Analysis

"The Office"

For me a typical nine to five job puts me into my own world. It’s early in the morning and it’s always hard to get motivated to start working. All I can think about is how many hours I have left until the shift is over. Don’t get me wrong, I like where I work and my co-workers are friendly but, I always wish for a sense of humor like mine to come in and lighten the place up with jokes or music; anything to lighten the place into higher spirits that make the workplace a little bit more enjoyable. We all enjoy comedy and if we can find something humorous that we can relate to it makes us feel good about ourselves. If we felt the same as we do outside of work in the workplace then work would be more enjoyable. It would be fulfilling to know that you’re in the good times at work before you actually have left them. In today’s word we find a lot of what we go through in television shows. In the case of the everyday workplace we can find a lot of relations to work in The Office. The Office is a scripted television sitcom that portrays the American workplace in both realistic and non-realistic ways by using humor, relationships, and dialogue.

The Office is a scripted documentary that follows the lives of multiple individuals of a paper company, Dunder-Mifflin. Regional manager, Michael Scott, believes he is the best boss in the world and tries to prove it with everyday shenanigans including; making movies with his co-workers, telling jokes which are sometimes offensive, and having unnecessary conference meetings. Michael’s co-workers include a loyal but sometimes indifferent staff including well liked characters such as Jim Halpert, Dwight Shrute, Pam Beasley, Andy Bernard, Angela Martin, and Kevin Malone. Each character has their own different personality that brings the office into a spin of constant emotions. The characters are filmed around the clock even sometimes outside of the workplace. All the characters story lines progress through nine seasons of laughs, sadness, and friendship. It’s easy to see the realistic and unrealistic side of The Office which makes it so relatable to viewers like me who are just wanting a bit of excitement when they walk into work.

Humor is the driving force of The Office. The sense of humor represents the different sides of workplace reality. What makes the show so humorous is the interactions with the characters. A humorous realistic example can be found in the “Vandalism” episode of season nine when Pam makes a mural of the history of paper only to be destroyed by a Dunder-Mifflin warehouse worker who draws a significant amount of butts all over it. In reality this happens a lot at work. You work hard on a project only for a co-worker to come along and destroy what you had worked on. The Office just has a more humours way of putting it. When it comes to the unrealistic side The Office portrays that too. In episode four of season four called the “Fun Run” Michael makes everyone in the office skip work to participate in a charity fundraiser to find a cure for Rabies. No boss would ever make you skip work to participate in a fundraiser for a cure that already exists but, yet The Office uses its own humor of the workplace to make viewers laugh and keep watching.

Relationships with your boss and co-workers are a good foundation to any successful office workplace. Relationships can be hard or easy to come about it just depends on how one perceives it. In The Office the relationships differ from everyone but, one that everyone can relate to is that of Jim and Pam. Throughout all nine seasons Jim and Pam go through a regular office friendship where they spend countless times on the clock just talking to each other and playing pranks on Dwight or out smarting Michael with on the spot comebacks. Their relationship eventually evolves into more than just inside the office friendship but, everyone can relate to that one friend at work that can at least keep you partially sane during the work day. Unrealistic wise, the relationship between Michael, the regional manager of Scranton, and Jan, the corporate branch manager, have an affair with each other that causes a riot at corporate. Although this situation is possible the way it’s portrayed in the show makes it unrealistic. Michael and Jan go behind corporate's back but yet flaunt their relationship back at the Scranton branch sickening all the co-workers with their public displays of affection. In conclusion, relationships have their own fates and The Office does a good job at separating what we can relate to at work and what’s unrealistic.

How we communicate with each other is a major key in the workplace. Without it no one would be able to succeed at their job. When we use dialogue we are communicating with others to discuss something or to solve a problem. Dialogue is mainly used in books, movies, and television shows. In The Office dialogue is used to focus on office problems and connecting with characters. When Michael calls everyone into the conference room to talk to them about corporate guidelines or just to make one of his obnoxious points we can relate to this in our lives. Every day most companies gather their employees to talk about sales and goals for the day. Writers of the show do the same thing in The Office except they still give it a more humours appeal with the dialogue of the characters.

Work can feel like it drags on forever. The day can go by so much faster if there is enjoyment from everyone around. The Office shows a lot of different scenarios and what is meant to be learned from it is that a little laughter, good relationships, and dialogue can go a long way in having a happy and successful work experience.

Works Cited

The Office: Season One-Nine. Created by Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, and Greg Daniels. Perf. Steve Carell, John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer, and Rainn Wilson. National Broadcasting Company. 2005-2013. DVD.

Soporial. "Michael Scott's Dunder Mifflin Ad - The Office." Online Video Clip. YouTube. YouTube, 5 May. 2012. Web. 12 Oct. 2013.