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When I was a teenager, I thought Office Space was representative of real life. Yeah, you'd have to show up to a job you hate, but at least you could openly hate it and call out its bullshit brainwashing culture to your friends and coworkers. You could all be united in a "this is fucking stupid, no one actually enjoys this, and all the weird office mannerisms, politics, and minutia are only bought into by the tools who no one likes."
20 years later, that wasn't really true. People seem to buy into the BS, or at least keep plausible deniability about it, such that you never really know. You can't openly call this out to your acquaintances, because you need rely on them for job referrals.
I don't know if this is a real difference between the 90s and 2010s/2020s, or maybe it's just the way it's always been. But it would seem the honesty and rebellious "fuck the man" attitude of the 90s has given way to the "live the hustle" attitude of the 2010s.
Maybe our economic situation being such shit has enforced this, since people don't have the ability to stick it to the man by even pretending they can opt out anymore. Unemployment in the late 90s was around 4%. It's possible that major economic shocks like the 2008 crisis or recent inflation changed how people think about job security.
Maybe also social media caused this, the same way it (in my opinion) caused the major ramp up in politics in the past 15 years. LinkedIn has turned everyone into their own personal brand. In the 90s - or at least in the Office Space/Fight Club version of the 90s - you clocked in and clocked out. Now you're expected to be passionate about quarterly earnings, and if you want to be secure in getting that next job after you're laid off from your current one, you better make sure you have a passionate public image, too. Note also, globalization may have something to do with this as well, since you're competing in a global market now, so you need to be better than more than just the local competition.
I posit that maybe being in a world where everyone seems to believe and live the BS has similar negative effects as social media does for causing people depression due to the highlight reel effect. The plausible deniability of "everyone seems to buy into this crap" makes others pretend to buy in too. This has obvious political parallels as well.
There's a really interesting post from
/r/TheMottethat you might enjoy: https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/c7bkqh/examining_1999s_culture_through_its_best_movies/It seems like culture around 1999 was different on this point in a really important way, which I think led us to the ennui of the middle-aged office worker asking, "is this it?" This isn't as much of a thing on the more recent years. I think it's been replaced by a view that even the "soulless middle-class existence" would be a significant step up from what the younger millenials, zoomers, and alphas actually got: the economic engine hiccupping as it lurched from crisis to crisis, houses accelerating to many multiples of median annual income, immigration changing hometowns and countries beyond recognition, dating being so messed up that finding a partner is tough enough, let alone someone seriously keen on starting a family, ...
I remember watching an old interview with Ayn Rand on Donahue, when he had a talk show, circa 1980, and there was this bit where Ayn Rand said she felt good about skyscrapers and cities and Donahue responded with dismay at all of the people working these soulless office jobs in big concrete buildings.
As someone that came of age around Flight Club I was surprised at how much older the office drone disgust sentiment was.
I wonder if I recall that correctly?
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Tech jobs all went to open concept offices so the 90s cubicles people were complaining about look ridiculously nice.
Find a picture of an engineering office in the 1950s. Replace drafting tables with desks with monitors on them, voila, 2020s software company office.
At least they are front to back. 2020s offices like to put people face to face which is horrible when you are trying to concentrate on something.
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