Is your office like "The Office"?

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have things happened that mirror events in the programme? do you work with anybody who resembles one of the characters in any way?

― MarkH (MarkH), Friday, 5 September 2003 08:46 (twenty-two years ago)

I do actually work with someone who built a wall to shield themselves from the annoying behaviour of the person sitting opposite them! Admittedly it was made of very flimsy cardboard, rather than box files.

― MarkH (MarkH), Friday, 5 September 2003 08:49 (twenty-two years ago)

If anything the only televisual workplace mine resembles is Carrie Bradshaw's from Sex in The City (lone female, smoking in bedroom with computer, wearing clothes she slept in), however I would like to point out that there is none of the attendant glamour, money, whineyness or use of the font Arial.

― Anna (Anna), Friday, 5 September 2003 08:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Good to hear that, Anna. About Arial I mean.

― Alan (Alan), Friday, 5 September 2003 08:59 (twenty-two years ago)

(I loved the squahing arial game you linked to Alan. For the record I usually type in 12 point new york., if anyone actually cares.)

― Anna (Anna), Friday, 5 September 2003 09:01 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't appear to have that font on my pc Anna.

― MarkH (MarkH), Friday, 5 September 2003 09:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Maybe it's a mac thing?

― Anna (Anna), Friday, 5 September 2003 09:07 (twenty-two years ago)

I think it must be, like Geneva. Which lateral thinking leads me to assume is the same or similar to Helvetica.

― MarkH (MarkH), Friday, 5 September 2003 09:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Detailed discussions of font choice should have appeared in an episode of The Office.

― Anna (Anna), Friday, 5 September 2003 09:15 (twenty-two years ago)

I do David Brent's dance sometimes... Otherwise, no.

― Archel (Archel), Friday, 5 September 2003 09:20 (twenty-two years ago)

that I have *got* to see!

― MarkH (MarkH), Friday, 5 September 2003 09:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Actually tb perfectly h I have never done that. Not at work, anyway.

― Archel (Archel), Friday, 5 September 2003 09:23 (twenty-two years ago)

I am think I am Tim but really I am Gareth (not OUR Gareth obviously)

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 5 September 2003 09:47 (twenty-two years ago)

the office I used to work in was like Attachments!

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 5 September 2003 09:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Ah, Attachments... memories of seethru.co.uk come flooding back. It was run by two ex-Your Sinclair people IIRC (one was def. David McCandless) and was meant to mirror the goings on in the actual Attachments series. Like when one of the programmer characters accidentally deleted loads of files on a server (or something) in the show, half the site disappeared, and was then replaced with an apology mentioning "our gaylord programmer".

― Chriddof (Chriddof), Friday, 5 September 2003 10:24 (twenty-two years ago)

"City" named fonts are indeed old mac specific cheapo versions of basic fonts. New York = Times (DO YOU SEE), geneva = Helvetica (as mark already pointed out DO YOU SEE), Monaco = monospaced,

Chicago was the lovely old bit-map system font, you still see it used to indicate "computer" by particularly low-rent designers. Not sure why it's called Chicago - might have been an early code name for the MacOS.

http://image1.myfonts.com/image1/textimage/e1/e1d99a4849ea181ba2372c29f4aff87d.png

There was also Cairo (dingbat things), Athens (slab-serif), London (Old English/blackface), SanFrancisco (whacky font that blighted cheap DTP in the 80s), Venice (handwriting sort of) and Los Angeles (printed handwriting).

― Alan (Alan), Friday, 5 September 2003 12:20 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought that Arial was the Windows copy of the Mac Helvetica (though I know you get cross-pollination these days)

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 5 September 2003 12:47 (twenty-two years ago)

No, Helvetica was around many years before the Mac was invented. I vaguely remember it was originally commissioned by SBB, or some other Swiss transport-related organisation.

― caitlin (caitlin), Friday, 5 September 2003 12:55 (twenty-two years ago)

as I understand it Helvetica was designed for the print-era and Geneva was it's more mordern, VDU-friendly adaptation. Geneva seems to look better on screen than both Helvetica AND Arial.

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 5 September 2003 12:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Well I have Trebuchet as my screen font. I think it's nice.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 5 September 2003 13:01 (twenty-two years ago)

I use Gill Sans where it matters.

