Kung Fu and Chill - Office Space

Hello and welcome to Who Are You? This is the Babylon 5 Watchcast hosted by two former strangers, now friends, who have gotten to know each other while watching a favorite show from their childhood. Babylon 5. I'm Trefer.

I'm Laura.

Am I slurring a little? I feel like my tongue is running a little slow.

It's that glass of wine you've got there.

not the first.

There's your problem right there.

It's, it's the second, but the first was an ice wine which is higher proof and then I had a little port and now I'm on some Chianti, but I

Wow, you're just fancy as hell today.

I am clearing bottles off of my countertop. Like, I'm taking open bottles that have been sitting here for a little bit before they've been sitting here too long.

Yeah.

So it really is, I was a fancy bitch last week. Which is true, I was, for my birthday. I was a

Happy birthday, by the

Thank you. Yeah, um, so, I made fancy steaks and drank wine and I found a bottle of cognac that was bottled the year I was born.

Wow.

Yes, so, I busted into that. I bought that, I saw that in January and I bought it then. I've been sitting on it for eight months, so.

Hey, I learned something interesting about the year I was born today in class. Microsoft went public as a public company the same month that I was born.

Oh, well you should have invested that month. That would have been good for you.

Mm hmm. Because there have been a lot of stock splits since then.

Yeah, it's uh, today is the 30 year anniversary of Google going public.

Oh. Yeah. Yeah.

And you would have seen a 660, was it 6, 600 or 660 percent return on investment.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I believe that. Hey, this is a cool segue that I didn't plan.

Yeah, we're talking about stock prices before we talk about office space.

Those good old IT stocks.

those IT stocks, I was real excited to watch this. I think I talked, I think I mentioned this in Vegas. I have not 15 years.

Wow. Okay.

And the last time I saw this movie, was not an office worker the last time I watched this movie.

Uh Huh.

Nor was I in IT. So, I know what a TPS report is now. I haven't had to do one because they're dead. We'll talk about that later.

Yeah, I'm, I can't wait.

you can. They're boring. It's terrible. But yeah, it's, it offered an entirely new perspective on it and it actually came up organically at work earlier this week.

Oh,

else had made a reference to the movie and I'm like, Oh, I just rewatched that for the first time since I've really been working in an office. I haven't seen it in over a decade, you know?

Uh Huh.

you know, some jokes were had and we were encouraging another coworker. It's like, you gotta go, you really gotta make the time to go watch it.

Yeah, this movie, it is amazing how many little phrases or jokes or things come up just being in an office all the time. Really?

thought a full on third of this movie was in a different movie, too. I thought all, I had completely forgotten about the entire Jennifer Aniston, all of the restaurant stuff, and I thought that was all in waiting. Which is a Ryan Reynolds waiting, like, waitstaff movie from a decade after this. That I'm guessing didn't age well. I haven't, I've also not seen that in a decade. I'm guessing that's not good anymore. Uh, I'd be willing to

that one. Yeah. Yeah.

maybe I'll make the time for it. Anyways, Office Space.

yeah. Office Space. So, I was also really looking forward to this movie because every time I've seen it, I found it hysterical. I wonder, Ja'far, do you think this is a Gen X movie or a Millennials movie?

I think it crosses that boundary.

Yeah.

Because this movie came out in the late 90s. So it, it, it came out in a time frame where Elder Millennials such as ourselves would have needed a, I think, 99 you said? Yeah, I was, so, not to out my age entirely, but I was not able to see a rated R movie at that time.

Same. Yeah.

So, I don't think I would have been able to, um, you know, witness it firsthand, but I think it was in the zeitgeist enough. Where when it hit video and, you know, friends would watch their, their parents copy of it on probably VHS, maybe DVD, um, that it kind of made the rounds a year later or so whenever the video release was, I don't think I watched it like, I probably watched it in high school sometime. I probably 16.

I think it was college for me. And, you know, we aren't old enough to have actually worked, like, with these computers. Like, We've done wage work, like maybe we did some school stuff with these computers in this sort of environment, but we weren't workers. We weren't living the office space life, and yet I know enough about it that I find it hysterical.

Yes. actually, I've, some, some recent events in my life, in my current workplace, my VP was a Y2K programmer.

Oh, okay.

And he, like, hearing him talk about, like, the dredges of code and everything, and

Huh.

it's, it's Not quite on the level of hearing my grandpa's World War II stories, but they're spoken in the same voice.

Uh Huh.

You know, obviously they're very different experiences, but they, they, they resonate the same. It, in an interesting way to me.

Yeah. We're going to speak the same way probably about COVID times.

I'm sure. Yeah.

And we remember, like, Y2K. We remember the whole

Y2K sticker on my laptop right

Yeah.

Cause I thought, I saw one for sale and I thought it was the funniest fucking thing. So my, my like, Microsoft Surface Clearly Modern Laptop has a Best Buy Don't Forget to Turn Your Computer Off at Midnight to Prevent the Apocalypse kind of sticker.

Uh Huh.

Like, came on every 1998.

Yeah. It's, it's one of those things, like, we weren't old enough to experience any of the consequences or hullabaloo around it, but we heard all about it.

Yeah, well, I mean, people thought it was gonna be the end of the world. They thought the nukes were gonna go off. Um, which would be weird, because that would imply that you had, like, an auto launch for, like,

Right?

Oh, by the way, if it's ever 1900, just launch the nukes.

Right. That's absolutely bonkers.

Like, just having a basic idea of how technology works now, some of the concerns people had are absolutely mind boggling to me, because a lot of stuff would have still worked, because the computer doesn't care that it's 1900 most of the time.

Right. The computer has no feelings. The computer's not like, oh no, there's no cars anymore or something. Computer doesn't care.

I mean, what would have been messy is any kind of transactional based system of accrual. Like, banks totally would have gotten fucked. Like, banks were the thing to worry about. Because if banks had a bunch of stuff in their software for like, okay, well, this is a pre planned transaction and it posts this day, that type of software, the type of software that handles that when it thinks it's 1900 is going to empty your account.

