There are 2 types of people in this world, those who *get* Office Space, and those who don’t. For a very specific generation of late X’ers and early Millennials, it’s our workplace White Album.

All of those characters are real. We\’ve worked with every single one. We aspire to drag a crappy HP laser printer out into a forest preserve and smash it with a baseball bat.

Mike Judge wrote a lot of comedy for our generation. Office Space, Beavis and Butt-Head, and King of the Hill were our shows. We sat on couches riffing on music videos with our buddies, and watched our dad’s stand around, drink beer, and talk about nothing. We entered the workforce, and none of it made any sense.

Like everything from the past, there are some jokes and bits that didn’t age well. (The same can be said for some of us, too)

But a lot of it holds up, fundamentally shaping the way we look at “Hawaiian Shirt Day” and our skepticism at corporate mantras (..is this good for the company?). We ask our co-workers “What would you say you do here?“, and the only appropriate response is “I HAVE PEOPLE SKILLS.”

Fun Fact: Gary Cole is a distinguished alumnus of my High School.