The Languages of "The Office"

Venkat Rao has followed up his analysis of office dynamics as reflected in The Office, which we discussed last month, with one titled Posturetalk, Powertalk, Babytalk and Gametalk. The Office is running a little thin of meaty examples to make his points in delineating the ways of PowerTalk — the language of the Sociopaths — so Rao reaches out to Goodfellas, Wall Street, The Boiler Room, and Making Jack Falcone. The entire analysis illuminates and is illuminated by a diagram of the disparate languages that Sociopaths, the Clueless, and Losers speak to each other and among themselves.

Re:The Office - movie or TV show?

[JerkBoB]

The movie is "Office Space", you retard.

(yeah, Powertalk!)

Re:Let me get this straight

[FooAtWFU]

Idunno. What kind of a sociopath divides the entire world into the "clueless", the "losers", and the "sociopaths"?

Re:Hear me out!

[nexxuz]

Shhhhh..... Big Brother Balmer does not like to hear things like that! *sigh* I guess we'll have to do another ritual sacrificial to set things right again.

GET THE NEW INTERN READY GUYS!

Re:Hear me out!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your ideas intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Re:American version Office, or the real one?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because there's a lot of crap, doesn't make it good.

Re:Incomplete analysis

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Somebody who is all three is either schizophrenic or has multiple personality disorder- in which case they'd speak the language that best fits their current personality in that relationship.

I say this because the clueless stereotype and the sociopath stereotype in the description are mutually exclusive; the first is honorable and goes beyond the call of duty without motivation or recompense, the second you can't get out of bed without offering a six digit salary.

The losers are the people somewhere in the middle.

Jewish culture has known this for a long time

[rkinch]

"Only a schmuck works for somebody else."