Yeah.

none of the transactions will have posted yet. I mean, it's a simple fix, but it's still a problem.

Yeah. As uh, I've, been hearing about some of these FinTech apps, there's one that recently, like, I don't know exactly the Yotta, if you Google it. And they basically had something go wrong with one of their systems, and they're not sure what banks everybody's money is at.

Oh, good.

Yeah, yeah, it's pretty crazy.

Yeah.

So, watch your fintechs.

All right. Well, we should probably Oh, no, no, no. I had no segue. You had a segue. Take it.

speaking of watching your techs, maybe we should also watch our Initechs.

Yeah, I Oh, shit. I bought an Inateck mug for this recording, and then I forgot about it because I've been drinking wine.

yeah, go pour your wine into the Initech mug. I need to see it.

I've been taking it to work, actually.

Uh Huh.

I've had three people comment on it, and all of them thought it was hilarious, and I think anyone who would be upset about it isn't gonna get the reference, so.

Exactly,

Okay, hold on, I bought that, I'm gonna go grab that mug real

Yeah, sure. Do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do.

It's like the exact Bill Lumberg mug.

Uh Huh. Yeah. You doing your best Lumberg face?

Mm hmm.

Hey, speaking of Lumberg, so obviously that's Gary Cole, right? That's our guy. That's our Gideon. Um, so if this was filmed, or if it was released in 1999, what's our Crusade dates again?

99. So this would have been right around the same time.

Mm hmm.

didn't find anything that told me the explicit order, but I also didn't search that hard.

Yeah.

I gave it a very cursory like, oh, I wonder how the, oh, no, it wasn't like he had to like leave filming crusade to make this movie or something.

Right. Right. Right.

I did read some stuff about auditioning for this movie.

Oh yeah, tell me.

Um, well, I mean, one, that there are like a billion famous people in this movie.

There's a lot of faces I recognized. I can't say I got everybody's names, but.

Yeah. This was, this was a big movie for a lot of people. Um, and the actor who plays Milton, um, I'm, I'm pausing for Ben to scream his name at me right now.

Hmm.

believe I remember reading that he had originally auditioned for Lumberg. And then he read for Milton and he brought such a uniqueness to the character that they just basically let him run with it entirely.

Uh Huh. I mean, he's perfect. I cannot picture Milton any other way. I guess Milton is based on a cartoon?

That makes sense, because this is from the guy who did Beavis and Butthead.

Yeah.

And

I noticed that too.

but that was during slash after. yeah. So yeah, Gary Cole came in and auditioned and they loved him for it. Uh, he is very funny in this role.

He is hysterical and he looks so different from Captain Gideon.

They shoehorned Jennifer Aniston because they wanted someone with a name attached to this picture.

she seems like she's having a lot of fun.

Yeah.

I sure hope anyway.

So, this movie. We open on a traffic jam. This is exactly leave for work at 6. 45 in the morning. Yeah.

those vibes here now that I'm a real commuter.

Yeah. I can leave at 6. 45 and be at work at 7. 05. Or I can leave at 7 and be at work at 7. 45. Those are my options. And it's just like, anytime in that gap, it's a crapshoot. So, I get it, but I just uh, I don't know, I feel, I feel a certain kinship with the changing lanes and then the other lanes going, but you have to, you can't be that driver. You have to commit to a lane and stick in that lane and just trust that it's going to get you there.

It's gonna make it worse.

Yeah. But can we just have a moment of silence, a moment of respect for everyone who had to commute before podcasts? Can you

right?

I mean, I did. I'm sure you did too. You had drives for work before podcasts were a thing, really.

Yeah,

very least before it was easy to listen to them in a car.

I know, I was not a radio person. I did not like any of the radio stuff and a lot of it was the commercials. Didn't like that. So I would just play like the same CD over and over and over again.

Yeah. I had a commute to high school. Like I had, my high school was like eight miles away from where I lived. It was like a good 20, 25 minute drive.

Yeah, mine was about 25 on the highway.

which I feel bitter about because there are two high schools closer to where I grew up than the high school I got to go to because we lived on the edge of the district.

Yeah.

There was a high school a mile and a half away that I was not eligible to attend. Uh,

Oklahoma problems in that there were two high schools in the county and the one that was close to me, Was not good and had like 20 students in their graduating class and like no extracurriculars. So

my, my graduating class had like 1200 people.

Yeah, no, mine was less than 300

Wow. It's always, I don't know, like, I have had people, like, I've, I've, I have run into people from high school, although it would be more appropriate to say people from high school have run into me, I just did not. And I always feel terrible about it, um, but the first thing I did when I got to college was try and drink high school away, and I did a very good job of that. So, it's just, it's sorry everyone.

I I didn't do that and when I went home for my 10 year reunion I was like people were like, hi Laura. How are you? And I was like God, I don't remember your name

This is why you put name tags on. That's what every I've never been to a reunion. My high school hasn't had one. My graduating class never had. I should have had my 20 year reunion this year.

Wow

And nothing.

mine is coming up.

Or maybe they just didn't invite me, which, fair.

Anyway, we were going to talk about a movie.

yeah, we're talking about office space. We're going to go on a bunch of tangents. That's just, It's just, we're just catching up. This is the first, we haven't recorded since we were in Vegas.

Yeah, that's right, because I've recorded with the cool girls, but not you.

Cause you had your other stuff, you had your trip to DC, um, and all kinds of other things going on. So it's just been, we haven't been able to make it happen. All of our runway we built. Gone.

In the blink of an eye.

People are talking about this episode and looking forward to it in the Discord today. And I'm just all like, oh god, we haven't even recorded it yet. But,

Hey, you tried. You tried to bump it up yesterday, but I was not in the space.

It's fine. It's fine. Michael is listening to some Scarface here. That's the, that's the, rap. know. This is actually very appropriate because they are in Texas. This takes place in Texas.

Oh, does it? Okay, I didn't catch that.

