Office Space turns 20: How the film changed the way we work
> <i>"Instead of personality-stripping cubicles, organisations would go on to favour open-air office plans...</i>"<p>Absolutely nothing fundamental has changed.  I feel like if "Office Space" were being re-made today, open floor plans would be one of the horrors that it would lampoon.<p>Not so much the open floor plans themselves, mind you.  But rather the surreal absurdism of which they're just an example.  Twenty years ago, we understood that "Hawaiian Shirt Day" was superficially supposed to be a morale booster, but was actually a morale sink in practice.  Today, open floor plans were initially pitched as "collaboration" aids, but most people have to come to realize that they're really about cost savings, and are counter-productive to actually getting focused work done.<p>Most white collar humor comes from shining a cynical spotlight on the disconnect between what business leaders say, and what business workers actually experience.  And the Kafkaesque situation of most people feeling this way, yet us not being able to openly say so in the workplace itself.<p>The superficial examples may change, but that underlying theme is still central to white collar office work.  Perhaps it always will be.