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The 1999 film Office Space is probably one of the best representations of the insidious experience of the workplace in technologized late capitalism. It is set mainly in the offices of Initech, a high-technology company in the United States in which some consultants are interviewing employees with a view to downsizing. The disaffected hero, Peter Gibbons, is put upon in a number of ways, including by his girlfriend having an affair with his hated boss, Bill Lumbergh. However, he has an experience of ecstasy which occurs after being hypnotized to cure his sense of misery, by a doctor who dies of a heart attack before he can bring Gibbons out of his trance. Following this, Gibbons decides to get made redundant by taking revenge on the various petty elements in the company that have annoyed him and by refusing to do any work, fulfilling his lifelong dream of "doing nothing". In this, he is supported by his new girlfriend, who works in a fast-food restaurant chain in which serving staff are obliged to customize their uniform by wearing "flairs", self-chosen decorative elements intended to present the restaurant as a place where fun people work and are encouraged to express themselves. One of the funniest exchanges in the film is between the waitress and her boss about her refusal to wear more than the minimum mandated number of such flairs.

DOI: 10.1057/9781137026675_10

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