Scarface is a local rapper from the Austin area. So it is early southern, it is, so there's like a couple different schools of southern rap and this, this is the earliest of one of them. So that's cool. I can appreciate that.

Yeah. Michael Bolton looks super cool doing this. Yeah.

I'm not an angry person. I don't find anger does me much good in the world. But when I'm driving, it's so easy to just get flippant at someone being, just disregarding theirs and others safety while you're driving a two ton machine that can go five times faster than any human can run.

Yeah. I try to limit myself to just the words and not make any gestures considering the state of the world today.

I haven't thrown anything.

Yeah.

That's, that's about all I can say.

No, yesterday on uh, Getting off of I 40, I saw someone legit come halfway out of their window to yell at the car next to them. So, like, yeah, ah,

half like, like, wear out on my torso, like.

down, down, down, pretty much to your waist, yeah, like,

that's, that's impressive. That's a level of limber I aspire to. I could not do that in my car. That would be painful for me.

Yeah, no, no level of anger could actually propel me to those motions. I'd

like up to here and just be all like, ow, my back!

be like, never mind!

I'm still mad though!

Yeah, so we've, we've, been introduced to Peter and Samir and Michael Bolton, our kind of three amigos

Yeah. Did you catch Lumberg has that custom plate on his Porsche? Letting everyone know that it's His Porsche.

I found a Porsche for this man a little bit unbelievable, but I don't know.

He is a VP, as we see on his reserved parking.

Yeah. Yeah. He just doesn't have the wardrobe for VP to me, but this is the nineties. So fair enough.

Peter reluctantly enters the building. And uh, working in an office before noise canceling headphones must have been hell.

Oh my gosh, yes. So much ambient, like, cubicle crap, and the, the soundtrack of Accounts Payable, whatever her name is, speaking.

Yeah. Yes, her job is about to be replaced by a call directory.

Mm

as it stands, I have this actually same exact pair. I have a second pair of these exact headphones at work, and these are nice noise canceling headphones, and I still hear people around me on meetings all the fucking time, and I hate it. So. It's like someone whose job is, like, getting deep into spreadsheets and writing code and stuff.

Uh Huh.

Just hearing ambient noise like that while I'm trying to write giant Excel formulas or whatever I have to do at this particular moment is just, ugh. Mm

from sole office to now sharing a one room with six other PhD students. I'm doing a lot of the white noise, like Thunderstorm was today. I've had Coffee Shop on, just something where I don't have to hear people around me.

Default to, like, ambient galaxy static. Like, astral sounds.

huh.

I don't know if that's just because it's not even like it's in Star Trek, but I, I, I will a hundred percent blame Star Trek and their use of like ambient warp drive

Yeah. That's an option on one of my, on my app. It's a spaceship engine room. It's the warp drive. It's the warp core.

Nice. Yeah.

warp core sounds.

So people are coming up here to Peter talking about TPS cover sheets. They're so important. They're, they're actually, the cover sheets are actually more important than the report itself.

Apparently, because we have, what, three people? At least. Do tell

TPS reports, these fuckers, these fuckers are dead. Um, for the most part, this is a test procedure specification report. Um, so this is in software development and. This did, you use these one of two ways. You either would go through and use it to detail how you tested code to make sure that it runs properly.

Oh, that sounds like a design flaw.

Well, back before, you know, electronic mail was even around this was an issue. You didn't have virtualization. Nowadays, I'm literally on my laptop right now. I started, I volunteered to join a dev project for a fan thing for Star Wars Unlimited, the card game that I play. I have five different computers running on my laptop right now.

Nice.

Doing stuff for that test environment. Um, and that's just my personal test environment that only lives on my laptop. All of the other devs have at least one, if not multiple of those set up.

Yeah. That makes sense.

And you can just do that now. It's literally, I clicked like six buttons and I spun up the four different parts of the computer system, like the SQL server that feeds the database, all the web server, all that stuff. All in, in minutes, instead of having all separate computers that if any of them died, the entire thing fails. So TPS reports. Fucking dead. Rest in piss.

I love how much paper is everywhere. Like we've got computers, but we still need to print all this stuff off. I remember those days, sort of.

When I worked at GM it was like that. And that was seven years ago.

Yeah.

Everything I did on the computer had to be printed and filed.

Yeah. Mm hmm. The bank had a little bit of that, but I tried to pull some of that stuff away when I started. There was some of it I never got people to let go of, but you do what you can, right?

Yeah. Memos get delivered by hand by someone's job who is about to be replaced by that aforementioned email.

Lots of jobs about to go away in this movie.

Yeah. They go to Tchotchkes for lunch at like 10am on Monday. They wonder if they're still going to be doing this at 50. And I can say yes, the IBM AS400s that we see them programming for in the background are all still up and running all over the world.

Yeah. Yeah. I believe it. Mm hmm.

But two of their jobs are probably replaced by GitHub by now.

Sure. Yeah.

Uh, And we see Jennifer Aniston. We get an eating disorder joke, which is still not funny.

Yeah. There's always one or two in these movies, right? Of bad looks that we've since reassessed.

Gotta have a little A little something to be disappointed in to remind us that this takes place in the past. Otherwise, have we even grown as a society?

Right. I was wondering if this movie, like, if I feel about this movie the way that boomers feel about Animal House you know, cause that's one of the movies you hear all the time, they're like, oh, I love that movie. I was like, man, do I

it was one of my dad's favorites. 100%.

Like,

hmm. Mm hmm. When was the last time you watched Animal House?

I've only watched it once, and I was floored at how not good it was. It's like, this?

I kind of wonder if as I get older I might give a fuck less about it. I, I don't know. It's just like, it's not funny now. And so like my brain's just all like, okay, well, I was supposed to get more conservative as I get older. What if instead of that, I just grow to appreciate animal house for some reason. Is that worse?

I don't think you're in danger there. I wonder if my son is gonna feel the way about this movie that we're feeling about Animal House. If he's gonna be

There'll be the eating disorder joke. Can y'all Throw down his 4D cell phone and take off his virtual reality goggles. Be real upset about it in 30 years. However, they're doing TV then. We head back to the office as Tom, a project manager, gets some memos about downsizing.

