Bill Lumbergh in Office Space (1999)
Personalized number plates cost hundreds of dollars. For the life of me, I have no idea why anyone would pay for such nonsense. Then again, perhaps these plates are needed by idiots who can’t remember what their car looks like, thus saved from routine embarrassment by having their name emblazoned on it.
However, I suspect there’s a simpler reason: people who go in for personalized plates are wankers, numpties who have no other way to inform the world of their existence. Sort of like carving your name in a tree trunk, tagging a garage door or scrawling your moniker in some newly discovered wet cement. Look, such creatively empty ventures always seem to scream, I’m alive!
And that brings us to Lumbergh (Gary Cole), the vice-president of a Texas-based software company. We know he’s a smug, vacuous git the moment he steps out of his expensive car because the camera lingers on his number plate: MY PRSHE.
What a wanker.
Every subsequent scene in this comedy classic underlines his wankerness. He’s a dyed in the wool company man, forever spouting corporate language while ambling around the office with a pronounced air of detachment unable to grasp the pointlessness of the tasks he gives out and oversees. A self-important micromanager, he’s also a well-disguised bully without any recognisable sense of humor. Indeed, this is a man that believes wackiness can be demonstrated by occasionally allowing staff to wear a Hawaiian shirt on Friday. Even worse, he apparently makes love in the same droning way as he conducts himself in the office, complete with coffee mug in hand.
Stressed-out programmer Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) loathes Lumbergh and his demoralizing tics. “Hello, Peter, what’s happening?” Lumbergh always begins, having zero interest in the answer. He’ll then allot some petty task or request a stint of weekend work, ending with the superficially friendly but non-negotiable: “That’d be great.” The non-confrontational Peter has no answer but to live in quiet dread of his braces-adorned, robotic superior.
You know the worm has turned, though, when Peter gets hypnotized and enters into a permanently relaxed state. Suddenly he doesn’t give a fuck about anything. The next time he sees Lumbergh he calmly steps around him, as if avoiding a pile of dog shit on the carpet, leaving the refrain “Peter, what’s happening?” hanging in the air. It’s a wonderful moment that taps into every worker’s desire to ignore a pain-in-the-arse boss. Before long Peter is parking his beat-up car in Lumbergh’s prime spot outside the company and the glorious revolution is underway.
Leave a Reply