The Languages of "The Office" 147
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:American version Office, or the real one? (Score:2, Interesting)
Look, I don't really care which one is better, but one is certainly more relevant. And that's the one that is currently on the air and has produced seven times more episodes.
Re:i hope everyone realizes (Score:3, Interesting)
I too once thought as you do. Then I met WAY more people than I ever wanted to. These sterotypes *DO* exist. They even strive to live up to the expectation of the sterotype. They are actually proud of the 'highs' and 'lows' of each one. They embrace it.
Are they totaly 1 dimensional? No. But they do not stray far from it. I can think of at least 5 people I have met (out of hundreds) that exhibit 1 dimensional behavior.
They do exist. Some have learned to hide it as they know what they do is somehow 'wrong'. Most people are a bit more well rounded though.
Also what you see on tv/movies is usually the exaggerated version. Why? Because it gives the show a focus.
Re:not sure I totally agree with what he says (Score:3, Interesting)
The thing is, there really IS a whole lot of stuff to human interactions. Not quite as absurd as portrayed by that bit of Dune, but it can be psychotically nuanced, especially in situations where people have (internal) goals that are often in conflict (i.e. "tell your boss to fuck off" vs. "I need to keep this job" vs. "I don't want to be hassled" vs. "I don't want to be a doormat" vs. "I don't want my co-workers to think I'm unstable/unreliable" vs. "I don't want them to think I'm a pushover, either" etc.)
Most of the time, these levels don't matter much - it isn't like we're diplomats handling intricate protocol, the proper execution & understanding of which keeps the fate of nations in the balance. If you fail to ask a sighing, moping acquaintance what "nothing" means, the worst that will happen is your sighing, moping acquaintance will mope off to someone else to fish for sympathy, you know?
In the article, it felt like he was using extreme exemplars to really highlight the ideas he was talking about. It's often easier to use really SUPER over the top examples than it is to use more subtle ones, when talking about interactions.
Re:not sure I totally agree with what he says (Score:1, Interesting)
The coworker has integrated non-lexical elements into the language and you have not.
Imagine if you were talking to a computer program that took each of your words and interpreted each word according to the first definition that appears in the dictionary for that word. So, you tell the program, "I feel well," and the program interprets "well" as a well that you fetch water from. The program understands you lexically, but not contextually. The program is using a subset of the language that you are using. For the program, "fishing" would be analyzing the context of the conversation to determine the meaning of each word.
Now, you are to your coworker as the program was to you. In the reply to your question, "Nothing" means the opposite of nothing, which is indicated by gestures or inflection. You are using a subset of the coworker's language that does not include these nonverbal elements.
Re:Tell the Guild (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not so sure. For one, I'm probably reading this slightly differently because the most I've watched The Office is during previews of reruns on an off channel interjected into Simpson's shows, so the character names mean nothing to me.
My career so far fits his stereotypical loser: due to my autism, I'm unable to make the low-work, high value deals of the sociopaths. Due to my idiot-savancy, I'm too smart to do any more than the minimum necessary. So I'm certainly usually in "wait out the clock mode" except for the few times a week somebody brings me an interesting problem and I jump into clueless mode enough for them to keep me around. (usually- doesn't always work and I've been both first and last laid off in downturns).
Despite my brilliant ideas, I do speak in something very like his Gamespeak, in that I view economics as a problem in Game theory. Due to that, I seem to run into mental blocks talking to sociopaths; the biggest two are their belief that *hard work=success* vs my belief in luck, combined with their belief in infinite resources available vs my belief in a finite world bordered such to create a zero sum game.
Due to that, we're talking different languages so much that the black line on this guy's diagram represents an utter lack of communication.
Re:American version Office, or the real one? (Score:1, Interesting)
See, that's the difference between the Brits and Americans. The Brits know when to end something good. They could easily have made tons more series/seasons of the BBC Office, but they know that it's better to end things on a high note instead of Jumping the Shark (a largely American phenomenon, BTW). So the British series was brief, but every single episode is good. Whereas the American show is in what, their 6th season (of 20 something episodes per season)? And the last few seasons of that have been very disappointing (from what I've seen). But they'll continue to run the show into the ground (and then some just to make sure it's truly dead). Then finally they'll just cancel it mid-season during it's 10th or 11th year because nobody cares or watches anymore. So I'd say that "lasted more than 2 seasons" isn't the right way to be looking at things.
"Then I met WAY more people than I ever wanted to" (Score:2, Interesting)
so you've had 5 minute conversations with a bunch of people you didn't really want to talk to. and based on that, you think this permits you to give them heavy condemning labels
no one is one dimensional
but if you still want to make the case that someone out there is one dimensional, i nominate you, based on the shallowness of what you've just written
Re:Let me get this straight (Score:4, Interesting)
Mod parent up. The UK version is a real observation of life, much like The Royle Family, and its accuracy is what makes those shows great.
Someone once said to me: "Steve Carell tries to be funny. Ricky Gervais acts like a guy trying to be funny".
Re:i hope everyone realizes (Score:3, Interesting)
2nd response: the reason there's nothing you can do about it.
The skills it takes to be a sociopath, be clueless, be a loser (and I think the original author must be a sociopath for choosing these labels) in the workplace are so mutually exclusive that one can't possibly be good at all three.
The sociopath is the ultimate salesman- his aim is to get the most reward for the least effort. I disagree with the author that he's the guy making the organization work despite itself- he's more a parasite on everybody else's work. But like all good parasites, he's always looking for an opportunity.
The clueless is the most honorable person in the office- they'll give you the shirt off their back, and they're on 100% of the time. Too bad they're usually on a task set by a sociopath or worse yet, doing something they don't understand.
The loser is the guy who can't make a good deal to save his life, and he knows it. Because of that, he does the minimum necessary- but he does do the necessary. He's the guy with technical skills who keeps your computer running, the guy with plumbing skills who keeps the water flowing in the bathroom. If he was paid what he was truly worth to the company, there would be no profit left for the shareholders, so they hire sociopaths instead to make sure he isn't paid too much.
Yes, all three of these are aspects of everybody's personality- but the skills to maintain them in the workforce are vastly different. So different that the further away you get from college, the more you'll be pigeonholed by others into one of these three categories. And there's not a damned thing you can do about it, because your talents are what they are and you can't change them.
Re:This is crap. (Score:4, Interesting)
Not meant to be a dig at the military- if anything, I have great respect for those willing to go above and beyond the "bare necessity" that I do.
In fact, I'd say that the country *owes* a full retirement to anybody who has ever been in combat- that "little bit of money off the GI Bill" is an example of the sociopaths politicians disrespecting the value of your service. The reason this stereotype calls you clueless is because you don't realize just how little they gave you in return for you risking your life.
But they're definitely an example of the "clueless"- because that's what the clueless do; risk their lives in return for a "little bit of money off the GI Bill".