Once the meeting does happen, after a few more sessions (see above scheduling issues) all tasks are assigned. The next set of “brainstorming” for the proper way to kill the ghost is postponed because half of the team misses their task deadlines. A flurry of text messages and IMs happen, and once everyone pretends to be on the same page, a rough cut of functional requirements are laid out. Those requirements must be reviewed and approved by all team members and their superiors. This takes months, since at least one asshole in product marketing has an issue over how to define the creature being killed. “Ghost” is either too offensive, primitive, or technically wrong. “Ethereal being” has a nicer ring, but there’s just something about it that isn’t right. It’s somewhat insensitive to dead people. Once the functional requirements are laid out, it’s onto technical requirements and…
Oh, screw it. By this time, the ghost has either killed everyone or has let a few jerks live so they could be crushed by living their own Hell of earth. Implementation never happens, for the funding for the project is long cut before that.
Management
Dean’s the perfect middle manager, down to the blue striped shirt with white collar and red suspenders (and a Kinks theme song!). His hair is neatly combed to the side (really disturbing), he eats salads at his desk while working, and drinks lattes. Oh, but there’s a problem! Every man in the workplace I’ve run across listens to ESPN radio in the Prius, not NPR. The guys usually start talking about the game or fantasy football as soon as they get in. Project Runway talk would be reserved for the ladies room.
Dean ends up driving an employee to suicide by diplomatically telling him he filled out a form wrong, and then chases him to the bathroom to make sure he’s okay. Oh, that’s so not real world. If a manager follows, he or she would berate the employee until the employee drives that pencil into his neck or jumps down the elevator shaft since office building windows were sealed years ago because innocent bystanders on the pavement got hurt from all the suicides and it resulted in lawsuits.
I could tell the old guy is an angel the second he walks through the door. Why? He’s so nice and supportive. That’s so not upper management. Also how would a regular middle level manager from Marketing handle a ghost sighting in the bathroom? He wouldn’t call Sam from Tech Support and talk ghost hunting, that’s for sure. No, he’d figure out how to profit from it.
Article comments
1 - J
If he has to look on the network, most company servers run on Unix or Linux
...uh. Clearly you don't live in my neighborhood.
(which would be within spitting distance of Redmond, hence the "...uh.")
2 - Alice Jester
J - lol! You got me there. I forgot the "except those masses of you in the general Redmond area." In the rest of the country, especially those of us that worked for AOL and other Time Warner properties (sworn enemies of Bill Gates), it was Unix.
3 - tash
I think I enjoyed your review as much as I did the episode. Fantastic. I have never worked in a corporate office it sounds hilariously awful, at least it does the way you write about. Great review, great episode.
4 - vichi
lol Alice you made my day! I loved the episode, and you know why? Because I worked in a corporation like that and now I am working in another one, and this one is american :)))
The first one was exactly as in your review, worse than in the Supernatural world, and man, it was a terrible life! Maybe if I had seen this episode before I would have quit sooner!
As for the guys, it was nice to see them so innocent and most of all, admiring the Ghostfacers! LOL, Dean would slap himself for those fine words he said about the Ghostfacers.
Can't wait for the next episode, I think it will be amazing!
5 - Julie
I love the approach you gave to the episode, but I still wonder about the B+... I had a lot of trouble the first few times I watched it, not because of the corporation aspects of it but because I really thought that both brothers would have been there when the moment of "meeting" Zachariah came. This can only mean one thing about Sam and angels: angels don't give a rat's ass about Sam. I think they are gonna regret that decision if something ever does happen to Sam...
You know I'm a fan of yours as always! I was kind of wondering where your review was since I hadn't seen it Monday or Tuesday, but it was worth the wait!
6 - Bevie
I think the angels are discovering that Dean is going to definitely need Sam in order to accomplish his task, and that was why they had Sam be the one to approach Dean in the A/U about ghosts and such.
It was Sam after all who got Dean to start the investigation with him.
So I definitely believe they are beginning to give a rat's ass about Sam after all! Just what I prefer to believe anyway.
Alice, I really do enjoy your reviews. Both yours and Bardicvoice's are really the only ones I enjoy lately. Too much vitriol being spewed in a lot of the others I used to enjoy reading.
7 - Bevie
Forgot to say
After working for decades in corporate cubicles, I really related to the depiction of the office in the episode.
Though, Alice, in my office we could access the internet in any way we liked (as long as the boss wasn't looking though LOL) I would have been able to access the sites that Sam did. We did have rules as to what desk top we were allowed to use though.
Dean Smith really was a nice boss, wasn't he? I wouldn't mind working for him at all!
8 - Alice Jester
Vichi - I can't wait for the next episode either. The Space promo in Canada always gives away more, and this one looks very intriguing.
Julie - I agree, Sam should have been there, if anything in the background, watching all this. There are some great fics on ff.net though that have filled in the blanks.
Bevie - You must work in the best office in the world! Every single employer I've run across over the last few years (I was an IT Consultant) had websense in place.
I would have died laughing if Sam tried to open that article and it was blocked by Websense. Then he could have given a defeated sigh and the mother of all bitchfaces. That would have been pure comedy gold, and the perfect inside joke for those of us that had to endure that same crap. Then they could have shown him looking it up on his lunch break at the library. I know, too much scene chewing. But oh so realistic!
9 - vichi
Alice, I agree with Bevie here, I can acces every site I want and I even can use yahoo messenger! But I can have any desktop I want so my pc has the boys on it and I even have a screensaver with a lot of pictures with the boys and from the show! that's one of the methods I use to convince people to give a chance to the show :)! already made 4 victims and now they are SPN addicted!
10 - Cleopatra
Anyone catch the Smith & Wesson reference? Last names, perfect!!
11 - Julie
Alice - I should check those out then... but before tonight's episode just in case. Thanks for letting me know.
12 - Kate
The impala was on holiday in Hawaii - Dean won't fly so she gets away whenever she can get the chance