The evolution of the workplace in 1920s America presented industries and businesses with an innovative new operating standard: working smarter, not harder. These innovations included the popularization of the assembly line, the right to vote for women (and, later, the pursuit of the right to equal pay), and the invention and mass production of the automobile. It seemed that all aspects of the American workforce were accelerating toward progress, but the practices were not as fully appreciated by the American public. Once the Great Depression rocked the country, work became much more than just a day at the office; has shown that every day could be an employee's last and that to keep your job safe you need to always stay on track. Such a terrible situation could reintroduce the country's depression to people, but for authors like Sinclair Lewis, an injection of cynicism and self-deprecation is therapeutic against the ills of the times. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay In Lewis's Babbitt, the eponymous protagonist is a well-to-do middle American real estate agent with the most mediocre and unambitious ambitions possible, and his existence is evidence of how the relationship between work and worker had radically changed. Babbitt is also partially motivated by the politics of the time, emphasizing centrist moderation and condemning "extreme" political views of the left or right, something George Babbitt particularly resents toward "long-haired gentry who call themselves 'liberals'" and 'radicals' and 'non-partisan' and 'intelligentsia' and God knows how many other misleading names” (Lewis XV). Indeed, a quick symbolic reading of Babbitt presents readers with the absolute state of 1920s America: It's always roaring everywhere except where you are. Anyone who lives where Babbitt is, by virtue of location or state of mind, must roar of their own accord to make a “normal” life interesting. Babbitt's satire plays on the expectations of the average worker of the time, shedding light on the workforce's shift from individual meritocratic attention to almost faceless collaboration. Babbitt continues to believe that his efforts will be recognized, even though he spends most of his time acting unexceptional. Babbitt's rebellious fantasies of "kicking a couple of mountains" are unattainable as he struggles to climb the mound of dirt that is his conformist nature (XIII). Since Babbitt's publication, times have changed. Forward was the rallying cry of business as America entered the war for the second time. Spending of GDP on defense and technological advancements rose to 40%, up from the usual 1-2%, setting a precedent for research and technological development at the forefront of American industry. To operate competently in this field, America needed all the help it could get. Lawmakers passed the Equal Pay Act of 1963, making it illegal for a woman to be paid less than a man for the same amount of work in the same position. Also at this time, the civil rights movement had achieved a decisive victory as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made it illegal to discriminate against a person because of his or her race, color, religion, or national origin. This great equalization has surprisingly filled the workforce with capable people. To deal with all these new workers, designer Robert Propst invented the “action office” compartment, the precursor to the cubicle. Once thought to be amore personalized office, Propst's creation was manipulated by companies to fit more people into smaller workspaces as a cost-saving ploy. As if these workers didn't already feel downsized enough, the 21st century has introduced computers and artificial intelligence that have automated a fair amount of work, making some jobs and careers obsolete. The workplace of the 1920s had far more mobility and customization than the modern cubicle could ever dream of having. Babbitt's idea of ​​media, as an office space with room to maneuver and work that has “the class of poetry,” seems luxurious in these modern times (VIII). In such an isolationist and callous environment, it is no wonder that writers and directors have continued to vilify "the nine-to-five grind" in the form of prickly work and office comedies. The post-Babbitt years saw many major releases of content centered around the everyman or everywoman flipping the proverbial script on their cruel bosses or horrible positions. Movies like Nine to Five (1980), in which a trio of secretaries kidnap their tyrannical boss and run the business themselves, or shows like The Office (2005-2013), which shows the wacky antics of a mediocrely run paper company and employed by American caricatures, are important for their recognizability. Just as Babbitt points out the folly of striving to be mediocre, office satires like these use comic relatability to make something mundane funny. However, few works share the aspects that make Babbitt as touching as he is entertaining. As for Babbitt's power as a true examination of American indolence, anger, and pride in the workplace, Mike Judge's 1999 film Office Space seems the closest to showcasing all the key aspects of the most important piece of 20th century workplace satire. century. Office Space reflects Babbitt's satirical elements in many ways, but to truly demonstrate the everlasting influence of Lewis' work, it is important to examine the specific aspects of low goals, rebellion, and regret to better communicate the ideas instilled by the 1920s. Office Space is set in mid-1990s Texas, inspired by a short animation made by Judge titled "Milton", a mumbling employee who becomes increasingly frustrated with his situation. The film follows the life of Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) as he suffers at the hands of a software company called Initech. Gibbons' job is to rewrite the code in anticipation of the "change of the 2000s", which involves changing thousands of lines of code to four digits