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Quotes (Page 2)
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[Bob
Slydell and Bob
Porter are
interviewing Michael]
Bob Slydell: Let's see. You are Michael...Bolton?
Michael Bolton: Yeah.
Bob Porter: Is that your real name?
Michael Bolton: Yeah.
Bob Porter: Are you any relation to the pop singer?
Michael Bolton: No. It's just a coincidence.
Bob Slydell: I'll be honest with you, I love his music. I do. I'm a Michael Bolton fan. For my money, I don't know if it gets any better than when he sings "When a Man Loves a Woman".
Bob Porter: But, you must really love his music.
Michael Bolton: Yeah. He's, he's, he's pretty, he's pretty good, I guess.
Bob Slydell: You're god damn right he is.
[they laugh]
Bob Porter: So tell me. What's your favorite song of his?
Michael Bolton: Hmm. I don't, I don't know. I mean, I guess, I sorta like 'em all.
[the Bobs laugh]
Bob Slydell: That's why I feel the exact same way. But it must be twice as hard for you, being having the same name as him. I celebrate the guy's entire catalogue. Anyway, let's get down to business, Michael!
Michael Bolton: You know, you, you can just call me Mike.
[the Bobs stare stare at him]
[Peter is sitting at a table in Flingers when Joanna enters]
Joanna: Hi.
Peter Gibbons: Hey.
[referring to her work uniform]
Joanna: I wonder if I'm allowed to uh...wear this in here.
Peter Gibbons: I think you'll be okay. Would you like to sit down?
Joanna: Okay. Wow! This place is really...nice.
Peter Gibbons: Yeah, is it?
Joanna: Yeah, my God, compared to Chotchkie's. I like the uniforms better anyway.
Peter Gibbons: I like yours.
Peter Gibbons: What's a piece of flair?
Joanna: Oh, it's uh...it's where you know like the...the suspenders and buttons are all sort of...We're actually required to wear um...fifteen pieces of flair. Quite stupid actually.
Peter Gibbons: Do you get to pick 'em yourself?
Joanna: Yeah. Yeah. We do. Although I didn't actually choose these. I, um, I just sorta grabbed fifteen buttons and just...I don't even know what they say! Y'know, I don't really care. I don't really like talking about my flair.
Peter Gibbons: Okay.
Joanna: So, where do you uh, work, Peter?
Peter Gibbons: Initech.
Joanna: In...yeah, what do you do there?
Peter Gibbons: I sit in a cubicle and I update bank software for the 2000 switch.
Joanna: What's that?
Peter Gibbons: Well see, they wrote all this bank software, and, uh, to save space, they used two digits for the date instead of four. So, like, 98 instead of 1998? Uh, so I go through these thousands of lines of code and, uh...it doesn't really matter. I uh, I don't like my job, and, uh, I don't think I'm gonna go anymore.
Joanna: You're just not gonna go?
Peter Gibbons: Yeah.
Joanna: Won't you get fired?
Peter Gibbons: I don't know, but I really don't like it, and, uh, I'm not gonna go.
Joanna: So you're gonna quit?
Peter Gibbons: Nuh-uh. Not really. Uh...I'm just gonna stop going.
Joanna: Uh...when did you decide all that?
Peter Gibbons: About an hour ago.
Joanna: Oh, really?
Peter Gibbons: Yeah.
Joanna: About an hour ago. So you're gonna get another job?
Peter Gibbons: I don't think I'd like another job.
Joanna: Well, what are you going to do about money and bills and...
Peter Gibbons: You know, I've never really liked paying bills. I don't think I'm gonna do that, either.
Joanna: Uhh...well, so what do you wanna do?
Peter Gibbons: I wanna take you out to dinner, and then I wanna go back to my apartment and watch Kung Fu. Do you ever watch Kung Fu?
Joanna: I love Kung Fu.
Peter Gibbons: Channel 39.
Joanna: Totally.
Peter Gibbons: You should come over and watch Kung Fu tonight.
Joanna: Okay.
Peter Gibbons: Great.
Joanna: Okay. Can we order lunch first?
Peter Gibbons: Yeah
Joanna: Okay.
Bill Lumbergh: Hi, Milton. What's happening? Um, I'm going to have to ask you to go ahead and move your desk again. So, if you could go ahead and get it to as far back against that wall as possible, that would be great.
Milton Waddams: No, no, because I was, I was told...
