The terrible truth about "Office Space"

Three disgruntled employees kidnap the office fax machine, take it to an open field and ram it with a baseball bat repeatedly until the fax machine is "dead." I didn't think that incident or any other from the 1990's cult-film Office Space was very realistic.

I was wrong.

The eerie reality of Office Space and other movies like it make the blockbuster more of a docudrama than a comedy. I have come to this conclusion because I now live that movie. My job? Data entry for the accounting division of a time-share company. I punch numbers into the computer and leave an infinite paper trail. There is a banner over my head that reads, "Owners Come First" followed by an ominous ellipsis. It is all too similar to the movie's "Is this Good for the Company?" flag seen hanging from the office ceiling, constantly nagging its employees to stay on task.

I started my summer job as a temporary assistant, but I soon discovered the reality of life as a temp -- and I was certain that I'd never voluntarily have a occupation like it again. But with the downturn in the economy and youth unemployment up to a whopping 12 percent, college graduates everywhere are finding it more difficult to get work, much less a job they like.

Even the Ivies are having trouble. The immunity that I, as a Penn student, thought I had achieved to office life is, in fact, now gone. And the fact that nowadays business grads are in far less demand than in previous years has hit even the number one school in the country -- need I even say it? Wharton.

According to Penn's Associate Director of Career Services Peggy Curchack, the number of students who completed their job search by graduation will be far lower this year, especially for those seeking business-related jobs. This not only impacts Whartonites, but a good deal of students from the College, among whom 42 percent expressed interest in finance or consulting professions, according to a 2001 survey by Career Services.

Fellow Ivy Cornell has also run into a shortage of job offers for its Class of 2002, particularly the Johnson School's graduate business students. To remedy the problem, the school's director Richard A. Shafer has turned to alumni and asked that 40 companies hire MBAs for two to six month periods while recent grads ride out the tough times. Shafer, who garnered 25 years of business experience before coming to Cornell, doesn't see an immediate resolution to the economic slump. He does advise a good deal of networking, which Cornell itself currently relies upon for its graduates to obtain jobs. As Shafer put it, "We've totally shifted our approach here at Cornell [because of the fewer job offers]."

So why has the business sector been hit so hard while other fields -- such as nursing -- are in sudden and high demand? Curchack attributes losses in part to the repercussions of the short-lived mid-nineties dot.com hype characterized by start up companies, coupled with the effects of 9/11. Shafer also noted a decline in capital spending and the anticlimax that followed Y2K into the new millennium.

Financial sectors seem to have been hit that hardest. While past graduates were recruited by a plethora of companies, now Morgan Stanley may no longer have time to knock on Wharton's door --- or, at least not that many times. The hits to business are simply the most visible since active and aggressive recruiting has come to a halt and the health care sector is anticipating a shortage of qualified nurses and the like as the aging baby boomers near retirement.

The Class of 2002 at Penn has sought to combat the economic downturn by upping entry into graduate schools, accepting job offers that they may not have considered before, and volunteering for organizations like "Teach for America." These remedies have become fairly universal for this year's graduates. Curchack, however, is still quick to emphasize that "a Penn education is still a reputable one and that if there were hiring going on, Penn grads would get those jobs. But the hiring will effect every great student and you can't change the reality of the market."

I am somewhat reassured that Penn grads still have some edge left, but another one of Curchack's comments left me more than a little disturbed. "The vast majority of Penn students end up in office jobs." Accepting that reality is and will be very difficult for me, but at least I have a job, regardless of the close confines of my cubicle. So even as the closing lyrics of Office Space ring true -- "People get depressed, they get down by the stress the corporate environment causes" -- I'm certainly not in the situation and sadly, until the economy rebounds, others are not able to sing the carefree Office Space refrain "take this job and shove it" just yet.

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