 |
| I too teared up at the end of this episode |
Hard to believe, I know, but this is the first time I tried to binge this show. I had seen an episode here and there both during its initial network run in the aughts and later on Netflix but it just didn't stick. Despite its uber-popularity and near full decade run, I never got the hype. But I decided to give it a go today and spent the better part of the evening watching the first season and the first three episodes of the second. I think the trick was watching the episodes in order so I could gradually understand the connections and motivations of the characters as they interact with each other.
I understood from the common knowledge of the premise of the show since it started becoming popular way back when, that I should have been a fan from the get go due to my own familiarity with the tropes this series parodies.
The bombastic boss who tries to be "Joe Cool" and thinks everyone adores him but is actually annoying and crass, sexist and racially insensitive yet trying to be exactly the opposite.
The idiot management suck-up who tries to "cop a feel" of self-important imagined power every chance he can get.
The office hunk and cute girl who are destined to fall in love if it weren't for the pesky engagement the cute girl has with the bohunk nimrod warehouse guy downstairs.
And the other office staff who, if just watching one or two episodes once in a blue moon, seem like unimportant extras, but they actually are full fleshed characters in their own right and even though I'm early into this thing, I think their roles will be just as important in the overall scheme of things when it's all said and done, similar to the dynamics of the players in "Parks and Recreation" which I had finally binged last year.
Now that, hopefully forever, I'm retired from such settings as this show, I can laugh at the stupidity of it all. Perhaps that's why I'd stayed away from watching this before...it was all too close to reality.
The second episode of the second season dealt with sexual harassment training and with my 2019 eyes I could see the flux it recorded in the then early-days of office place reforms and laugh in amazement at the overall impropriety of this office's culture under this manager and know full well how fired he and many others would be today for the antics they pulled. But I also remember office environments very much like this in the '80s and '90s and how much the world has changed. I even remember office parties held at bars like Chili's and Uno's with drunken hi-jinx like those in the second season's first episode "The Dundies" and witnessed over the years how they faded away as well.
The second season's third episode (which I just finished watching a few minutes ago) "The Office Olympics" highlighted another office phenomenon I saw slowly snuffed out over the years...a sense of family among co-workers. The premise in the show was that each employee had their little downtime game that they played to alleviate the boredom and get them through the day. Shared, the whole office came together as one big family in the most endearing morale-boosting, team-building event ever, even including the boss and his lackey in the end (although they were told it was for Michael's condo closing).
Co-workers weren't people you had to be wary of every second of your shift, they weren't out to stab you in the back. And management and their wannabes weren't looking to fire anyone who looked at them the wrong way at the drop of a hat.
Not like today's office places. Nope, those days are long gone. Well, at least I'll be able to relive the good ol' days for the next umpteen episodes of the remaining eight seasons. Sure can't relive them in a real office anywhere these days IRL, that's for sure.