Bill Lumbergh: That way, we'll have some room for more boxes and things we need to put
in here.
Milton Waddams: No..no...
[Lumbergh sees the Swingline stapler on Milton's desk]
Bill Lumbergh: And uh...oh, there it is.
Milton Waddams: What?
Bill Lumbergh: Here, let me just go ahead and get that from ya. Great. So if you could just get to that as soon as possible, that would be terrific. Okay? Have a nice lunch, Milton. Bye.
[he walks off]
Milton Waddams: [to himself] Okay. I'll set the building on fire.
[Peter enters the office late in his casual clothes]
Michael Bolton: What the hell's going on, man? I thought you were going to come in here and start shooting.
Peter Gibbons: No. I just came to get my address book. I'm not gonna stay. I've got a phone number, Mike, that I don't wanna lose.
Michael Bolton: What?! Peter, you're in deep shit! You were supposed to come in on Saturday. What were you doing?
Peter Gibbons: Michael, I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything that I thought it could be.
Michael Bolton: Well, I hope you have a better story than that for Lumbergh.
Michael Bolton: You know, you're supposed to be having your interview right now with the consultants.
Peter Gibbons: With who?
Michael Bolton: The consultants. What has gotten into you?
Peter Gibbons: Oh yeah. Right!
Michael Bolton: Wait. Peter, Peter, postpone it man. Tell them you were sick. Make something up.
Peter Gibbons: Ah, no way. I feel great. It's the best day of my life.
[after Peter walks into interview room where the Bob's are]
Bob Slydell: I'm Bob Slydell and this is my associate, Bob Porter.
Peter Gibbons: Oh hi, Bob. Bob.
Bob Slydell: Why don't you go ahead and grab a seat and join us for a minute?
Bob Slydell: You see, what we're actually trying to do here is, we're just, we're trying to get a feel for how people spend their day at work. So, if you would, would you walk us through a typical day for you?
Peter Gibbons: Yeah.
Bob Slydell: Great.
Peter Gibbons: Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late. Uh, I use the side door, that way Lumbergh can't see me. And, uh, after that I just sorta space out for about an hour.
Bob Porter: Da-uh? Space out?
Peter Gibbons: Yeah, I just stare at my desk but it looks like I'm working. I do that for uh, probably another hour after lunch, too. I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.
Bob Slydell: Uh, Peter, would you be a good sport and indulge us and just tell us a little more?
Peter Gibbons: Oh, yeah. Let me tell you something about TPS reports.
Peter Gibbons: The thing is, Bob, it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care.
Bob Porter: Don't...don't care?
Peter Gibbons: It's a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime, so where's the motivation? And here's something else, Bob. I have eight different bosses right now.
Bob Slydell: I beg your pardon?
Peter Gibbons: Eight bosses.
Bob Slydell: Eight?
Peter Gibbons: Eight, Bob. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That's my only real motivation is not to be hassled, that and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.
Bob Slydell: Would you bear with me for just a second, please?
Peter Gibbons: Okay.
Bob Slydell: What if, and believe me this is a hypothetical, but what if you were offered some kind of a stock option equity sharing program. Would that do anything for you?
Peter Gibbons: I don't know, I guess. Listen, I'm gonna go. Uh, it's been really nice talking to both of you guys.
[he shakes their hands]
Bob Slydell: Absolutely, the pleasure's all on this side of the table, trust me.
Peter Gibbons: Good luck with your layoffs, all right? I hope your firings go really well.
Bob Porter: Excellent.
Bob Slydell: Great...wow!
Stan: We need to talk about your flair.
Joanna: Really? I...I have fifteen pieces on. I, uh...
[she shows him her flair buttons]
Stan: Well, okay. Fifteen is the minimum, okay?
Joanna: Okay.
Stan: Now, you know it's up to you whether or not you want to just do the bare minimum. Or uh...well, like Brian, for example, has thirty seven pieces of flair, okay. And a terrific smile.
Joanna: Okay. So you...you want me to wear more?
Stan: Look. Joanna.
Joanna: Yeah.
Stan: People can get a cheeseburger anywhere, okay? They come to Chotchkie's for the atmosphere and the attitude. Okay? That's what the flair's about. It's about fun.
Joanna: Yeah. Okay. So more then, yeah?
Stan: Look, we want you to express yourself, okay? Now if you feel that the bare minimum is enough, then okay. But some people choose to wear more and we encourage that, okay? You do want to express yourself, don't you?
