The Office Space Movie Review

Life revolves around work, whether it be meaningful, for the paycheck, or just something that we feel is a moral obligation based on our societal standards of today. But what are these jobs? Do they mean something? Are we doing them because we want to or is it simply because? These questions are profound and a perfect example of what the movie The Office Space portrays and what David Graeber explains in his article of On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs: A Work Rant. Moreover, we can examine the article and movie on a philosophical level with moral theories. The Office Space and Graeber’s account of On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs: A Work Rant, we can evaluate the monotonous impacts and experiences of bullshit jobs with different moral perspectives.

The influx of bullshit jobs in recent years makes us understand what Graeber portrays in his article On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs: A Work Rant. We pride ourselves in work, whether it be a doctor or someone counting bricks on the side of a building, but the moral difference between those two jobs is what Graeber examines in his essay. The context of a bullshit job, according to Graeber, is “It’s as if someone were other there making if pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working” (Graeber). There is a presence of the revolving ways of working pointless jobs that don’t benefit anyone and are made up just to keep people busy with meaningless work. Graeber goes on to explain this position of bullshit jobs is not a problem on the economic level of our society, but it is one of the “moral and political” (Graber). We value ourselves in that we submit to meaningless work and bullshit jobs because it gives us value and equity. 

The film The Office Space portrays Graeber’s account of bullshit jobs being morally damaging through the main character Peter who reaches the endpoint of the revolving ways of his meaningless work. Peter realizes that his work means nothing to him and that his day-to-day life is slowly deteriorating and worsening each day. After seeking help through occupational hypnotherapy, Peter gets stuck in long-lasting hypnosis of the action of doing nothing. While under the hypnosis of not doing anything, Peter admits that his typical work week consists of maybe 15 full minutes of actual work, and any other time he is staring off in the distance. Graeber’s definition of a bullshit job complies unmistakably with Peter’s morally damaging work in the film. 

With these understandings of bullshit jobs by Graeber and the experience of Peter in the film The Office Space, the deontological perspective values the moral freedom of bullshit jobs. Deontological perspectives focus on the reason for the situation over the outcome of happiness. 

When considering the aspect of bullshit jobs and Peter’s experience of working one, there would be a consideration of the fact that because of the revolving ways of these jobs that Peter ends up becoming a tool or an object rather than a valuable human that he actually is. The moral dignity in these bullshit jobs and Peter’s situation is exactly what the deontological theory values and admits that, when those aspects aren’t present, humanity is nonexistent. 

Meaningless work in both Graeber’s article and in the case of Peter in the film with a utilitarian perspective account for the positive contribution that it makes to others. Utilizing the important aspects of Utilitarianism, revising the situation of how it benefits others is an important piece of understanding the uselessness of meaningless work. Specifically, in Peter’s situation, the faction of his work is unvalued and does positively benefit others. With this important piece of not only Peter’s work but also Graeber’s account of bullshit jobs, this from a utilitarian perspective would be what is considered wrong as it does not contribute or positively impact others. 

When analyzing the film, The Office Space and Graeber’s writing of On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs: A work Rant, the utilitarian perspective can be seen the most throughout both of these pieces of film and writing. From the understanding of the utilitarian point of view, both accounts of Peter and Graeber give perfect criteria of acknowledging that bullshit jobs don’t benefit anyone. This is an important aspect of the utilitarian point of view as it seeks to understand how the outcome positively impacts the world around them, and for Peter, he decided that he was going to change specifically because he knew that the work that he had been doing was meaningless and did not contribute to anything or anyone around him. In Graeber’s article on bullshit jobs, he also focuses on how the outcome of bullshit jobs does not benefit or positively impact the world around them which is how he concludes the point of meaningless work and bullshit jobs. 

In The Office Space and Graeber’s article on bullshit jobs, we can understand the negative impacts of meaningless work from a deontological and utilitarian perspective. From a deontological perspective, we evaluate the morality of bullshit jobs. The utilitarian understanding can gauge how the aspect of bullshit jobs is wrong because it does not benefit anyone or anything in society. Moreover, both of these accounts of Peter and Graeber’s article are important in realizing the negativity around bullshit jobs and their monotonous impact on the world around us. Meaningless work and bullshit jobs are not the answer to keeping us working and limiting our moral freedom and equity.