Correspondence No. 2: “Forlesen,” a novella by Gene Wolfe // Office Space, a film directed by Mike Judge
In today’s Correspondence, we consider two stories of office life. The first is a novella (or long short story) by one of the most literary of science fiction authors, whose work has spawned reams of commentary. The second is a cult film directed by the guy who created Beavis and Butt-Head.
In Wolfe’s story, Emanuel Forlesen wakes up with no memory to find himself on “the planet Planet,” whose generic name conceals a range of possibilities, including that it may simply be Earth. Instruction manuals containing a disconcerting number of typos tell him how to live. He goes off to work at Model Pattern Products, situated in a massive, ramshackle office block.
His entire career unfolds in the course of one long day. His superiors and colleagues, although their treatment of him is quite friendly, are unable to act like normal human beings. One of them cannot speak without resorting to nautical metaphors (“are you finding M.P.P. a snug harbor?”); another is addicted to skiing analogies (“I trust you’ve got your wax ready and your boots laced”). Getting a straight answer from any of them is practically impossible, as they all spout empty, evasive, self-referential corpspeak. At one point, Forlesen is told he has to go to his “creativity group.” When he asks what people do there, he gets the reply “we create creativity itself – we learn how to be creative.”
When Forlesen asks what precisely his subdivision does, the boss tells him “we make money for the company… we do what needs to be done.” Yet nobody seems to do any actual work. Highlights of the day include a motivational movie called “Creativity Means Jobs,” and a session of Bet-Your-Life, “the management-managing real-life pseudogame.”
Gene Wolfe’s dedicated fans like to point out that he needs to be reread to discover what’s really going on. The story is full of subtle touches that highlight its sinister undercurrents. One of them is the alphabetical “filing” of characters by age. Emanuel Forlesen interacts with people his own age: Ed Fields, Enid Fenton, Eric Fairchild – the EF generation. The company’s late founder was Adam Bean (AB). At his workspace, Forlesen replaced the recently deceased Cappy Dillingham (CD). So it’s ominous when, later in the story, Forlesen finds a boy named George Howe taking over his workspace. This pattern is something that only we, the readers, are able to spot – the characters in the story seem totally oblivious to it.
Possibly the most unsettling detail of all occurs when Forlesen picks up one of the instruction books, and finds that it’s the very story “Forlesen” that we are reading. In an echo of predestination, his entire life and corporate career turn out to be scripted by some controlling, yet unknown intelligence.
Office Space lacks this sinister sense of mystery; its world is all too familiar. Its hero, Peter Gibbons, at least knows what his job is and “what needs to be done.” His problem is that he hates his job, hates his boss, hates his company Initech, and fundamentally hates having to work for a living – his dream is to “do nothing.”
Note the differing responses of the respective heroes to their predicaments. Emanuel Forlesen does not challenge his environment or revolt against it; all he does is grumble. Peter Gibbons stops going to work, begins speaking his mind with no fear of censure, and finally conspires with his buddies (who are losing their jobs) to rip off the company. Poor Forlesen is unable even to identify a target to revolt against. He spends his day/life trying to fit in. (In the end he does “fit in,” albeit in a most literal sense, which I won’t spoil for you.)
The corpspeak of “Forlesen” is positively baroque in its complexity compared to the maddening verbal tics of Bill Lumbergh, Peter’s boss. Lumbergh’s idiocies have since become a cultural reference point, being recited and laughed at in offices throughout the country. Only one year after the film came out, I started hearing them in my own place of work.
Interchangeability and anonymity are themes shared by the two works. Both are notable for the ugliness of their built environment. The office park in “Forlesen” consists of “great, square buildings which, despite their size, made no pretense of majesty or grace, but seemed in every case intentionally ugly.” In Office Space, the offices and housing are so generic in appearance that the film could be set anywhere in the vast suburban/exurban expanses of the continental United States. Another thing they have in common is that we never find out what products the two companies actually make. Peter Gibbons refers to Initech shipping “a few extra units,” but units of what?
While Wolfe’s story benefits from repeated readings, repeated viewings of Office Space show the flaws in Judge’s conception. The scene where “the two Bobs” (consultants brought in for some downsizing) tell Peter that his friends are about to be laid off simply wouldn’t happen in real life – for the very good reason that it might invite the kind of sabotage that follows. The film also asks us to believe that a laid-off employee can be hit by a car, break numerous bones, win a lucrative insurance settlement, and then be back home to celebrate – all in a few days!
But Office Space’s legions of fans don’t seem to be bothered by the story’s shaky scaffolding. It was the close-to-the-bone workplace realism that won the film its cult audience. It’s common for people to say that they originally thought this was a fiction film, but then realized it was a documentary about their own lives.
“Forlesen” dates from 1974; Office Space was released in 1999. Not much changed over those 25 years.