All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy. Haven’t we all heard of this proverb? This is exactly what ‘Office Space’ is trying to tell us but probably they took it a bit too far. The movie shows how challenging a 9 to 5 job can be. It is mundane and there is no essence of excitement or adventure whatsoever. The characters- Peter, Michael Bolton, Samir, Joanna, Milton and Tom Smykowski – always complained about their dull jobs at Initech. They were mostly ill-treated and did not receive recognition of any sort, with their bosses always breathing over their shoulders.
The protagonist of the movie, Peter, was asked and reminded of the T.P.S. reports by eight of his bosses, Bolton and Samir were the most talented software engineers and yet they were considered to be laid off. Milton was laid off 5 years ago but no one bothered to tell him, he had been coming to office since then, his cubicle was shifted every now and then and finally placed in the basement. Joanna’s boss gave her a hard time because she did not seem as interested in her work as was demanded. Each one of them were utterly disheartened by their work life but Samir and Michael were too paranoid about leaving their jobs and continued anyway. Everything changed after Peter went to a psychiatrist and the psychiatrist died while treating him, he understood the worth of life. He decided not to worry about work or if his girlfriend cheated on him or not. Peter mixed his professional life with his personal life and blurted out the problems he was facing in the office in front of the consultants. He said that he did only 15 minutes of worthwhile work. The consultants responsible for the sacking the employees were really impressed by Peter’s honesty. Right after that he started loving his job environment, he wore casuals to office, he did not acknowledge the presence of his boss Lumbergh, played tetris, ate and dropped the wall of his cubicle, many a days he did not show up and spent time with his girlfriend fishing and boating- no one could oppose anything he did. Peter got rid of his anxiety and started enjoying his life. Samir and Michael were more worried for his job than he was. To everybody’s surprise, he got promoted instead of getting fired.
Peter was a man who did not want to do anything in particular, did not want to work or pay his bills, that is what he confessed in front of Joanna. Therefore, he decided to pull a trick so that he could make a big buck and did not have to work. He talked to Samir and Michael who were anyway getting fired. They were software engineers and helped him introduce the virus in the computer system which will transfer all the change of the transactions to their account. Before they resigned, they brought the faulty photocopier with them beat it to pieces, with a baseball bat. However, an erroneous parameter led around 300, 000 worth of transfer to their account which should have originally taken 2 years to get collected. The three friends lost their minds and started accusing Peter. He decided to take the entire blame on himself so that his friends were saved. He repaid the money and wrote to his boss regarding the fiasco and slipped it under his door. The next day when he went to the office, he found that the entire office had burnt down and by none other than Milton. He always used to mumble about burning the office but neither anyone listened to it nor paid attention.
Finally, Peter was free of guilt and went on to work as a construction worker along with his neighbour Lawrence. Samir and Michael came back to him and wanted him to work in their office but Peter loved what he was doing then and stuck to it. Joanna on the other hand left her job at Chotchkie’s and started working at Flingers. In the ending scene, Milton was seen enjoying his time on a beach. Basically, he had reclaimed the money he was supposed to get from the office and much more from the envelope in Lumbergh’s cabin.
In conclusion, everyone was happy and peaceful and enjoying their work. All of this pertaining to the choices they made while they could.
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