He’d spin the legend into buzz for the company and a big promotion for himself by sanctioning engineering to design a ghost capturing device. Then he’d get the ghost to do daily hauntings at the top of every hour from 8:00 to 5:00, and 11:00 to 5:00 on weekends. People could watch for a modest fee, and then be sent through the merchandise shop on the way out for t-shirts, mugs, and ugly statues of the ghost.
Sure, a few people might die in the process if the ghost gets too close and zaps them with his sparking fingers, but there’s always costs in doing business. That’s why a disclaimer is posted at the door before entering. There would also be stern warnings about no salt, iron and lighters or matches being allowed, but not enough to tip off the visitors as to why.
Tech Support
Tech Support becomes the seventh circle of Hell with bright yellow shirts, khaki pants and cubes the size of cardboard boxes. Instantly there’s one similarity to Star Trek. The majority of the ghost’s victims were the “yellow shirts,” much like the Star Trek “red shirts.” I’m going to have to call each obvious victim of the week a yellow shirt now. Sam fits the devious pattern of someone from tech support by hacking into the emails. “I used some skills that I happen to have to satisfy my curiosity.” All good techies know how to bullshit their way out of a jam.
The cube setting is dead on. They’re getting smaller all the time. Did you know that cubes were intentionally designed to trigger daydreaming? Those bland canvas walls, frosted glass and small particle board slats mimicking a real desk had to be presented as boring as possible. The genius who created them in secret loved The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty and American Splendor and wanted to set off his own dastardly plot to unravel the business world by crushing people’s will to live. Managers haven’t realized (or cared) that they’ve been had all these years, for they only saw the cost savings in office space and not that they’ve put employee productivity and morale into the toilet. Yep, this evil genius has conquered.
In the real world of Tech Support, I wouldn’t be looking for missing files late into the night by running a disk scan at the DOS prompt, plus I’d call IT for a monitor replacement if my screen was white with black lettering at a command prompt. If he has to look on the network, most company servers run on Unix or Linux, so he should be at one of those prompts. BTW, here’s a little fun with Linux for those geeks out there who love Supernatural.
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