Oh yeah, this is our Richard Reel. That guy about town.

Yep. Some things never change. This didn't hit me personally for any reason. head home, and we meet Lawrence. Who is

is the best, though. Mm

Hilarious. Uh, unhinged 90's line cook energy. Is uh, was Beth's term 100 percent correct?

Yeah, the mustache, the mullet, like, it's all there. It's, it's real good. I love that Lawrence can hear everything through his wall and is just super chill about it.

super thin apartment walls.

Yeah, yeah. Invites himself over whenever, like, I would love having a roommate like there, I guess he's not a roommate. I would love having a neighbor like this. I'd be like, all right, let's chill.

Yeah. I mean, that's what it was. I used to live two blocks from Ben and Glory Ann.

Yeah.

And it

That'd be fun, Hangs.

It was fun hangs. It was great. It was all like, oh shit, I need to go do a thing, can you come watch Henry for a minute? Oh shit I'm gonna be late at this thing, can you go let Puff outside? Like, besides the utility of it, just like, having such a casual layer of access to your best friends was enormously enriching in my life.

that's the dream.

It was great.

Lawrence doesn't think that Peter's working out with his girlfriend, Anne. That's kind of a, a catalyst for a lot of this movie.

Yeah, um, Anne's probably cheating on him. It's come up twice already

It's everyone's opinion. Yeah.

it's like, I think she's cheating on you, dude. To the point where it's like, how does everyone know? Like,

Uh Huh.

I, I, if she was around for another five minutes of this movie, I might have more questions about her interactions with literally anybody else. I don't know.

Sure,

But we don't get to see those.

No, it's almost more fun as a mystery.

Yeah.

But yeah, she's pestering Peter to go to hypnotherapy for some reason. I don't know how that's supposed to help them work on their problems, but

Yeah. She's really into it though, but uh, We'll see. Another question that's come up is, What would you do if you had a million dollars? Lawrence, with the iconic answer, Two chicks at the same time. The man knows what he wants.

Mm hmm. He's a simple man.

Yeah.

Isn't that everyone's dream? That's

all like, he's all like, I think like you could probably like, he's all like, no, looking at me, like the only chicks who are going to sleep with me are going to be interested in my money. So I'm going to need the million dollars. And it's just all like, well, that's disparaging, but self aware, I suppose.

I need to know now how much a million dollars in 1999 would be worth today. And, friends, it is 1. 8 million dollars. So, yeah, I'm pretty sure with almost two million dollars you can probably get two chicks at the same time, right? Yeah.

I don't know this for certain. is, this is me guessing. But there are places in the United States where prostitution is legal.

sex work is work, yeah.

And I don't know how much it would cost, but I have to imagine it's less than 1. 8 million dollars.

Yeah,

That seems prohibitively expensive. Yeah,

figure it out, I have faith in that mustache.

Hypnotherapy, we get introduced to Bob first.

Oh, we do, the bobs?

We get Bob one, and then we get Bob two later.

Okay. Okay.

Yes, we intro Bob, the consultant, this McKinley motherfucker, this Deloitte do little. Well, I have some feelings about consultants.

Oh, was that part of your experience?

No,

Oh, okay. Okay.

No, my effective brother in law worked in consulting. and so I've heard stories from him about the industry and just also, like, the kinds of things that go down. And I've just, I've been around enough people who have worked or experienced it to just have a very visceral Kind of reaction. You know, actually kind of was part of my experience, not directly, but the people that became in charge of senior leadership were all these type of people from these places.

Yeah. Yeah. I recently heard about somebody becoming a consultant, like, straight out of college. And I was like, how does, how does that happen? Cause I, I always thought like for consulting, you needed to have like an experience.

you don't,

Apparently not.

is uh, you, you need, you need to be able to make PowerPoint presentations when you're a consultant, that's

Yeah, apparently.

that convince people to fire people so that they can have more money.

Yeah. And that's the, that's the like implication here when we meet the first Bob. I gotta say, like, with just general Lumberg here at the beginning of the movie, I was having real, like, I was up in my feelings because I was like, this is kinda how I felt like I was as I was heading out of the bank. Like my last couple of years, I didn't feel good about my job anymore. I felt like I was kind of a Lumberg.

I'm sure you are not a Lumberg.

Yeah, I'm sure the perception was different, right? But internally I felt like not the same person anymore.

No, no, no. I, this is very easy to disprove, Laura. Lumberg is solely self motivated

Mm, okay.

and does not give a shit about anyone who reports to him.

Yeah, yeah, I still had my give a shit, I think.

Yeah, you could not give a shit about the company and give a shit about the people who work there. And you might feel like you're just pushing paper because you are because you don't give a shit about the company. But as a manager, it's not your job to give a sh I mean, depending on your level of management. It's, it's executives job to give a shit about the company. It's like if you're a frontline manager, your job is to keep the people that work for you invested and keep the wheels moving.

Yeah, yeah, sometimes that gets real hard, like after COVID.

Yeah.

so I guess I'm, I'm not a Lumberg now, I'm a student again. So, here we go.

We go over to Milton real quick who's on his fourth desk move of the year. he's going to burn the place down if they take a staple or he avows at this point. Yeah,

That was my indulgence for myself when I was an accounting staff and I had the power of placing orders from Office Depot. I ordered myself a Milton stapler.

I read swing line. Do you think this movie kept them in business?

There had to have been, like, a bump from this movie, right?

Probably not even directly after this movie, but a very slow creep over the next ten years. Um, I mean, when I bought this

stream of red

the, Oh, do you want to purchase a Red Swingline stapler with this mug that you're purchasing? They know. Bezos knows.

Yeah, there's synergy there.

Yeah. Peter tries to get out early here in what feels like a recreation of a scene from The Matrix. But is asked to come in Saturday and Sunday.

Just, I guess this is a thing that happens, right? Happened mostly, but

I mean, I've had to work a weekend since I started my new job. But that was also with the expectation of getting an extra day off later.

