'Office Space' Is Favorite Workplace Movie, but 'Nine to Five' Is Aging Well, HR.BLR.com Poll Finds.OLD SAYBROOK, Conn. -- When it comes to workplace movies, "Office Space" is the talk of the water cooler, but "Nine to Five" still has a solid fan base 25 years after its release, according to a recent HR.BLR BLR Belarus BLR Business & Legal Reports BLR Boiler BLR Broad-Line Region BLR Base Lending Rate BLR Binary Language Representation BLR Bintan Lagoon Resort (Indonesia) BLR Bangalore, India - Hindustan .com poll of human resources professionals. Given a list of five workplace-themed movies and asked to select their favorite, the 438 poll participants responded as follows: "Office Space" - 37 percent "Nine to Five" - 30 percent "Working Girl" - 20 percent "Wall Street" - 12 percent "Clockwatchers" - 1 percent "Office Space," is a comedy about company workers who hate their jobs and decide to rebel against their greedy boss. "Like 'Nine to Five,' 'Office Space' was about workers who rebelled against their greedy, soulless soul·less adj. Lacking sensitivity or the capacity for deep feeling. soul  less·ly adv. employer. It
resonates with a lot of disgruntled dis·grun·tle tr.v. dis·grun·tled, dis·grun·tling, dis·grun·tles To make discontented. [dis- + gruntle, to grumble (from Middle English gruntelen; see cubicle dwellers," said Chris Ceplenski, HR.BLR.com editor. "But considering that 'Nine to Five' is almost 20 years older, its popularity suggests that workplaces really haven't come all that far." "Nine to Five," starring Lily Tomlin, Dabney Coleman, Dolly Parton par·ton n. Any of the point particles believed to be a constituent of hadrons, now known as quarks. No longer in technical use. [part(icle) + -on1.] , and Jane Fonda, was remarkably prescient pre·scient adj. 1. Of or relating to prescience. 2. Possessing prescience. [French, from Old French, from Latin praesci about workplace changes. When the movie was released in 1980, female employees were still called "girls" and had a very low glass ceiling. In the film, Violet (Tomlin) toils for a male boss, Mr. Hart (Coleman), whom she had initially trained, but who was promoted over her. Hart makes Violet get his coffee. She watches as a worker is fired for asking to go part-time so she can take care of her children. The overworked, underappreciated workers feel they have no one to complain to. After a series of far-fetched events Violet takes over the office and puts her plan of improvements into practice. The "Nine to Five" of the movie's title becomes a thing of the past as flextime flextime, system of assigning hours for work that permits employees to choose, within specified limits, the hours that they will be at their place of employment. In many companies, there is a "core time" when all employees must be present each workday. becomes the rule. Among other heartwarming heart·warm·ing or heart-warm·ing adj. 1. Causing gladness and pleasure. 2. Eliciting sympathy and tender feelings: a heartwarming tale. Adj. 1. reforms, hiring disabled workers and job sharing get instituted. "Nine to Five" and its workplace implications are explored in an article, "'Nine to Five' Turns 25--What's Changed in the Workplace?" that HR.BLR.com is making available at: http://hr.blr.com/display.cfm/id/17214/source/PRS/effort/83 About BLR Old Saybrook, Conn.-based BLR produces plain-English compliance and training resources for HR, compensation, safety, and environmental managers. For more information, call 800-727-5257 or visit www.BLR.com. |
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