They all made appearances on last night's season finale of The Office on NBC. From jokes about the Chinese taking over the world, to corporate downsizing, to the common occurrence of managers failing upward, this show, with all its stupid jokes, mockery and situations that make you say "No he didn't just say that…," has made an impact on the way we think about our jobs, our bosses and what makes a workplace family as dysfunctional as they are, work. Everyone who is anyone wanted to get in on the finale, it seems. Warren Buffett, in a cameo appearance as an interviewee for the GM job, asked "Is that the best you can do on salary?" He asked whether long-distance calls were monitored or whether the honor system was in place. Okey dokey. Bet that's how he achieved his billions back in Omaha-- through the honor system. No, make that the monitoring system, for sure. Jim Carrey, disguised as a schleb from the Finger Lakes, wants the job. James Spader believes he's a shoe-in for the position. Ray Romano frets that he bumbled the interview.
Ricky Gervais, in creating this show in England then bringing it to the States, touched on something very, very raw: our workplaces, corporate structures, interoffice relationships and office policies have become a joke, around the world. As farcical as the show is, it continues to hit a nerve, season after season. Why? Because somehow, we can all relate to these characters and their situations.
On this eve of what some call "the end of the world" I am sitting, watching The Office finale via hulu on my computer, which sits on my home office desk. I am contemplating how the world has indeed changed. How offices like Dunder Mifflin actually exist. And while we joke, how is it possible that over 20% of the work force in California is unemployed, but not unemployable? Workers who indeed know what they are doing are finding themselves without employment, through no fault of their own…yet bumblers like the characters on The Office remain…and remain in force.
This may indeed be "the end of the world" as we know it. We may need a "rapture" as those believers call it. We may indeed need to be "called home" in order for us to recuperate and get back to being productive, around the world.
I guess I'll just keep watching the summer re-runs until I get called up…or employed.