Did you have to do it in the office or did you do it from home?

Oh, I did it from home. And it was, it was only a couple hours, it wasn't a full day. Um, but also like, that's the nature of my dev work. Like, the things that I was doing were not things that required, no one would have been at the office if I had gone in.

Yeah.

It was, it was, my team had a code push to make deadline. Like,

It would be absolutely bonkers to me today for people to be like, you need to come in the office on Saturday. Like, okay, I could see we're having a deadline and we need to do work on Saturday, but no one should be having to be in an office anymore.

for sure.

huh.

Hypnotherapist on Friday night. Peter says some of the most depressing shit I and this therapist have ever heard. Every day is successively the worst day of his life. It's just a little bit worse every single day. This is a TikTok meme just went around that was this, like, guy who gets jobbed from the devil being a torturer because he uses, like, a wish to put this upon his enemy. Can't be great.

is uh, group hypnotherapy, too. So he gets to say this in front of, like, strangers. And poor Ann, actually, like, every day of his life is the worst day. How does that make you feel as a partner? Yeah. Yeah. I

to be hypnotized so he just thinks he's fishing instead of him being at work.

mean, that's a hobby people have.

Yeah, the hypnotherapist submerges Peter in his own psyche and just as he finishes dies of a heart attack.

Yeah, the most dramatic heart attack. Like, he is sweating, he is visibly uncomfortable, and no one says anything.

Starts reaching for his chest. Yeah. Yep, he's just uh, the hypnotherapist dies in front of him. Not a care to be had in the world for

Yeah, Peter is bliss out.

He sleeps through the day. Lumberg left 17 messages on his machine. Anne calls him to break up with him for being hypnotized and also confirming everyone's suspicion that she's been cheating on him. What a shitty thing to say in spite. Like, how terrible of a fucking person. Do you have to be to be, I'm breaking up with you because you embarrassed me, also I've been cheating on you.

Yeah, and you embarrassed me for a thing that I pushed you into.

Yeah. Wasn't even a thing you wanted to do, and I was well aware of that. And also, you were hypnotized.

Yeah, yeah. Good thing Peter doesn't give a shit.

Yeah. It's Monday and Peter still hasn't gone to work. Fuck em. Instead goes to tchotchkes to flirt with Jennifer Aniston. No bits on tips.

Yeah, no bets on tips. I'm, I'm still dubious, even though it works out in this movie, on asking a waitress out at all.

Yeah, I mean, there is a, be it a minor, still an existing power dynamic there. It's shitty.

Mm hmm.

Like, your livelihood depends on tips as a waiter or waitress in this country. Depending on where you live and where you work. There's been some places that have been changing that, but Knowing that that's your primary form of income? Yeah, that's That sucks.

I don't know in the times that I waitressed that I would have ever been comfortable, no matter how attractive the person might have been, if they were asking me out while I was at work.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So we find out that she's got those pieces of flair.

Mmhmm.

Pieces of flair. This is iconic as well. One of

I also thought this was from waiting.

Nope. Nope. Nope. this is an allusion to TGI Fridays at one time, right?

I would imagine so. I think I've ate at a TGA Fridays at some point in my life. I'm sure I have. Given the amount of traveling and small towns I've been trapped in for a week, I'm sure I've ate at a TGA Fridays. If I was ever presented with a road that had a TGA Fridays and an Applebee's, I would pick the TGA Fridays.

yeah, as you should.

Yeah

are they still around? Maybe in some iteration? I don't

didn't didn't Red Lobster just go out?

Yeah, they just went bankrupt. They're gone. They,

can't the fucking Olive Garden go? That place is actual trash.

Flav is trying to save Red Lobster, apparently, according to the internet, so

Cool, he failed with his chicken franchise, so maybe buying Red Lobster will turn out differently?

Maybe.

I just don't know why you'd look to someone with a failed business and think we should give them another chance. You know, like, if someone failed with, like, I don't know, what's a surefire business, casinos? And, you know, like, real estate? And managed to fuck that up a bunch, multiple times? You know, maybe even at, like, a university or something? And then you're all like, well, You're good at business though, right? We should give you a TV show or maybe some kind of platform. I don't know.

I mean, Flava Flav had two successful seasons of his dating show, so that's probably his qualifications

yes. The Flavor of Love.

hmm. Did you ever watch The Flavor of Love?

No.

I watched one season in college, and it didn't make me any smarter. It's been 50 minutes, Ja'far, and we are like 20 minutes in this movie.

Look, I've got five pages of notes left.

We did Army of Darkness in 30 minutes and on office space we cannot shut up.

So Tom is trying to defend his job but failing under pressure. He's right, engineers are not people persons. That's not what he should be defending his job for. He should be talking about managing customer expectations to save money on development or upselling features to revenue. That's what he should be talking about, but he's not doing those things and he's going to lose his job for it. P. S. Discord, if you ever need help with a resume, holler. I'm good at that shit.

mm. Good to know.

You can make any job sound great. I promise. It is all about framing that

Exactly. Yeah. Presentation. Style is everything.

Michael Bolton has to eat shit to Bain and company of my existence uh, about liking the pop star, Michael Bolton.

Oh, yes. This, some, just the, the way they've encapsulated office behavior in this movie. Just, chef's kiss. Yeah,

I am old enough now where no one has asked me. If I like the movie Aladdin because of my name. That's, that's so far in the past now where that hasn't happened to me in a professional setting.

mm hmm.

And I'd really like it to stay that way.

Just wait until there's like a big reboot of that movie.

There was one. There was the live action with

Yeah, I wouldn't call that big.

Okay, fair. It was not successful, I believe, but

that's where

know. Joanna meets Peter at Flickr's, which is not Chili's,

uh, huh. Yes.

queso skillet, guys. And she is impressed at how much nicer this identical place to her workplace is compared to her workplace.

This has got to be the same set, right? Like, we just moved a few things around?