Joanna: Yeah. Yeah.
Stan: Okay. Great. Great. That's all I ask.
Joanna: Okay.
[she walks away]
[telling Lumbergh who's going to be fired]
Bob Slydell: Right, so there's three more people we can easily lose, and then there's Tom Smykowski. He's useless. Gone.
Dom Portwood: Sounds good to me.
Bob Slydell: Here's a peculiar...uh...Milton Waddams
Dom Portwood: Who's he?
Dom Portwood: Oh, yeah.
Bob Slydell: Yeah, we...we can't actually find a record of him being a current employee here.
Bob Porter: I looked into it more deeply and I found that apparently what happened is that he was laid off five years ago and no one ever told him about it. But through some kind of glitch in the payroll department, he still gets a paycheck.
Bob Slydell: So we just went ahead and fixed the glitch.
Bill Lumbergh: Great.
Dom Portwood: So, uh, Milton has been let go?
Bob Slydell: Well, just a second there, professor. We, uh, we fixed the glitch. So he won't be receiving a paycheck anymore, so it'll just work itself out naturally.
Bob Porter: We always like to avoid confrontation whenever possible. Problem is solved from your end.
Bob Slydell: I'd like to move us right along to a Peter Gibbons. Now we had a chance to meet this young man, and boy that's just a straight shooter with upper management written all over him.
Bill Lumbergh: Ooh, yeah. Um, I'm going to have to go ahead and sort of disagree with you there. Yeah. Uh, he's been real flaky lately and I'm just not sure that he's the caliber person that we would want for upper management. He's also been having some problems with his TPS reports.
Bob Porter: [to Bob] I'll handle this.
Bob Porter: [to Lumbergh] We feel that the problem isn't with Peter.
Bob Slydell: [shaking his head] Uh-um.
Bob Porter: It's that you haven't challenged him enough to get him really motivated.
Bob Slydell: There it is.
Bill Lumbergh: Yeah. Uh, well I'm just not sure about that right now.
Bob Porter: Yeah, Bill, let me ask you a real quick question here. How much time would you say you spend each week dealing with these TPS reports?
Bill Lumbergh: Yeah...
[Peter in casual clothes is sitting at his cubicle with only one wallesk, munching chips and playing computer game]
Bill Lumbergh: So, Peter, what's happening? Aahh, now, are you going to go ahead and have those TPS reports for us this afternoon?
Peter Gibbons:
No.Bill Lumbergh: Uh. Yeah. So I guess we should probably go ahead and have a little talk. Hmm?
Peter Gibbons: Not right now, Lumbergh, I'm...I'm kinda busy. In fact, look, I'm gonna have to ask you to go ahead and come back another time. I got a meeting with the Bobs in a couple of minutes.
Bill Lumbergh: Uh, I wasn't aware of a meeting with them.
Peter Gibbons: Yeah, they called me at home.
[Peter walks away]
Bill Lumbergh: That sounds good, Peter. And uh, we'll go ahead and get this all
fixed up for you. Great.
Bill Lumbergh: Hi, Milton. What's happening?
Milton Waddams: I, I, I, I, I didn't receive my paycheck this week.
Bill Lumbergh: Um, you're gonna have to talk to Payroll about that.
Milton Waddams: I did and, and they said...
Bill Lumbergh: Milt, we're gonna need to go ahead and move you downstairs into Storage B.
Milton Waddams: No...I...I...
Bill Lumbergh: Uh, we have some new people coming in and we need all the space we can
get.
Milton Waddams: No...no, I was told, if, no...no...but there's no space...
Bill Lumbergh: So if you could just go ahead and pack up your stuff and move it down there, that would be terrific. Okay?
[he walks away]
Milton Waddams: Uh, excuse me. I believe you have my staple?
Bob Porter: Looks like you've been missing a lot of work lately.
Peter Gibbons: I wouldn't say I've been missing it, Bob.
[they all start laughing]
Bob Slydell: I...I'm sure you...you've, you've heard some of the rumors circulating around the hallways about how we're going to be doing a little 'housecleaning' with some of the software people.
Peter Gibbons: Well, Bob, I have heard that and you gotta do what you gotta do.
Bob Porter: We're gonna be getting rid of these people here. Uh, first, Mr. Samir Nagahe... Bob Slydell: Naga...
Bob Porter: Naga...Not gonna work here anymore, anyway!
