Last week had some moments of….frustration….and in an email train someone asked me if I’d ever seen “Office Space”.
I hadn’t, but I was curious enough to find it on one of our streaming services, only to find out it was behind one more layer of “pay a bit more and you’ll also have access to…” but since the subscription comes up in a couple of months it was only going to cost $13 and tax for the period until it would all renew together, and I could opt out at that time, and there were a few other movies tucked behind that paywall the we also wanted to see…..so I ponied up and subscribed to Starz for a couple of months to access it. Turns out that I could have taken a trial subscription to Starz on Amazon Prime, as I told a coworker to do after we watched it, but it was good enough to justify the few dollars in the end.
When I’d been told to watch it, I was also told that I’d “see” people I “knew” in the film. That made me ask who I was going to be, I was told “Michael Bolton”.
Huh? Michael Bolton was in a film?
No, he wasn’t, as I understood once I watched it.
I was hooked about 30 seconds into the film. If you ever have lived in a big city with shitty traffic, you’ll appreciate the start.
Shortly after that, in some of the earliest scenes, I was feeling a kinship with a different character. Milton. And his red Swingline stapler.
Milton Waddams: But I, I said, I, I don’t care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I, then I’m quitting, I’m going to quit. And, and I told Don too, because they’ve moved my desk four times already this year, and I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels, and they were married, but then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn’t bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler.
Peter Gibbons: Okay, Milton.
Milton Waddams: No, it’s not okay because if they make me, if they, if they take my stapler then I’ll have to, I’ll I’ll I’ll set the building on fire…
I had an affinity for him because had had the exact same red Swingline stapler I have at my desk, mine’s just 20 years newer so the name is on a plate on the top instead of written on the side….
Although I fully appreciated Michael Bolton going completely postal on the printer….I think I liked Milton the best. And yes, I knew a fair number of the characters as real life people around the office.
If you haven’t seen it, I urge you to find it somewhere and watch it…and…if you work in an office…I guarantee that you, too, will know some of the characters….
(34/365)
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