Yes. Uh, I think, I mean, it's definitely the same set. I think that's the joke, though. Peter decides he's going to get rich by inventing quiet quitting, and invites her over for some Kung Fu and chill. I

Yeah, He's,

Kung Fu holds up.

he's a visionary, like,

Yeah.

30 years early, almost? 25, right?

moves Milton's desk and takes his stapler. Peter grabs his phone book. And decides to sit down with the Deloitte Dolittles. I did use it again! Go ahead and take it out from earlier. I'm sorry, Aaron. And Peter just uh, speaks the truth to them. The unequivocal truth. He steamrolls past Lumberg on his way out after this.

Turns out the Bobs like truth.

Yeah. He has eight bosses.

Yeah,

That's so many.

And they all jump down his throat about his cover sheets.

Yeah, I have two and a half, and that's mind numbingly frustrating sometimes.

Oh yeah, like, you've got competing priorities from people, like, I, I really want a clear chain of command. Yeah. Yeah. Uh,

Not the issue.

yeah,

the, my boss will ask me for something and then his boss will be all like, you need to drop everything and do this, and neglect to tell my boss. So when my boss is like, oh, where's this, how's this thing going? I'm all like, your boss came and told me to work on this. He's just like, motherfucker.

Yeah, yeah, too much, too

Uh,

they're eight, eight like vertical bosses,

Oh, there's no way someone eight stages up is that infested.

yeah, they gotta be eight like

So, if I had to guess. Lumberg is like VP of projects, right? So, I'm guessing he's got Lumberg. He's got Lumberg's boss. He's got the project manager. The project manager's boss. That's four. Um, and then there's probably accounting people, or bank people, and then their bosses.

yeah. Too much. But the Bob's really uh, vibe with that kind of honesty.

Mm hmm.

It's a little perplexing.

I mean, you are identifying waste and

hmm. Mm

which is what they actually should be getting paid to be doing. So, everyone's probably so nervous about keeping their job they don't want to talk shit about their terrible eight bosses.

Yeah.

Joanna gets talked to about not wanting more pieces of flair.

Yeah. Yeah. Doing the minimum is not enough at Tchotchkes.

And this is when uh, Bobston Consulting Group review their interviews and are letting people go left and right. When they get to Peter The Bobs are excited and Lumberg disparages him immediately.

Uh Huh.

They're like, this guy's management potential, all this stuff. And he's just like, yeah. And then the scene cuts to Peter pulling into Lumberg's parking spot. And I noticed something that I had never noticed before.

What's that?

Lumberg got demoted after this meeting.

Gasp! His sign changed?

His sign changed. His title has been removed. He is no longer vice president. Division VP.

Gasp. I didn't notice that.

He still keeps his parking spot. Yeah. I had to like rewind and check at the beginning of the movie again to be all like, was, am I remembering this right? And sure enough.

I love that kind of psych gag.

Yeah. Yeah. Lumberg parks in a handicap spot. Gets his bumper torn off for his trouble.

Yeah.

While Peter takes down the stupid work motivation sign that Lumber get put up a couple of scenes before.

Uh Huh.

And then we get a montage of Kung Fu and chill office, deconstruction and fishing. Man,

right at our desk. Love it.

like fuck this guy. Have you ever been in a crowded office when someone microwaves fish?

Can you imagine gutting that fish? Yeah. Well, theoretically, maybe because it's fresher, like, it doesn't smell as much? Question mark?

Have you gutted a fish?

Oh, no. I have not. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

fish in an office that is inescapable, but not by much. It is, it is a quality all of its own. Lumberg goes to take out his frustrations here on Peter only to find him impervious. So he takes it out on Milton instead.

The little punching bag mountain.

Mm hmm.

He's already down because he lost his stapler.

Peter meets with the Bobs and finds he's getting a promotion and that they are firing his friends who are still having issues with the printer.

Yeah. PC load letter. That's a reference I've made in an

Ha, ha. ha. Peter has Michael over for a drink to tell him he's gonna get let go ahead of time, and he reveals that his plan is the plot to Superman 3. But also, like, I get recommended videos in my YouTube algorithm for people to do this with cryptocurrency.

Oh, no. That doesn't seem smart.

There's a whole, there's a whole thing where it's all like, you take advantage of the volatile nature of the market, and so, because transactions take moments to process, There is a change in the exchange rate in between them processing, and so, and so you will send, you will intercept the transaction. And then buy the remainder of whatever was left over from the uh, you like, you complete the transaction.

Mm hmm.

you automate this with the computer program to make sure that it only happens when it's advantageous. And all it takes is like a hundred thousand dollars worth of cryptocurrency to have in the bank to be able to manage the transactions. Fucking.

All it takes.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's just like, I saw someone post on Facebook today. It's like, look, all you need to do is put 3 million in an 8 percent treasury bond and you'll yield 20, 000 a month. It's not that hard. It's just all like. Oh my god.

Yeah. It's not that hard, Ja'far. I mean, we have the 1. 8 million dollars already for two chicks at the same time. Oh,

savings. You have 2 million in a high yield savings account, then you're getting 100, 000 a year to live off of.

okay, okay.

When asked that question, that's always my answer.

I mean, or you can just have it and have two chicks at the same time, that's all I'm saying. I can't stop saying it, sorry. Okay, so yeah, we're going to steal fractions of pennies into a bank account.

Mm-Hmm. pile 'em up over the day, get a dollar or two a day. It will add up over time. Whatever it is. So Peter encourages Michael to go for it. They get Samir to buy into the plan because they need his expertise. Uh, someone uses the term fudge packers at some point, which. Which I hadn't heard in a very long time.

Right, right.

that's, that's a language choice that was made in a movie.

Mm hmm. That's, that's our, another Animal House moment.

Was funny or like, cause it's, it's not even like it's, even as like an insult, it's like, you just, you're saying a thing to not say the thing, just say the thing. I've, I've always felt that that should be the case. Like, don't. Don't try and make it slightly more acceptable by saying a different thing. If you're going to be a piece of shit, just be a piece of shit and out yourself, please.

yeah. They don't, they want to think that they're not a piece of shit though.

