Office Space/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Alternate Character Interpretation: While Lumbergh is clearly a dick, most of his behavior is designed to help the company (with the exception of his treatment of Milton). He clearly shows up to work on the weekend when everyone else has to and most of his annoying commands are basic details of Peter's job. Meanwhile, Peter does literally the bare minimum he can and then decides to rob the company because they dare to expect him to do work for his paycheck (and convinces his friends to help based on their oncoming layoffs) which leads to near imprisonment for his friends.
    • His behavior helps the company? He has everyone stop what they're doing so he can give speeches on how they need to help the company, and he adds make-work and red tape to everything, doesn't seem to actually do any work himself, spends money on consultants just so they can tell him to fire his most competant employees, kills efficiency and productivity by asking people to work 7 days a week to catch up on projects, etc...
    • While interesting the other side of the story is that when things were going wrong Peter decided to take the blame to protect his friends and only planned the robbery when he was told about his friends getting fired. He made some pretty dickish moves but also some very positive ones.
    • Of course, he still parked in the handicap space. And the rear bumper of his car got ripped off when they attempted to tow him in the very same scene.
  • Ass Pull: Peter is disgusted when told that Joanna slept with Lumburgh and breaks up with her. He later learns that this was referring to another previously unmentioned character with that same last name, which somehow never occured to him.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: A part of the Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster! montage.
  • Cult Classic: For almost anyone who has ever worked at a white collar office job.
  • Funny Aneurysm Moment: You know that plan to rip off the company with endless micro-transitions? Aside from being an homage to Superman III, someone tried that themselves.
    • It's even funnier than that when you consider this quote by Michael Bolton: "And a bunch of hackers in the 70s tried it as well. One of them got busted."
  • Memetic Mutation: "I believe you have my stapler?", Michael's description of federal prison, "Yeah, I'm gonna need you to go ahead and...", etc.
  • Most Annoying Ear Worm: "Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking. Just a moment..."
  • Sein Language: Several turns of phrase from the film have become fairly commonplace in Real Life, e.g. "TPS Report", "pieces of flair", "a case of the Mondays", etc. Not to mention Michael Bolton being described as a "no-talent ass-clown".
  • Smug Snake: Lumbergh may count as one.
  • The Woobie: Milton by far.
    • Anyone who's felt trapped in a boring office job will probably have a lot of sympathy for Peter.