FEATURE
In 2005, the American version of “The Office” ushered in a new era of workplace en- tertainment for the mid-2000s. Its innovative mockumentary style gave us an up-close and personal look at the eccentric, endearing and sometimes maddening employees of a middling paper company, with cynicism and cringe in abundance. Michael Scott, regional manager of the Scranton office of flailing paper company Dunder-Mifflin, is still referenced in conversations about the ridiculousness of office life, as are characters like Dwight, Jim and the rest, almost 10 years after the show ended. In “30 Rock” (2006) Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) is the head writer — and lone woman — on a team that writes for a sketch comedy TV show. With an arrogant boss (Alec Baldwin) and a mentally unstable star (Tracy Morgan), her teetering work-life balance keeps her at the edge of sanity. With a joke-a-minute script and a lineup of wacky side characters, the show could be seen as a modern-day retelling of the life of Rob Petrie in “The Dick Van Dyke Show” some 40 years later. The 2007 series “Mad Men,” set in the 1960s, followed uber-successful Manhattan ad exec Don Draper through booze-drenched work lunches, countless infidelities, worka- holism and an insatiable narcissistic craving for . . . something unattainable. Don chose the other path, the one not taken by Tom Rath in “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit” 50 years before. “The Intern” (2015) breaks old stereotypes of age-experience and superior-subordinate relationships, The film centers on Ben (Robert De Niro), a 70-year-old retiree who re-enters the corporate world as a senior intern at an online fashion retailer. He’s the apprentice of Jules (Anne Hathaway) and surrounded by millennial colleagues who initially see only stereotypes and distance themselves. But Ben, it turns out, belongs there, and teaches Jules and the other young employees more than they could ever have taught each
other. The film reverse-mirrors “The Devil Wears Prada,” and not just because it’s Anne Hathaway in the boss’s office this time. It’s one generation learning from another, indi- viduals discovering new facets of themselves on the job. “Severance,” a breakout hit series of 2022, offers a surreal, but seemingly all too real, look into our current obsession with work-life balance, with a crucial sci-fi twist. The premise brings to mind a pivotal scene in “Office Space” where Peter half-jokingly asks a hypnotherapist, “So is there any way that you could sort of just zonk me out so that I don’t know that I’m at work . . . in here?” And he points to his head. “Could I come home and think that I’ve been fishing all day, or . . . something?” To which the therapist replies, “That’s not really what I do, Peter.” Twenty-three years later, “Severance” debuts on Apple TV+. And it turns out that is what they do. Minus the fishing. Through a vaguely referenced brain procedure, an employee can choose to sever work life from personal life. Viewers are privy to both the “outie” and “innie” lives of a group of coworkers performing bizarre tasks in a surreal office setting; their counterparts go on with their own lives, oblivious to it all. And then there are dramas based on real-life, headline-making business debacles: “The Dropout,” chronicling the incredible rise and fall of Theranos and its delusional founder, Elizabeth Holmes; “Super Pumped,” about the roller coaster ride of starting Uber; and “WeCrashed,” telling the tale of the would-be world-changing company WeWork (the plot is in the title). Could this signal a trend of dramatizing the real-life pitfalls of emerging tech companies? We’ll have to watch and see. —Teri Greene
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46 Harbert Business, Fall 2022
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