was very frustrating and extremely stressful. I had one co-worker who was driven to anxiety attacks so bad that she eventually couldn't even leave her house. The company ended up paying her disability. Another co-worker actually committed suicide. Yes, she killed herself.
It is wrong to sanction the behavior portrayed on that show by allowing it to be made into an alleged "comedy." One of the many things wrong with this country today is that such outrageous behavior is tolerated and even encouraged by the corporate culture.
During the few minutes that I saw last night, the boss played a joke on an employee by telling her she was fired for stealing a post-it note, then told her it was just a joke. Her reaction was to yell at him that he was a jerk. This was an inappropriate response. An appropriate response would have been for her to slit his throat right where he sat and leave his blood-soaked corpse there as a warning for the next sh*thead who would inevitably be sent down from corporate to replace him.
If you think this kind of crap is funny, there's something wrong with you. And that is that.
Never watched the show myself. I prefer the movie Office Space; that movie was full of people that were almost doubles for people I had worked for/with, especially the boss.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I've never been able to watch "The Office", American or British.
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