Occupational hazards at 'The Office'

Bruce Emond, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Offices are often compared to families, but that's usually from the detached viewpoint of those "consultants" who don't actually have to tiptoe through the mine field of badly bruised egos, seething ambition, the disgruntled and downtrodden, plus the (mis) managers for whom taking care of business means looking after number one.

But then aren't all families dysfunctional in one way or another?

That is the enticing premise behind The Office, the hit BBC TV series that shows that the storms in (and over) a teacup at a small paper merchant office outside London are very similar to those played out in workplaces from Jakarta to Johannesburg, New York to Nairobi.

It's a minor Waterloo, where two grown men can almost come to blows over the ownership of a stapler, and a receptionist face dismissal over the "theft" of Post-Its. Done in pseudo- documentary style, it is searingly funny, with office manager David (Rick Gervais, also the co-creator of the show), despite professing to be up on the PC requirements of today's world, providing some jaw-dropping clunkers of supreme self-interest.

In the ad running for the debut of the series on Star World next week, for example, Dave tells a stunned staff that layoffs may be in their futures, but quickly adds that he is up for a promotion.

"Every cloud has a silver ..., " he adds, to their deafening silence.

"It's about the pomposity of people, the unrequited love of people and the overblown ambitions of people," said Martin Freeman, who plays Tim Canterbury, a man who knows he should head to bigger and better things but cannot get the gumption to move on, in a phone interview from his London home.

"I think it's very funny."

Tim is entangled in a cold war with colleague Gareth, divided by their own Berlin Wall of files and papers stacked between their cubicle, and secretly carries a torch for receptionist Dawn.

Can we say the L word?

Freeman does not agree, arguing that Martin is "the main person the audience identifies with".

"He's about thwarted ambitions; he probably should have moved on but that's the way of a lot of human beings. The opportunities came along but he hasn't taken them ... But I think he's the least of the losers (among the characters)."

Freeman said he was not surprised by the success of the show around the world.

"So much of the world works in the office, and everybody works with people they consider a pr***. The stuff that it covers, the setting is not off-putting (to people from other countries), but we've made something that pleases us, there are a lot of good things, and when something is made to please you, it pleases a lot more people than just you."

Freeman, whose acting credits include the movie Love, Actually, went out for the role as "just another audition ..." But he was impressed by the talent of Gervaise, and calls his time with The Office "one of those lucky experiences, we got along personally and professionally. We had a genuinely fantastic time".

After two series, The Office is no more, but lives on in rerun heaven. But Freeman said the series had run its course, and he was not interested in a Friends-style marathon engagement.

"Why spoil a good thing? It's always best to quit when you're ahead."

The Office will be shown on Star World beginning on Saturday, Sept. 4, at 9:30 p.m.