― Ricardo (RickyT), Friday, 5 September 2003 13:05 (twenty-two years ago)

i've gone off Trebuchet, but it seems this is Freaky Trigger's preset blog font now?

Gill Sans = similar to Johnston which is the London Underground typeface thus classic, but why are we talking typography on a thread about The Office?

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 5 September 2003 13:20 (twenty-two years ago)

(On a typographic tangent - is there any chance the longer articles on FT could be set in book rather than bold? And ranged left rather than fully justified? I find the current style makes lengthy articles a bit tiring on the eye. [I know people are able to set their own text styles in their browser options - but in my experience they don't])

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Friday, 5 September 2003 13:25 (twenty-two years ago)

(Whoops - ignore me - it looks like the boldness was a quirk of Opera)

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Friday, 5 September 2003 13:28 (twenty-two years ago)

yes a bit. today someone made a joke which was so bad (and lewd) that I didn't get it. I'm not a prude or anything it was just er......

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 5 September 2003 13:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Font trivia I always forget: whether the LU font is Johnston or Johnson. LU's current font is called Johnston New, I think; I like the diamond-shaped dots on the i's.

Gill Sans was also commissioned for a railway, incidentally: the London and North Eastern. After 1948, it was British Railways' house typeface until they changed their name to British Rail in the mid 60s.

― caitlin (caitlin), Friday, 5 September 2003 13:32 (twenty-two years ago)

You can buy the Johnston LU set for $23.95, which seems quite good.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 5 September 2003 13:51 (twenty-two years ago)

What's a font?

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Friday, 5 September 2003 14:00 (twenty-two years ago)

http://www.stmarycathedralsf.org/images/baptismal.jpg

― robster (robster), Friday, 5 September 2003 14:36 (twenty-two years ago)

has anyone ever put someone's stapler in some jelly? i found this practical joke to be quite hilarious

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 5 September 2003 14:41 (twenty-two years ago)

This shouldn't go on this thread, but while we're on the subject of FT, I LOVE the stripey pastel backgrounds especially the blue on Do You See. I want my walls to look like that.

― Archel (Archel), Friday, 5 September 2003 14:42 (twenty-two years ago)

My office is nothing like the office. I find the effect that the "office" has had on the advertising industry very telling.

― jel -- (jel), Friday, 5 September 2003 16:13 (twenty-two years ago)

what effect? what does it tell?

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 5 September 2003 16:44 (twenty-two years ago)

my office isn't like the office, cos i'm the only one in it (receptionist at a vehicle testing station). but one day my boss was telling me that it didn't matter if our christmas function was at a crap restaurant because apparently "the guys wouldn't know good food anyway" - implying of course that working class people aren't v sophisticated. *shudder*

― The Lady Ms Lurex (lucylurex), Friday, 5 September 2003 23:09 (twenty-two years ago)

three years pass...

Yes. Goodbye.

― admrl, Friday, 27 July 2007 21:40 (eighteen years ago)

nine years pass...

who would michael scott have voted for in the 2016 election?

what if he never ended up with holly?

― Treeship, Sunday, 9 July 2017 03:07 (eight years ago)

under holly's influence michael voted for hillary but left to his own devices he voted for trump if the polling place was near the office/people were leaving at lunch to go vote and got caught up and didn't bother if not. oscar voted for hillary and everyone else in the office (not the warehouse) is a potential trump voter

― planks, Sunday, 9 July 2017 06:33 (eight years ago)

one year passes...

when michael is dating pam's mom, her response is ridiculous

― Trϵϵship, Tuesday, 29 January 2019 02:21 (six years ago)

like, i would be disturbed just because he is so dumb, but you can't go on a warpath in the office like that

― Trϵϵship, Tuesday, 29 January 2019 02:22 (six years ago)

― (ADVANCE) (320k vbr) (--V2) (aps) (diVX) (2CD) OST - SB (2019) (esby), Tuesday, 29 January 2019 08:25 (six years ago)

I don't actually work in an office but every time I walk through the offices in my building I think they are exactly like "The Office" - UK version, never seen the US one.

― Wee boats wobble but they don't fall down (Tom D.), Tuesday, 29 January 2019 10:16 (six years ago)

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