Sunday, October 14, 2007

Lois Rosewood: Office Space

My question is "When is it a good idea to listen to your employees?"

I noticed the communication style of Initech early on in the movie when the main character, Peter, is approached repeatedly by his different bosses and asked if he got the memo about using the new cover sheet for his TPS reports. He told each one "Yeah I got the memo." Peter said things like he had just made the mistake one time and that it wouldn't happen again but no matter what he said, it seemed that each manager who approached him would continue on with his speech of "telling Peter to remember to use the new cover sheet."

This clearly showed the recurring theme in this movie of not listening to employees, in the style of "Communication as Information Transfer" as discussed in Chapter 2 of our textbook.

I found a website which posted most of the important dialogue in this movie and discovered that the man who mumbled all the time said at one point "if they take my stapler then I'll set the building on fire . . ." which is exactly what he did in the end.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0151804/quotes

1 comment:

S. Dz. Pham said...

"if they take my stapler then I'll set the building on fire . . ."


I never picked up what he was saying. Now knowing what he said, it puts the movie in a different percpective.

Good ear, Lois.