[the Bobs laugh]
Bob Slydell: And Mr. Mike Bolton. Who's gonna miss him?
Peter Gibbons: You're gonna layoff Samir and Michael?
Bob Porter: Oh, yeah. We're gonna bring in some uh, entry level graduates for us to work in Singapore, that's the usual deal.
Bob Slydell: Well, it's standard operating procedure.
Peter Gibbons: Do they know about this yet?
Bob Slydell: No! No, of course not. We find it's always better to fire people on a Friday. Studies have statistically shown that there's less chance of an incident if you do it at the end of the week. Anyway, Peter, what we would like to do is put you into a position to have as many as four people working right underneath you.
Bob Porter: This is a big promotion, Pete.
Bob Slydell: It's huge.
Peter Gibbons: So you guys are gonna fire Mike and Samir, and you're gonna give me more money?
[both Bob's nod]
Peter Gibbons: Wow!
[after Peter's just been told by the Bob's that Michael and Samir are to be layed off]
Peter Gibbons: Michael, there comes a point in a man's life and maybe that time for you is
now, when it doesn't hurt to start think about the future.
Michael Bolton: Uh, no offense, there, Peter, but speak for yourself there, sport. I'm not the one who's been flaking out at work. I know you had this religious experience or whatever the hell that was, but you better snap out of it and get your shit together or you're gonna get canned.
Peter Gibbons: Listen, that virus you're always talking about. Like the one that could uh, rip off the company for a bunch of money.
Michael Bolton: Yeah? What about it?
Michael Bolton: It's pretty brilliant. What it does is every time there's a bank transaction where interest is computed, you know, thousands a day, the computer ends up with these fractions of a cent, which it usually rounds off. What this does is it takes those remainders and puts it into an account.
Peter Gibbons: This sounds familiar.
Michael Bolton: Yeah. They did it in Superman III.
Peter Gibbons: Right
Michael Bolton: Yeah. Not a great movie actually. And then there were a bunch of hackers that did this in the 70's as well. One of them got busted.
Peter Gibbons: Well, so they check for this now?
Michael Bolton: No, here's the thing. Initech's so backed up with all the software we're updating for the year 2000, they'd never notice.
Peter Gibbons: You're right. And even if they wanted to, they couldn't check all that code.
Michael Bolton: Thumbs up their asses. Thumbs up their asses.
Peter Gibbons: So, Michael, what's to stop you from doing this?
Michael Bolton: It's not worth the risk. I got a good job.
Peter Gibbons: What if you didn't have a good job?
[after finding out that they are to be layed off]
Michael Bolton: Cockos! Samir and I are the best programmers they got at that place. And you, you haven't been showing up and you get to keep your job.
Peter Gibbons: Actually, I'm being promoted.
Michael Bolton: What?!
Peter Gibbons: I know, Michael. It's completely unfair. And I realized something today. It's not just about me and my dream of doing nothing. It's about all of us together. I don't know what happened to me at that hypnotherapist and, I don't know, maybe it was just shock and it's wearing off now, but when I saw that fat man keel over and die, Michael, we don't have a lot of time on this earth! We weren't meant to spend it this way. Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about about mission statements.
Michael Bolton: I told those fudge-packers I liked Michael Bolton's music.
Peter Gibbons: Oh. That is not right, Michael. For five years now, you've worked your ass
off at Initech, hoping for a promotion or some kind of profit sharing or something. Five years of your mid-twenty's now, gone. And you're gonna go in tomorrow and they're gonna throw you out on the street. You know why? So that Bill Lumbergh's stock will go up a quarter of a point.
Michael Bolton: [angrily] Ahh!
Peter Gibbons: Michael, let's make that stock go down. And let's take enough money out of that place so that we never, ever have to sit in a cubicle ever again. Your software works, right?
Michael Bolton: Of course it works. That's not the point. Look, even if I wanted to, I wouldn't know how to install it. I don't know the credit union software loan well enough, okay?
Peter Gibbons: Yeah. But Samir does
[after Peter's told Samir about his plan of stealing from Initech]
Peter Gibbons: Look, I don't know about you guys, but I'm tired of being pushed around. Aren't you?
Samir: Yes, Peter, but I'm not going to do anything illegal.
Peter Gibbons: Illegal? Samir, this is America! Come on, sit down. Come on! This isn't Riyadh. You know they're not gonna saw your hands off here, all right? The worst they would ever do is they would put you for a couple of months into a white-collar, minimum-security resort! Shit, we should be so lucky! Do you know, they have conjugal visits there?
