A lot of people are familiar with Office Space (1999). How many have seen Clockwatchers (1997), directed by Jill Sprecher? If you've ever been or known an office temp, it's easy to empathize with the plights of characters played by Parker Posey, Lisa Kudrow, Toni Collette and Alanna Ubach. Sprecher, who has also since produced HBO's Big Love, captures the ennui and desperation of temps in their working environment. It's more realistic and sadder than Office Space, but has definite comic touches, too. All the key actors are superb.
Driving along Big Beaver Road in Troy, Michigan, one can spot the world headquarters of Kelly Services, Inc. -- for me, triggering memories of working as an office temp for Kelly and as an all-purpose temp for Manpower, Inc., mostly in North Carolina, Virginia, and Philadelphia, and in London. Clockwatchers really reminds me of working long stints at places like Family Health International in the Research Triangle -- lots of people in the same boat, plotting to bust a move to somewhere, anywhere else. By any means necessary! Just thinking about it brings back a million memories for future blog post digging. . . . .
Meanwhile, Barack Obama seems to have picked a VP and I've picked five more people for an Arte y Pico Award, as charged by Johnny Yen. More will be revealed on both counts soon, I suspect -- no later than this coming Saturday!
Today's Rune: Flow.
4 comments:
I've actually never worked in an office setting like this. Foreign territory to me.
Man, I live "Dilbert" every day. I forget everybody's work is not like that.
This sounds like another great movie I haven't seen. Love Parker Posey! There is a great flick called "Henry Fool" and a followup which spotlights her character called "Fay Grim." I like "Henry Fool" the best, but both are great films.
I actually didn't see Office Space until last year or so, but I totally loved it. I sympathized with it. I think everyone wants to beat the tar out of a piece of technology with a baseball bat. I'll have to see if our library has "Clockwatchers."
I'll bet there's alot of prairie-dogging as an office temp. Don't think I could ever work in that type of environment.
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