"Office Space"

with Jennifer Anniston

Viewed September 8, 2001

After watching this commentary on unpleasant jobs (typified by the rap version of the song "Take This Job and Shove It" as the credits rolled by), I assumed that we'd end up developing and talking about relatively superficial questions about our most unsatisfying jobs. Instead, we only had one question about jobs, and we had NO discussion on jobs. What we spent our time talking about was empowerment.

As we talked, we realized that uncomfortable emotions like anger (Question #5) and revenge (Question #10) are both our inept attempts to regain control of and empowerment in our lives. When we don't feel like we can do anything to improve an unpleasant situation, we get depressed and helpless, or else angry and vengeful.

We pondered over why, when we're hurting emotionally, we often feel a desire to hurt others even though our minds know that that's not actually going to make us feel any better. One of the coolest realizations (for me) was this: when FEEL LIKE we want to hurt others because we're hurting emotionally, what we REALLY need is to regain power or control in our lives, and hurting someone is the only way we can think of to do that.

Here are the questions:

OFFICE SPACE

  1. How have I handled boring jobs, or vice versa?
  2. What parts of my life do I think I've wasted?
  3. How do I endure or exit negative environments?
  4. How much (and/or when) do I blame others for my unhappiness?
  5. How comfortable am I in venting my anger, and why?
  6. How much does popular culture influence my actions?
  7. How do I respond to physically restrictive environments?
  8. How does "not being attached" to the outcome affect my life?
  9. How much control over my life do I feel I have/deserve/am entitled to/am willing to give up?
  10. How do I feel about revenge?