Great Quotes From Office Space
Nov
This is truly a great movie for so many different reasons, but I think the fact that it hits so close to home for all of us 9 to 5 grinders, is what makes it so entertaining.
Many of the quotes from ‘Office Space’ exemplify our true feelings about our office lives. While most of us can’t outwardly express our feelings while at work, many of us would love nothing more than to take a baseball bat to some office equipment.
When I see this movie, I see my life. While ridiculously funny, it’s also a bit depressing, given the fact that I’m actually stuck in Peter Gibons life.
A few quotes from the movie really resonate with my current situation (and get me even more pissed off about my job) and here they are:
“We don’t have a lot of time on this earth. We weren’t meant to spend it this way. Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about mission statements”.
While I only have one boss (thank God), there are few things in this world that I feel more strongly about than the incredible waste of human life that is spent inside a cubicle or sitting at a desk. I realize that there are plenty of desk jobs that people enjoy, but I would be willing to bet anything that the number of people who hate their desk jobs far exceeds the rest.
“So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that’s on the worst day of my life”.
This also hits the mark for many of us, including me. It’s not that each day is actually worse than the prior day, it’s the fact that we choose to go into our jobs yet another day. Realizing that your job and/or boss is the devil incarnate is one thing, but choosing to show up for work day after day, month after month, knowing how bad it is..well that’s just idiotic. And yes, that makes me an idiot…
“You see, Bob, it’s not that I’m lazy, it’s that I just don’t care”.
This is a huge problem in corporate America and which is why workplace Internet surfing porn is rampant. People don’t give a shit about their jobs and they find something else to do. More often than not, we’re looking to waste enough time so that our days become tolerable. Once upon a time, I actually took pride in what I do, but these days, I just don’t care. I can manage to do my job well enough to not get fired, but other than that, there is very little productivity.
“I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything that I thought it could be”.
When was the last time you were able to do nothing? It just doesn’t happen. Our lives are jam packed with so much stuff that we don’t ever take a few minutes to relax.
By the way, if you ever try to actually do nothing, it’s much harder that you might think. The last time I tried to sit in a dark, quiet room with absolutely no distractions lasted about 2 minutes. There’s just too much to do…..
Please feel free to leave me a comment with your favorite quote. I appreciate it.
Alison
Did you finish your TPS reports??!!
laughingmouse
Did you get a copy of that memo? Let me get you a copy of that memo …
Dalene
Ha! Great post! My fave quote: “Well, I wouldn’t say I’ve been MISSING work, Bob.”
Steve
Dalene,
I have a hard time finding a quote in this movie that I DON’T love!
Dragon
I have found something more frustrating than working in a job that I care nothing about. It is working between to coworkers who seem to care GREATLY about their work. It is hard to leave at a reasonable hour when they work 9-12 hours a day and seemingly happy. How do I waste time to make things tolerable when the two of them are always pressing to get stuff done.
In the end, they aren’t really that happy either, just deal with it by trying to get through the pile as fast as possible. Yet I feel the pile will never be done.
Steve
Dragon,
While that is frustrating, it seems obvious that you need to get out of there.
If your goal is to simply waste time, then you need to move on and do so ASAP.
What type of work do you do?
paul
my lines would be:
“You don’t need a million dollars to do nuthin. Take a look at my cousin, he’s broke, don’t do sh*t.”
PC loadletter? WTF does that mean?
here are some anti work quotes with interesting comments:
http://www.alternativereel.com/includes/top-ten/display_review.php?id=00080
“It was true that I didn’t have much ambition, but there ought to be a place for people without ambition, I mean a better place than the one usually reserved. How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, s**t, p**s, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?”
—Charles Bukowski, Factotum, Black Sparrow Press, 1975
“My job consists of basically masking my contempt for the —-oles in charge, and, at least once a day, retiring to the men’s room so I can j**k off while I fantasize about a life that doesn’t so closely resemble Hell.”
—American Beauty, 1999
“One of the saddest things is that the only thing that a man can do for eight hours a day, day after day, is work. You can’t eat eight hours a day nor drink for eight hours a day nor make love for eight hours—all you can do for eight hours is work. Which is the reason why man makes himself and everybody else so miserable and unhappy.”
—William Faulkner, interview in Writers at Work, 1958
“I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables—slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy s*/t we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war . . . our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very p***ed off.”
—Fight Club, 1999
“Work is the refuge of people who have nothing better to do.”
—Oscar Wilde
“But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon ploughed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in the old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool’s life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before.”
—Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854