Mass Media Blog Post 1

My favorite show is “The Office” without a doubt. The title of the show describes its main setting, but it is not your ordinary workplace. The main cast is made up of a sales department, an accounting department, a human resource department and a head manager of a paper supply company called Dunder-Mifflin Paper Company. The show is part of a Thursday night lineup on NBC supported by other successful and similar shows such as 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation.

The realness of an office setting is there. There are phones ringing, there is a break room and water cooler talk. Everything that you would picture to be in an office is in the show. So what makes this show different from offices in real life? The work ethic displayed by the employees at Dunder-Mifflin is lacking and would not be acceptable in a real-life workplace. The show displays a perfect job where you can under-achieve, waste company time, and put your co-workers stapler in Jell-O. The most unrealistic thing is that the head manager of the Scranton branch is the most off-task person in the Office.

All of these things mentioned are what make the show interesting and funny to people. I think we are attracted to things that we can’t have. Why do you think Keeping up with the Kardashians is such a hit? People want that lifestyle. I always said to my friends that if I ever work in an office setting, I want it to be just like the show.

Overall, it is a very friendly and warm workplace environment. Sure some workplaces are like that, usually upbeat and alive. That would be an ideal situation for somebody that works in an office setting. That is one thing you can take away from the show and actually hope to have in your job. However, it is really easy for us to allow video representations to take over our view of something, especially if that is all of the information we are getting. If I get a job in an office and I have never worked in one before, “The Office” is the closest thing I can relate it to.