Erika Faye Adame
2 BSA-1
REACTION PAPER
The movie Office Space is a 1999 American comedy-film, starring Ron Livingston, David
Herman, Ajay Naidu, Jennifer Ansiton and Gary Cole. It is a story of underpaid yet overworked
Peter Gibbons who is an employee of Inetech who desperately hates his job and his boss. He was
later joined in misery at his software company by his two friends and soon helped each other to
embezzle money from the company.
The story begins with Peter Gibbon’s daily life in the company he worked. He has to deal everyday
with his ignorant and arrogant boss who did nothing but to dictates his employees and doesn’t
want to be blamed. Peter become more frustrated and stress when his boss announced that he will
bring consultants to the company to increase efficiency of the company which he finds it a bad
idea which made him felt more miserable each passing day at work. His girlfriend advised him to
see a therapist to help him reduced his stress but the therapist died before he finished the therapy.
Peter is under the influenced of hypnosis that’s why when interviewed, he blatantly tells everything
he felt about the company.
As the film that we had watched progresses, we see the reality that being an employee who works
in an office is not as easy and comfortable as we think it is. The employee has to deal with different
people like the boss, the managers and the co-employees who has different attitudes and characters.
We see the everyday struggles of Peter and his co-workers and how miserable and frustrated he is
in his job.
This movie is a good example of business that lacks proper and effective management system
which many people who currently employed will relate. It is important for managers to treat their
employees with respect and dignity. One of the problems that I have seen in the movie is lack of
motivation of the employees. Employees don’t want to work in a place where they don’t
recognized for a job well done. If the business environment causes low employee moral, it will
decrease productivity.
Office Space accurately depicts what happens when employees are underappreciated and
unchallenged. Initech’s employees don’t see themselves as part of the company they work for, and
don’t understand how their jobs make the company better. This causes them to feel as if they aren’t
really needed and therefore do not care about the business outcomes. Ultimately, It is important to
keep employees motivated and challenged for them to do their best. The upper and lower
management should help each other because they are the one who will make the company
successful.
Overall, I enjoyed the movie not just from the plot but also from the well-drawn characters and
situations from the movie because it depicts real life happenings and situation in the workplace. It
is not just a comedy movie but is also offers many interesting insights and facts into the
organizational behavior.