Email Surveillance In The Office

In countless episodes of The Office, the show explores the theme of surveillance in the workplace, another issue than many offices encounter. One episode most prevalent to every day life in the office setting was in season two episode 15, titled “Email Surveillance”, where Michael, sarcastic regional manager, abuses the use of email spyware to gather information about the private lives of his employees. Michael finds out the one of the employees, Jim, is throwing a party and that he was literately not invited to because, in Jim’s words, “If he were there, people wouldn’t be able to relax” (“Email Surveillance”). The episode ends with Michael crashing the party. In “Conflict Resolution” (S2E21), Michael takes over conflict resolution duties from Human Resources and chaos arises at Dunder Mifflin. Michael gains access to confidential information about employee

The Office’s “overt meaning of the show is that hegemonic corporate structures are inherently ridiculous, and the only way of surviving is ironic opposition and the fellowship of one’s coworkers: an oppositional retotalization of corporate America’s message” (qtd. in E. Detweiler 740). The Office uses irony as well as the characters ability to adapt to their less than ideal work situation in the end to create a happy and stable life. The Office, due to its lack of glamour, use of comedic relief, and the emphasis on each individual character creates a TV show in which the middle class American with their traditional aspirations in the U.S workplace is someone to be envied. I get a feeling of envy when I watch this show due to the fact that the characters are able to find such happiness and fulfillment in their mundane