It’s Not That I’m Lazy; It’s That I Just Don’t Care.
In the movie Office Space, Peter Gibbons is just saying the quiet part out loud.
The first time I saw the movie Office Space, I thought it was a dumb movie.
I didn’t understand almost anything about it. It was about a lazy guy who had a dumb job and worked in a dumb corporate office for a big, dumb, soul-sucking company with dumb bosses, dumb coworkers, and dumb policies and procedures.
None of it made sense to me at all. It was all so… dumb.
That’s because I was 16 years old at the time.
I couldn’t possibly understand any of it because I’d never had a “real job” before. Until that point in my life, I had only worked during the summers for my family’s construction company and had a part-time job as a janitor at a church.
I had no idea just how dumb Corporate America™ was.
Over two decades later, I have now seen a plethora of activities, rules, social conventions, mission statements, manifestos, and policies and procedures — all dumb — that hapless employees working for dumb companies with dumb bosses must adhere to and pretend they care about.
I know people I love and care about who roll their eyes when they say things like “Yes, we have to say (such and such) when we answer the phone,” or “We have to participate in (such and such activity).”
“It’s all part of the ‘corporate culture,’” they’ll explain, as they can barely get the words out without completely humiliating themselves.
It’s all so astonishingly stupid it’s a wonder anyone ever puts up with it.
But here’s the weirdest thing about all of this: everybody knows and agrees that all of this is dumb. Everybody knows all the corporate BS is fake and means nothing.
Yet people still play the dumb game anyway!
Why do people do this?
Now that I’m nearing the age of 40, and have worked for multiple companies in the past, what I like about the movie Office Space is that it lampoons all the dumb crap many people have had to deal with, which makes us laugh… but it also asks a VERY important question.
In a sense, the entire movie is asking:
“What if none of this mattered? What if we all just admitted it was all a stupid game, and none of it means anything, and the work we do at this company is meaningless, and if we didn’t show up to work, nobody would even notice?”
This is a BRILLIANT question. And it’s something more people should ask themselves.
When I worked for a digital agency in Colorado many years ago, one of my coworkers told me about her previous job working for a giant defense contractor.
(By the way, in case I’m not already being offensive enough, let me add some fuel to the fire and make myself as clear as possible: defense contractors are the worst of the worst of all offenders in this regard. They have more fluff, waste, and dead weight than any other industry on the planet. They are the top 1% of the most pointless companies in Corporate America™ by a HUGE margin. I have NO love for them at all.)
Anyway, my coworker at this job told me about her manager at her previous job who had a sneaky habit of leaving his keys on his desk and then disappearing halfway through the day to go play golf all afternoon.
Nobody ever noticed he was gone. Nobody cared. He wasn’t missed.
He had a devious, dishonest (and likely illegal) secret agreement with his subordinates. He said:
“If anybody asks where I am, just tell them, ‘Well, he must be around here somewhere… I see his keys are still on his desk.’”
Your tax dollars at work, huh?!
This SHOULD be astonishing to all normal people. But it can’t be: this is the state of dumb companies in America. They have too-large workforces, too many employees with too many meaningless job titles, and too little important work to do.
Returning to the movie Office Space, I love the dialog between Peter Gibbons and the two human resource goons from Corporate™ who come to the office to “bring down the hammer” and analyze the current workforce to decide who to lay off and who to keep on the payroll.
Corporate HR Goon #1: “Would you walk us through a typical day for you?”
Peter Gibbons: “Well, I generally come in at least 15 minutes late. I use the side door, that way Lumberg can’t see me. And after that, I just sort of space out for about an hour.”
Corporate HR Goon #2: “Space out?”
Peter Gibbons: “Yeah, I just stare at my desk, but it looks like I’m working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch too. I’d say in a given week, I probably only do about 15 minutes of real, actual work.”
Corporate HR Goon #1: “Uh, Peter, would you be a good sport and indulge us and just tell us a little more?”
Peter Gibbons: “Oh, yeah. Let me tell you something about TPS reports… The thing is, Bob, it’s not that I’m lazy; it’s that I just don’t care.”
Corporate HR Goon #2: “Don’t… don’t care?”
Peter Gibbons: “It’s a problem of motivation. All right? Now, if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don’t see another dime. So, where’s the motivation? And here’s something else, Bob: I have eight different bosses right now.”
Corporate HR Goon #1: “Uh, beg your pardon?”
Peter Gibbons: “Eight bosses.”
Corporate HR Goon #1: “Eight?”
Peter Gibbons: “Eight, Bob. So that means that when I make a mistake. I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That’s my only real motivation is: not to be hassled. That, and the fear of losing my job, but you know, Bob, that’ll only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.”
This is exactly right. Peter Gibbons is just saying the quiet part out loud.
He’s finally saying what EVERYBODY IN THE ENTIRE COMPANY already knows to be true. He’s just the first person willing to admit it.
Peter Gibbons and I are on the same page about almost everything… from the drudgery and stupidity of the dumb TPS reports that mean nothing to the work they do, which means nothing, to the perverse incentive structure that means nothing…
About the only difference between myself and Peter is that when he became disillusioned, he just stopped going to work and didn’t care.
When I became disillusioned, I decided that being employed by big dumb companies who don’t know what they’re doing, don’t know how to motivate people, and don’t do meaningful work is not for me. And I started my own business.
I think far more people should do the same.
Stop playing the dumb corporate game!
Ask yourself the following questions…
Let’s call this “The Office Space How Much Do I Care About My Job?” Assessment:
If you show up late to work, does nobody notice?
Do you pop in a side door to try to hide from your boss?
Do you “space out” and wish you were anywhere else but at work?
Is it irrelevant whether you do your job well or poorly?
Do you have too many bosses?
Is your only motivation to not lose your job?
Do you work just hard enough to not get fired?
Does the work you do not matter at all?
Do you have to fill out meaningless TPS reports?
If you just stopped going to work, would nobody notice?
If you’ve answered “Yes” to any of the questions above, congratulations! You have a Dumb Job™ at a Dumb Company™, and you should probably do like Peter Gibbons and re-evaluate your life.
But don’t be like Peter and try creating some elaborate fraud scheme to grift millions of dollars from a bank with your apartment roommates.
Get out there and do work that actually matters at a company that actually makes a real difference, in an industry that matters, providing real products and real services to real customers who would actually notice if you didn’t show up.
Or, better yet, go start a better company yourself!
Life is too short to do dumb work for dumb bosses at dumb companies.