We are huge The Office fans in this family. Especially my husband and my daughter-in-law. I could go on and on about my favorites, but your character descriptions reminded me about Robert California. James Spader just brings something extra to all the roles he plays. He's perfect in that role.
There's never been a character like Robert California, and there never will be again. He was pitch perfect. What I love about The Office is that they never tried to recreate Michael, which would have been cheap, lazy, and ineffectual. Instead, they branched out in directions no one had ever gone before, and the results speak for themselves. I'm so glad you guys are Office fans!
Nov 19, 2022·edited Nov 19, 2022Liked by Stacey Eskelin
You lost me at cringe worthy.
Been there; Done that, got the emotional scars to prove it.
Made me physically ill just reading the description. Grew up with that shit. Nope, noway, no how am I at all reliving the horror.
Want to know why 33% of Amazon staff threatened to quit if they couldn't continue to work from home? Who volunteers to return to an emotional Dachau after escape? There are NO, none, niente offices that are anything but emotional death camps. Success being defined in "Office" terms. To work in an office you either have to be willing to release the xylon gas or shovel bodies into the ovens.
Nooooooo! I don't want you reliving any horror! I'm so so sorry you grew up in that kind of dysfunction. You seem pretty damn bright and exceptional to me, but what cost did you pay to get there? And I couldn't agree with you more about offices being emotional death camps. "To work in an office, you either have to be willing to release the xylon gas or shovel bodies into the ovens" is about as brilliant and true a thing as I've ever read.
I've never watched the Office and almost certainly never will. But I'm fully on board with the idea that family is as much something you make as it is something you're born into. Especially for someone like me, who lives two time zones away from his family. I've had to create my own, and the results have been pretty amazing. Having that sort of support system is priceless.
Though I'll never watch the Office, I thoroughly enjoyed your synopsis of the characters.
You're the second person on this thread who has confessed that their family of origin was less than ... satisfactory. And yet both of you prove what I have always known, which is that the most beautiful roses can sometimes grow in a garden of weeds.
"Teens can be pretty trying. It’s Nature’s way of making it easier for you to let them go."
Or make you wonder why you didn't drown them in the bath tub when you had the chance ...
Made (as opposed to born) family is something I discovered on my own. I ultimately came to have a good measure of mutual friendship and respect with my father in the last decades of his life, but my sister and I were always distant if cordial, and her kids I'll have nothing to do with (right-wing neo-fascist Christian dominionists.) So what family I ever had, while I had them, were friends whose company I came to appreciate and who, even before that, invited me into their lives. All of that is gone now; a few from distance, several from death.
It is the cringe-worthy factor that I cannot abide in what passes for comedy these days. MASH became watchable when the Major Burns character was rotated out. Since then, my capacity to deal with even a little bit of such public mockery and humiliation has dropped well into the negative numbers. I find the humor in dramatic shows more honest and human. I can laugh with something like Buffy, because no one is being demeaned in the process. Laughing at someone is just to reminiscent of my own experiences.
You know, that's actually true. When MASH jettisoned the Major Burns character, it took on a whole different flavor. I understand not wanting to watch a cringey show. Like I said, when I was overworked, under-slept, and a lot more porous emotionally, I wasn't able to watch it either. But, like with Breaking Bad, I'm glad I powered through it.
We are huge The Office fans in this family. Especially my husband and my daughter-in-law. I could go on and on about my favorites, but your character descriptions reminded me about Robert California. James Spader just brings something extra to all the roles he plays. He's perfect in that role.
There's never been a character like Robert California, and there never will be again. He was pitch perfect. What I love about The Office is that they never tried to recreate Michael, which would have been cheap, lazy, and ineffectual. Instead, they branched out in directions no one had ever gone before, and the results speak for themselves. I'm so glad you guys are Office fans!
You lost me at cringe worthy.
Been there; Done that, got the emotional scars to prove it.
Made me physically ill just reading the description. Grew up with that shit. Nope, noway, no how am I at all reliving the horror.
Want to know why 33% of Amazon staff threatened to quit if they couldn't continue to work from home? Who volunteers to return to an emotional Dachau after escape? There are NO, none, niente offices that are anything but emotional death camps. Success being defined in "Office" terms. To work in an office you either have to be willing to release the xylon gas or shovel bodies into the ovens.
Nooooooo! I don't want you reliving any horror! I'm so so sorry you grew up in that kind of dysfunction. You seem pretty damn bright and exceptional to me, but what cost did you pay to get there? And I couldn't agree with you more about offices being emotional death camps. "To work in an office, you either have to be willing to release the xylon gas or shovel bodies into the ovens" is about as brilliant and true a thing as I've ever read.
I've never watched the Office and almost certainly never will. But I'm fully on board with the idea that family is as much something you make as it is something you're born into. Especially for someone like me, who lives two time zones away from his family. I've had to create my own, and the results have been pretty amazing. Having that sort of support system is priceless.
Though I'll never watch the Office, I thoroughly enjoyed your synopsis of the characters.
You're the second person on this thread who has confessed that their family of origin was less than ... satisfactory. And yet both of you prove what I have always known, which is that the most beautiful roses can sometimes grow in a garden of weeds.
"Teens can be pretty trying. It’s Nature’s way of making it easier for you to let them go."
Or make you wonder why you didn't drown them in the bath tub when you had the chance ...
Made (as opposed to born) family is something I discovered on my own. I ultimately came to have a good measure of mutual friendship and respect with my father in the last decades of his life, but my sister and I were always distant if cordial, and her kids I'll have nothing to do with (right-wing neo-fascist Christian dominionists.) So what family I ever had, while I had them, were friends whose company I came to appreciate and who, even before that, invited me into their lives. All of that is gone now; a few from distance, several from death.
It is the cringe-worthy factor that I cannot abide in what passes for comedy these days. MASH became watchable when the Major Burns character was rotated out. Since then, my capacity to deal with even a little bit of such public mockery and humiliation has dropped well into the negative numbers. I find the humor in dramatic shows more honest and human. I can laugh with something like Buffy, because no one is being demeaned in the process. Laughing at someone is just to reminiscent of my own experiences.
You know, that's actually true. When MASH jettisoned the Major Burns character, it took on a whole different flavor. I understand not wanting to watch a cringey show. Like I said, when I was overworked, under-slept, and a lot more porous emotionally, I wasn't able to watch it either. But, like with Breaking Bad, I'm glad I powered through it.