The Office Space Bobs Plot No One Ever Talks About Is Genius
Mike Judge’s Office Space is one of those cult films that has staying power because of how scathingly it lampoons corporate culture through its satire. Anybody who’s ever had to sit in gridlock and wear a shirt and tie (and properly creased pants) only to sit in a windowless room full of cubicles doesn’t have to suspend much disbelief when Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) steals a printer from Initech so he can beat the ever-living crap out of it in the middle of an empty field with his work buddies after they find out they’re getting laid off. But the one Office Space plot point I never hear anybody talking about involves “The Bobs,” and how Peter’s initial meeting with them wasn’t just to air out a bunch of petty grievances while justifying his lack of engagement as an employee, but rather an accurate representation of how inefficiently corporations at Initech’s level actually operate.
What’s more, The Bobs – who are deceptively shrewd to the point of looking like total idiots – are 100 percent correct in their assessment that Peter Gibbons is “a straight shooter with upper management written all over him.”
The Bobs
Office Space introduces us to Bob Slydell (John C. McGinley) and Bob Porter (Paul Willson), more affectionately known to Peter as “The Bobs,” as a couple of consultants who Initech has brought in to help make Initech’s daily operations run more efficiently while maximizing profits (read: lay off a ton of people). It doesn’t take long for Tom Smykowski (Richard Riehle) to “jump to conclusions” that he’s going to lose his job, which puts Michael Bolton (David Herman, not the pop singer) and Samir Nagheenanajar (Ajay Naidu) on edge because they’re hard workers who are willing to put their heads down and do the grunt work as programmers out of fear of losing their jobs as well.
Having worked in middle management as an auditor for a company that actually processes TPS (which stands for Transaction Processing Summary, by the way) reports, I developed a newfound appreciation for The Bobs in Office Space after living through five of the worst years of my professional life. Consultants like The Bobs aren’t a work of fiction, and they’re contracted out by real corporations for the sole purpose of downsizing operations in order to cut costs and placate their shareholders.
Peter’s Mental State
Peter’s character arc in Office Space is a simple one: he has a session with an occupational hypnotherapist named Dr. Swanson (Michael McShane), who puts him in a trance that makes him not care about his job anymore. Dr. Swanson has a heart attack and dies while Peter is in a state of total bliss, meaning that this is the version of Peter that meets The Bobs and sets the rest of Office Space’s plot in motion.
No longer afraid of losing his job, Peter blows off work, only to return when he needs to retrieve personal items from his cubicle, not yet aware of how hard he’s going to subconsciously stick it to the man.
Walk Us Through A Typical Day
When Peter first meets with The Bobs in Office Space, Michael and Samir are sure that he will be terminated immediately for slacking off, and there’s no compelling reason to believe otherwise. When The Bobs ask Peter to walk them through a typical day at Initech, Peter’s rant, which is coming from a totally careless place with no real motive other than to be a jerk, actually points out every single inefficiency the two consultants are looking for in order to do their own jobs.
On the surface, Peter is just having fun making fun of the consultants, and in his mind that’s all he’s doing. However, his day-in-the-life rundown is so telling to The Bobs that they practically leap across the table to shake his hand and give him a promotion when he’s finished. If you run through each point Peter makes in Office Space, it’s no wonder why The Bobs love Peter’s attitude, as disengaged as he may seem.
Peter shows up 15 minutes late every day, and enters through the side door so nobody calls him out. He gets away with it, which tells The Bobs that managers like Bill Lumbergh (Gary Cole), aren’t keeping tabs on their employees, and are slacking off themselves.
Peter “spaces out at his desk” and does “about 15 minutes of real, actual, work,” which also goes unnoticed by upper management; he’s still on the payroll and has job security. Peter may be exaggerating how little he works to get a rise out of The Bobs, but he actually unwittingly tells them that his entire department isn’t essential to Initech’s daily operations, which results in both Michael and Samir getting laid off.
Explaining that if he “works his ass off and Initech ships a few extra units he doesn’t see an extra dime,” Peter tells The Bobs in so many words that there’s no incentive program in place, like bonuses or commissions, to reward hard workers for going the extra mile.
The Salary Redundancy
At this point in Peter’s epic rant in Office Space, he still hasn’t delivered the death blow, which comes in the form of telling The Bobs that he has eight different bosses. As soon as Peter drops this bomb, Bob Slydell’s jaw drops, and he leans forward to get more information. Once again, in Peter’s mind, he’s just complaining about why he hates working at Initech because he’s micromanaged at unthinkable levels, but to The Bobs he just pointed out a massive salary redundancy.
Remember, the only reason Initech hired efficiency experts was so they could properly downsize the company and get rid of non-essential workers. While it’s never said explicitly, the consultants immediately put Bill Lumbergh in the hot seat and ask him about how much time he spends every week reviewing the TPS reports because they want to see if his job is even necessary after sitting down with Peter.
In other words, Peter is completely unaware that he did all of The Bobs’ work for them, which is why they’re so eager to promote him and give him stock options even though everybody else thinks he’s the next employee to get the axe. Even if Peter gets a substantial promotion, it’s a net gain for Initech because they can potentially lay off a number of high-salary executive-level employees without even missing what they bring to the table.
The Bobs know this, and their intelligence becomes clear when they’re still milking their consulting contract with Initech well into the third act, even after Peter gave them all the information they could possibly need to wrap things up and move onto their next gig.
The Subtle Genius Of Office Space
You don’t need to be an office drone to thoroughly enjoy Office Space, but having inside knowledge on how real life Bobs work in the corporate world will increase your enjoyment by a significant margin. On the surface, The Bobs can be enjoyed as useful idiots who want to promote some meathead who hates his job, which is insulting to his co-workers and inherently funny. On the other hand, The Bobs are way smarter than they let on because they base every business decision they make for the rest of the film on Peter’s invaluable intel that came from a place of petty frustration.
As of this writing, you can stream Office Space on Hulu.
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