That’s What She Said

July 18, 2020February 21, 2018

An enterprising Reddit user did an analysis of the total number of words that were spoken by all the characters across all 9 seasons of “The Office”. It is no surprise that Michael Scott led the way for the full series even though Steve Carell left the series after Season 7.

It is interesting that Andy and Pam are basically in a dead heat even though Andy did not enter the series until Season 3. To a degree, the same goes for Erin and Kevin, being that Erin did not show up until Season 5! And then there is Creed…somehow averaging 431 words a season.

In digging into the numbers a little more, I found it interesting how things shifted after Steve Carell left the series. With Carell gone, you would predict that the show would have shifted its focus to Dwight and Jim and that is reflected in the fact that over the last two seasons, the average amount of words said for each of them per season increased by 69% and 31% respectively compared to the average for the previous 7.

What I found interesting though is that Andy actually saw the largest increase, more than doubling the amount of script words over the last two seasons (10,204) compared to his first 5 (4,522 on average from when he joined in Season 3) for an increase of 125%. And looking at other characters, on a relative basis, Darryl (230%), Oscar (150%) and Erin (106%) also saw large increases in attention/script words during the last two seasons.

With the recent ‘trend’ of reviving old shows/sitcoms (Trend being a relative term as the traditional networks and Hollywood has long since lost it’s inventive streak to the rise of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and other ‘independent’ outlets…but that is a story for another day) becoming more prominent, there have inevitably been rumors of an “Office” revival. I really hope the adult in the room comes to their senses and just leave this classic series alone. Look at the ‘revival’ of Arrested Development on Netflix. Those seasons were a shell of its former self. There is no reason to mess with perfection.

Freshen Up The Office

April 8, 2019June 25, 2009

The consumer product company OXO has developed an exclusive line of office products for Staples.

Career Ladder To Nowhere

April 8, 2019June 18, 2009

Another downturn in the economy, another rung falls off the career ladder. An interesting article over at the HBS blog argues that the current staffing cuts and furloughs that have been executed by multitudes of companies in this recession is taking us one big step further away from the antique concept of the 5 day, 40 hour work week.

But the idea of furloughs, particularly for managers and professionals, is planting the seed of a new way of looking at work in our minds. Suddenly companies have asked us to work, say, 32 hours a week rather than 40. Hmmm. What does that really mean? Most of us were never working 40 hours – we might have been working 50 or maybe even 60. We were answering emails at odd hours, writing in the early hours, calling Singapore at night. Does this mean that we should now work 20% less than we were before . . . or does it mean we should work literally 32 hours?
For many, I believe the conclusion will be that we should work the hours specified by the company and perhaps do other things – start new businesses on the side perhaps, sell stuff on eBay, take another job, go back to school, whatever – with the other time.
This shift sits well with many in Gen X who have already tended to bind their involvement more carefully than have the all-out Boomers. But for both generations, it will be a new way to look at work – another step on the slippery slope of recessionary lessons moving us from (1) you don’t have a job for life, to (2) you may never find full time work with one employer, to now (3) even a full-time job is really only a contractor job in disguise.