instead of two. As if the monotony wasn't enough, Gibbons' desk is right in front of the shrill receptionist Nina, and he has to endure the same vocal onslaught of "corporate accountants, Nina speaking, just a moment" every other second of the day. Gibbons has eight different bosses (“eight, Bob”) who don't care about him, as evidenced by the droning speech of Bill Lumbergh, the bosses' ringleader. Every day of his life is constant criticism, annoyance and uniformity of suffering, and one day this pushes him over the edge and into action against his employers. The only means Peter has to escape this daily torture are his office friends Samir and Michael, his neighbor Lawrence and a waitress named Joanna, apparently the only characters who empathize with him. Peter, like Babbitt, cannot physically overcome the unfair and arbitrary rules of the office environment to get ahead without being disciplined by his supervisors. Peter's inability to buck the system reflects Babbitt's unique resistance to acting against itagency, or the possibility that “the people of Floral Heights will stand up and take notice…little old Georgie” (XIII). To escape the banality of it all, they both entertain themselves with exaggerated fantasies. Babbitt, who sees his mid-range automobile as “poetry” and a “dangerous shore excursion,” priced his standard car as much as a Rolls-Royce or Pierce Arrow of the era would normally price it (III ). He also chases a “fairy” in his mind, a beautiful young, white, “yearning” thing that has taken his attention away from the present moment (I). Peter Gibbons has his own “fairy,” and she too reflects the humble desires of the worker. In a conversation with Lawrence after a long day at work, Peter asks a question posed around the office: "What would you do with a million dollars?" Lawrence is quick to answer, crudely proposing that he's always wanted to do "two girls at the same time" . Peter laughs at this sentiment, but Lawrence is deadly serious. Lawrence believes that having a million dollars will make him more desirable, so much so that he won't even have to spend it to achieve this ideal shape. When the question inevitably turns to Peter, he assumes that with a million dollars "I would just relax and sit around all day and do nothing." Peter's fairy is the idea of ​​doing nothing and, like Babbitt's fairy, represents a fleeting ideal of escape that is impossible given their current work environment. Babbitt would love nothing more than to chase the fairy all day, while Peter would be thrilled with the idea of ​​doing nothing all day. As Lawrence later says, “you don't need a million dollars to do nothing,” a quote that sparks an idea in Peter that leads to the next related point. After a while, Peter breaks away from the monotony of his situation by deciding to rebel against the system that had imprisoned him. The first phase of this is taking a day off from work and sleeping in without warning, which attracts phone calls from the ever-unenthusiastic Bill Lumbergh. When Peter realizes how ineffective this form of rebellion is, he deliberately shows up to work in casual clothes, knocks down the walls of his cubicle, takes a break to hang out with the waitress he just met, and throws fish guts all over himself. the covers of his TPS report. All this diversion caught the attention of the office, as well as the performance auditors who came to do the firings. While the rest of the company gets nervous about performance reviews, Peter doesn't have a feeling of fear in his body, because he's armed himself with the "truth" about his work and isn't afraid of what the reviewers think. He confesses about his multitude of bosses, the fact that he does “fifteen minutes of actual work a day” and that he “doesn't care” about his job. The last confession shocks the reviewers, who ask him to clarify. Peter obliges, saying that there is no motivation for him to do well as he sees no gain from working hard. The auditors meet with two of Peter's bosses and claim that he has "senior management" qualifications, which his bosses (who are clearly angry at his profligacy) vehemently refuse to believe. Babbitt has an equally extraordinary experience involving an awareness of the banality of his average life. When he is introduced to Tanis and "the Group", he realizes what the rebellion could mean and happily accepts their company. The Bunch was known to drink excessively (something that would not have been acceptable in the days of Prohibition) and indulged in formalities in conversations. Babbitt realizes how tense the world of work is and sincerely enjoys this “freeing up for a change” (XIII). His desire torebellion grows, and he soon transfers his lust for Tanis into an illegitimate relationship, going behind his wife Myra's back to do so. Babbitt raises the stakes in his rebellion to feel like an individual, and soon finds himself consumed in contrarianism for the sake of standing out. Not even his own company, which respects him greatly after he gave a speech for SAREB chairs, is safe from his fury. During a required course on the importance of immigrants, which causes colleagues like Finkelstein to ape his overly sensitive approach, Babbitt becomes enraged and makes a scene to subvert these anti-immigrant sentiments. Despite how easy and popular it is to downsize immigrants in the workforce, and despite Babbitt's past views on the subject, the rush of rebellion overwhelms him as he observes, “'Four flushers! A lot of hot air! And what problem do immigrants have? Hell, they're not all ignorant, and I got the sense that we're all descended from immigrants ourselves'” (XXXII). George imagines that this feeling will make people see him differently, but he gets an unexpected result because his colleagues admire his particular honesty. Babbitt is even approached by the Good Citizen's League, who asks him to join their group. In the wake of his rebellion, Babbitt rebukes them, and the narrator mentions