Well, most pieces of shit don't know they're a piece of shit. That's why they're a piece of shit.

Yeah, yeah, they're still doing mental gymnastics, which comes out as verbal choices.

Yeah. Yes,

These two devs have to sit in the same cubicle together? Speaking of hell. For real.

I, I spent some time in a four person cube and that was working a call center. Of every job on earth that should have its own cube. put the people who are in meetings together all the time in a four person cube and let the rest of us in the call center not have to listen to other people in the call center, please.

real, like, I could not do that job because, like, when people start talking around me and I'm trying to talk to another person, I will not process anything that anyone is saying.

But it's the lowest paid job. So we're going to pack you in like sardines.

Yeah. Yeah. So you can't do your job effectively, because why would we want that?

Mm hmm. I mean, nah, that whole team's been outsourced anyways,

Yeah. They're in India now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it's true.

Yeah, so we get the virus, We steal a printer and we beat it up.

Did you catch the file, the virus's file name was virus?

Yeah, I mean, why not? Gotta clearly label your code.

Yeah, Norton's having a field day with that one. We hear of Tom's suicide attempt turned car accident. And drunk driving settlement, giving him the aforementioned million dollars.

Wonderful. Wonderful.

He's not interested in two chicks at the same time,

No, he's got bigger plans.

mostly healthcare, but once he gets past that, he's going to finally build his jump to conclusions, Matt. This is the thing that I easily reference the most from this movie.

Yeah.

Whenever someone in a team chat. says, makes a logical leap that I disagree with of any kind or like a thing where I just think they're taking it too far. I will just post an animated gif of the jump to conclusions, Matt. I have it on lock. It's on my, it's on my gif speed dial. Yeah,

the times that I read an academic paper and I disagree with their conclusions.

that's exactly what it's there for.

Perfect, love it.

for Amir and Michael. Peter steals that shitty printer and they smash it in the field. Also Samir can breakdance.

This is a beautiful scene, like cinematography, choreography. Actors. Hell, like costume choices. It's all brilliant.

Yeah. they get super drunk. And then he sends them home so Joanna can come over. They do not have a DD. This is before Uber exists. He walks them to their cars.

Oh man, he

What a shitty friend! Oh, he's the fucking worst!

He should have just let him crash on Lawrence's couch. I'm sure Lawrence is good.

Yeah, Lawrence, Joanna's coming over. Can you let these guys crash on your couch, please?

Mm hmm. He's

Or maybe, or maybe just don't have sex that night. Maybe care about your friends lives more. Random thought. Although I guess maybe the goal would be to kill them? If he kills them, then he's Completely innocent at this point, because they did everything. They're the only other ones who know besides Lawrence, and he could just have the bank account and not have to split it?

Yeah. I mean, he's on the bank account, so that's traceable, right?

Maybe, I mean, I mean, hypothetically, you run it through an LLC or two to try and hide it, but like, maybe he's the one who made the decimal entry. Maybe Michael didn't fuck up in a couple of scenes. Maybe he did it because he's a coder too, right? There's no reason he couldn't go and change a decimal point and maybe he tried to kill them. And maybe that's the secret of this movie.

You just made office space really dark. I don't like that. I'm dialing it back. We're rolling back the tape. Roll it back.

Sorry. Okay. Tom tells Peter to hang in there because maybe one day he'll be hit by a car and not have to work again.

It's truly the dream.

It's actually the next line. This is just like that thing in college where like, if you get hit by the, the campus transportation shuttle, you get all A's for the semester. Or like, if your roommate dies, you get all A's. That, that's this energy. Drew, or whatever tells Peter that Joanna and Lumberg were a thing. Which is immediately a problem for him. What a shitty dude again!

of bad looks in this movie, this is number three, I think. The, now, granted, his little, like, hallucination or dream that he has later is hysterical with Gary Cole.

Yeah.

And in a compromising position, it is very, very funny. But yeah, this is not something men should do or feel.

Hundred percent. This is just like Calm the fuck down. Ugh.

Yeah. And, and gossip from, from, I don't even remember his name. I'm going to just go with Drew, like from Drew, come on. Like

The O Face guy? Really?

guy, you're going to trust that? Like, your judgment is bad and you should feel bad.

Mhmm. He wakes up in a cold sweat. Joanna quits as Peter checks the account and finds 305, 000.

check. Inflation check.

1. 8 5. 6? Oh, math! Five thousand, five hundred and six thousand dollars, hundred

560, 000. Yeah.

sorry, five hundred and sixty thousand dollars.

Mm hmm.

Man. Yeah. It's a bunch of money.

Pretty good. Not bad for overnight.

Mm hmm, Bill has a tone deaf birthday party right after the layoffs.

Uh,

Way to raise morale. Also, he's uh, 41. Which actually is really close to Gary Cole's age when making this movie of 43.

Mm hmm.

Milton does not get a piece of cake.

Those glasses really age people, don't they?

They sure do. I mean, that's not right. These are

No, those are very young and stylish and hip. Those are not the same glasses.

I know, I just worried real m What about my old pair? My old pair, did these age me?

No, no. I think it's the thing where it has like the double wires across the top and then the shape, you know, that big really strange shape. That's what does it, man. This has been Ja'far trying on glasses for our audio podcast.

Every time I go to buy glasses, I freak out because I have no idea what my face looks like, or how glasses on it look, and I'm a notoriously bad judge of this. So, anyone who will listen, I will send a dozen pictures of me wearing different glasses to, hoping for some form of opinion on them.

Yeah, no, I feel the same way. Like, I don't wear glasses in public because of reasons, but like, whenever I pick out a pair and I think I might have to wear these in public someday,

Mm hmm.

I get worried about the shape.

Uh, Samir, Michael, and Peter try to figure out what to do. Bill is even shittier to Milton. They try to figure out money laundering. Orlando Jones comes by to sell them some magazines and try to maybe get him to help launder money since he knows something about drugs,

Yeah, so random, yeah.

as they find out he is just a laid off engineer as well

Oh, what is the name of the other company? Inetrode.