Samir: Really?
Peter Gibbons: Yes.
Michael Bolton: Shit. I'm a free man and I haven't had a conjugal visit in six months.
[trying to decide if he should go along with Peter's plan of stealing from Initech]
Peter Gibbons: Samir, you came here looking for a land of opportunity. And this is the knock of that opportunity. Tomorrow's your last day at Initech. You have two options; unemployment or early retirement. What's it gonna be?
Samir: I have a question.
Peter Gibbons: Yes?
Samir: In...in these conjugal visits, you can have sex with women?
Peter Gibbons: Yep, you sure can.
Samir: Okay, I'll do it.
Peter Gibbons: That's what I'm talking about! I'm talking about America!
[referring to their plan to steal from Initech]
Peter Gibbons: But listen, before we go any further, all right, we have to swear to God, Allah, that nobody knows about this but us, all right? No family members, no girlfriends, nobody.
Samir: Of course.
Michael Bolton: Agreed.
[from the next apartment through the wall]
Lawrence: Don't worry, man. I won't tell anyone either.
Michael Bolton: Who the fuck is that?
Peter Gibbons: No, don't worry about him. He's cool. All right.
[Drew's just told Peter, Samir and Michael the story of Tom getting laid off and his botched suicide attempt and getting hit by a drunk driver]
Peter Gibbons: Is he okay?
Drew: Sort of. He broke both his wrists, legs, a couple of ribs, his back. But check it out. He's gonna get a huge settlement out of this. Like seven figures. He's getting out of the hospital tomorrow and he's gonna throw a big party this weekend to celebrate. We're all invited. I'm thinking I might take that new chick from Logistics. If things go well I might be showing her my O face. "Oh...Oh...Oh!" You know what I'm talkin' about. "Oh!" Yeah. Right. See you guys there.
Michael Bolton: Wow, our last day at
Initech.Samir: I can't believe they had security escort us out. Not like we're going to steal something.
Peter Gibbons: I stole something.
Michael Bolton: Oh, yeah. I guess we all did.
Peter Gibbons: No, I stole something else.
Samir: What did you steal?
Peter Gibbons: We'll call it a going away present.
[cut to them in a field taking turns to bashing the printer from their office to pieces]
[leaving Peter's apartment after they've been dancing and drinking]
Samir: [rapping] Back up in your ass with the resurrection...
[trying to explain their plan of stealing from Initech]
Peter Gibbons: All right, so when the sub routine compounds the interest, right, it uses all these extra decimal places that just get rounded off. So we simplified the whole thing, we just, we round them all down and just drop the remainder into an account that we opened.
Joanna: [confused] So you're stealing?
Peter Gibbons: Uh, no. No, you don't understand. Uh, it's very complicated. It's uh...it...it's aggregate, so I'm talking about fractions of a penny here. And uh, over time they add up to a lot.
Joanna: Oh, okay. So you're gonna be making a lot of money, right?
Peter Gibbons: Yeah.
Joanna: Right. It's not yours?
Peter Gibbons: Uh, well it becomes ours.
Joanna: How is that not stealing?
Peter Gibbons: I don't uh...I don't think I'm explaining this very well.
Joanna: Okay.
Peter Gibbons: Um...the 7-Eleven, right? You take a penny from the tray?
Joanna: From the cripple children?
Peter Gibbons: No, that's the jar. I'm talking about the tray. The....the...you know the pennies that are for everybody?
Joanna: Oh, for everybody.
Peter Gibbons: Yeah. Well those are whole pennies.
Joanna: Right.
Peter Gibbons: All right? I'm just talking about fractions of a penny here, okay? But we do it from a much bigger tray and we do it a couple a million times. So, what's wrong with that?
[after Peter's explained about how he took money from Initech]
Joanna: I dunno, it just seems wrong.
Peter Gibbons: It's not wrong! Initech is wrong. Initech is an evil corporation, all right? Chotchkie's is wrong. Doesn't it bother you that you have to get up in the morning and you have to put on a bunch of pieces of flair?
Joanna: Yeah, but I'm not about to go in and start taking money from the register.
Peter Gibbons: Well, maybe you should. You know, the Nazis had pieces of flair they made the Jews wear.
Joanna: What?!
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Total
Quotes: 89