that “something black and unknown and fierce spoke from Babbitt: 'Now, look here, Charley! I'll be damned if I'm forced to join anything, not even by you pluti!'” (XXXII). As they attempt to convince him to join, Babbitt has an internal awareness that he may have taken this contrarianism too far, but he also realizes "that if he had given in on this, he would have given in on everything" (XXXII). Between the two scenes of Office Space and Babbitt, the emphasis on rebellion by subverting the worker's expectations and his appreciation by other people shows the power of the "truth" that the office drones in Office Space must hide to keep safe their job, and Babbitt's agents must ignore to keep their reputation consistent. Both acts in which the main characters stand out reflect the archetype of a hero who tells it like it is and is rewarded for his honesty (even when it's not the desired effect). Yet, at the height of the two characters' rebellion, something goes wrong. Some aspects require them to “surrender to everything” that has come into them, and that aspect usually involves a friend or loved one. This is crucial to the satire aspect, because just as things were starting to improve for the character, an outside force makes it impossible for him to continue on this heroic path. This brutality should make readers angry, because they realize how close the character was to achieving their goals of making their lives interesting and individualistic. The step that takes Babbitt out of the contrarian game comes when he realizes that Tanis is becoming exactly what Myra had been “an emotional escape” (XXXI). Eventually, Babbitt returns to his wife Myra, and in a coincidental and consequential moment she suffers from appendicitis. Babbitt calls the doctors (despite her fear of doctors) and they wish to operate on her before things get worse. Myra panics, but Babbitt throws away the appearance of rebellion to confess that “'I love you more than anything in the world! I was a little worried about business and everything, but now it's all over and I'm back again'” (XXIII). Babbitt stays with her during the ambulance ride and during her hospital stay, despite his desire not to get cramped and burned by the ambulance's radiator every now and then. Babbitt matured here and abandoned the truth of "telling it like it is"for his personal truth. Babbitt's remorse, as previously stated, is a key aspect of the satire, because it shows how close Babbitt was to being an individual as he had previously desired, but instead chose to be a better person for the sake of his wife. Peter's repentant rebellion has taken a turn for the worse. Peter's final act comes after his promotion recommendation from supervisors, meaning his friends Samir and Michael will be fired to compensate. Peter and his friends hatch a nefarious plan to ensure they are in good hands after being fired (after taking out their anger on a faulty fax machine) by creating a program that siphons off the company's profits "by fractions of cents". This way, an imperceptible portion of the profits goes to them and they can keep Initech without ever having to work there again. The code, however, goes awry, as the friends discover that the program used commas instead of decimal points, thus draining huge amounts of profit from the company (to the tune of $30,000 per hour). Peter begins to realize that, like Babbitt, he has officially taken this campaign against Initech too far when he realizes that this could land him and his friends in federal prison. Peter wants to remedy the situation, giving up any hope of taking revenge on Initech so as not to get him and his friends into trouble. After much thought, he realizes that the truth must come out again and he must show the program to the bosses of Initech to ensure that only he takes the blame. It is "giving up everything", just as Babbitt had proposed, but it is for the safety of others that he confesses like this. As he enters Initech's office for this fateful moment, he notices something different about the office: it is engulfed in flames and all his colleagues are gone. It turns out that the office was set on fire by none other than the mumbling Milton who lives in the basement, who has had it with Initech's mistreatment and has had a rebellion of his own. Milton's arson burned the transaction records, clearing Peter and his friends of their crimes. Peter's drive to do the right thing was rectified by Milton's actions, allowing him to escape scot-free and find more satisfying work joining Lawrence in the construction field. Their first order of business: demolish the burnt-out shell of Initech. The film ends here the story of Peter, who escaped the rebellious lifestyle and was brought back to work in a field that, for now, isn't so bad. Both pieces harken back to the key elements that Lewis had established as a precedent for workplace satire, with the poor aim of the average American worker, attempts to buck the system and, ultimately, regret at how far things have gone and the return to normality. normality in the service of the main plot arc. Both Babbitt and Peter lead extraordinary lives in their jobs and deal with their superiors and judgmental peers. A pivotal event brings about the “final straw” in living this unfulfilling life, and the two pursue targeted (and often ridiculous) forms of debauchery to distinguish themselves from the other drones in their lives. At some point, their rebellions attract the attention of those working in the workplace and they receive expected and unexpected praise for their efforts. Both characters go too far and realize that they have taken their normal “boring” lives for granted. They attempt to rectify what they have created, choosing to remove any transgressiveness from their vocabulary and admitting to being an average worker in order to secure their job again. As previously stated, this may draw ire from readers, as the characters are so close to being this.