Yeah.

Inetrode.

Super generic software company name.

Yeah, I love all these names. Super great.

Peter has a dream of Samir and Michael going to jail while he only gets scolded.

Yeah, no, I think it would be worse than that, but okay. Okay. Yeah,

and she turns him down. I mean like he goes to say sorry and forgets to say sorry. Fuck this guy. You're Jennifer Aniston in the 90s. You can do better. You did. You did Brad Pitt. Good for you.

I think Joanna's actually the real hero of this movie, that's all I'm saying.

Peter puts all the money in an envelope with an explanation.

And immediately regrets it, like he goes slips it under the office door and immediately attacks the door.

It's the middle of the night. Go to the lobby. Go to the coat rack. Grab a hanger. You can get this envelope. You big dummy.

Or, alternate plan, maybe burn the place down?

Yeah. Well, that's what ends up happening as Milton goes into Lumberg's office the next morning and actually burns the place down. Thus destroying all of the evidence and clearing everyone's names.

Question mark?

I mean, this would be before you had like cloud backups of your financials. So if everything was only stored on site, but they're vaguely a banking company as well,

I think they're the banking software company, is the thing. Yeah, so,

maybe they don't have another office somewhere or anything. Maybe,

No off site backups.

Yeah. That seems, Foolish.

like poor choices. Mm

so maybe.

hmm, mm hmm.

Yeah, so we fast forward a little bit. Peter gets a job with Lawrence cleaning up the mess of the Initech building.

Poetic.

He finds Milton's Michael and Amir got jobs at Inetrode. And Milton took the money. And lives on a beach now, where he's shitty to people because he's rich.

Yeah. Or because people were shitty to him. It's unclear,

A little bit of both.

but he's going to burn that resort down. Don't worry about it.

I mean, if he finds a way to collect the insurance money for it, more power to him, I guess. I don't, I don't know.

Yeah.

There, that's the movie. See? Hour 17 record time. Did that, Did the last 45 minutes of an hour long movie or whatever. Ran through that shit.

Yeah. You know, listener, if you haven't seen office space, what are you doing?

Just go watch it.

What are you doing? Don't listen to us any longer.

besides a couple of really out of place comments that you'll find jarring Uh, it's still a really enjoyable movie.

hmm. Mm hmm.

can forgive those things, I think it's just the two? That's all I wrote down. Okay. If you can ignore those three shitty comments that should stay in the 90s, it's a really enjoyable film. And if you can't, that's fine too. They're shitty comments. Fuck them.

hmm. Yeah, yeah. But, I mean, there's so much in there that's just iconic for us, for our generation. Like, I imagine that other generations that are older and actually worked it find hysterical.

Mm

Uh, so many, like, sight gags that aren't as funny to, like, explain on an audio podcast. So you just gotta watch it. Just

It's, It's, a good film and it's probably better to hear it. firsthand than to hear me explain it half drunk. I don't know. Maybe.

And they're both enjoyable in their own way.

Thanks.

To be sure. Yeah.

Well, speaking of enjoyable in their own way, next week, we've got Vic joining us from Divinity Meeting Television and my other podcast last time on for Crusades. Each night I dream of home. Which is the series finale, but not for us, because we're watching it in that weird fucking order.

Oh, this is weird. It's, it's another one of those like JMS poet titles, you know?

Yeah. In an attempt to understand the nature of the Drok virus better, the Excalibur is sent back to Earth's orbit for a top secret special pickup. A familiar face returns. The show ends on an open ending.

Are we finally getting a resolution to Lockley Watch 2024?

Maybe, maybe we'll finally see Lockly. I think I, I, I kind of ex, I think this is the one with Franklin though? Or maybe that's, I know, I know someone asked to be a guest on the one with Franklin.

What, what a twist for Lockley Watch to get sidelined for, A different friend, a familiar face. Yeah. Yeah.

think if you're in the main credits, you get a base level for every episode, so good for her. Good for you, Tracy. Miss Scoogins, getting that paycheck.

Get that money, girl.

All right, well, that's it for this week, but we'll be back next week. But before we go, we of course have to say thank you. Hey, Jeremy, Jeremy Siegel, Jeremy Siegel 42, Jeremy Siegel 42, the only Jeremy Siegel that makes music on Bandcamp. We really appreciate you composing our theme music. Thank you so much. You're welcome. You're welcome.

And also thank you Angry Duck Time Machine on Instagram for our podcast artwork.

Aaron sorry. Also thank you.

Every podcast we end with some Apologies and thank yous. Hey listener, thank you for being here with us. We appreciate you too. And your time, and your earpods, whatever.

We're glad that you have a commute that you have to suffer through, but we can maybe make a little bit better.

all that time searching for a parking space. With us. If you want to reach out to us, you can reach us on our email, whoareyoub5 at gmail. com, or you can join us on our Discord. Whaaat?

yesterday. Okay. I do check.

What, what did Crazy Rick say?

Crazy Rick I believe, has left three reviews at this point. Uh, Rick, I believe, listens to an episode of A Babble on 5 Podcast and leaves a review for that episode. And notes that that we've moved up a point. It was a four star review previously since we're reviewing Crusade.

Oh, just, just the act of reviewing Crusade was important to Rick.

So my previous five star review went to a podcast who were not reviewing Crusade. So I think because we're reviewing Crusade, we're the best Babylon 5 podcast now is what he's

Hell yeah, I'm, I'm agreeing with you, Rick.

Where are the other Crusade coverage podcasts at?

Really? Yeah.

doing the arms outstretched come at me bro thing right now.

Come at me, bro. What a delight. so Rick. Oh,

thanks Rick. And also Scott Gray, 17. If you're listening, get well soon. Uh, Just throwing that out there. We haven't recorded since everything in your life started. So we're hoping, wishing you the best over there at gray 17 and all of our friends over that podcast while we're talking about how they're not reviewing crusade,

Oh. You know what? Scott has better things to do right now.

It's true. All right. We'll see you next week, internet.

Alright, bye!