Sunday, March 20, 2011

Workplace place philosophy

I was watching the movie office space recently and thought there were some aspects of the main character's approach to philosophy in regards to the importance his boss and his work have in his life. The story is centered around Peter who has a job he feels is meaningless and is constantly finds himself stressed by his bosses and coworkers. After being pressured to do so Peter sees an occupational hypnotherapist to help make him at peace with his job. While in trance, however, the therapist has a heart attack and dies before he can return Peter to a normal state.
Because of this he stays in his relaxed state and becomes more hedonistic. He sleeps in until the later afternoon on a work day and when asked why he didn't show up to work her replies "because I didn't feel like it." Because work was not pleasurable for him he determined it wasn't a good and turned away from it. But because being fired wouldn't be pleasurable he eventually shows up to work but with laid back attitude because he is ignoring his bosses (the Gods of the workplace who have the pure pleasure of existing without doing any real work) and is unconcerned with most of what they have to say to him.
He comes out of this trance later in the movie, but while he is still in this daze Peter is the Epicurean of his office. He is only concerned with what he finds pleasurable and only returns to work because it wouldn't be pleasurable to get fired. But in terms of ignoring the minor things in his life that were causing him to be unhappy he makes a pretty good Epicurean.

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