The Office: Reality TV, or as close as we can get

It's been a few years since I've owned a TV. After my first year of college, I stowed it away and haven't really bothered setting it up since. And why should I? Most of my favorite shows have been available via bootleg over the Internet for years and newer sites like hulu.com are only making it easier to watch what you want at your leisure with minimal commercial interference. Whenever I do get to flip around on one of those old boxes, I'm reminded why I don't miss them at all: They fill me with a feeling of indescribable hatred.

About 90 percent of this feeling can be ascribed to reality television, which seems to dominate my occasional bouts of channel-surfing. I hate this plague on American culture for many reasons, but if I had to pick one, it would be the genre's failure to depict anything close to reality itself. The worst of these offenders have been shows like The Hills and The City (both spin-offs of the equally carcinogenic Laguna Beach), wherein we follow the lives of brain-dead socialites while they try to make it in the real world.

These shows take place in Los Angeles and New York City, respectively, two of the most competitive and rigorous cities on the planet, and yet the socialites' meticulously designed lives are utterly devoid of serious obstacles. Their time is spent buying anything that glitters and shouting really vapid stuff at each other in dimly lit clubs and restaurants. They've essentially boiled down the difficulties of modern urban living to a lecture on social etiquette. Even more callously, they have completely ignored the reality of life in today's work environment, which is, as we all know, bleak. Something I would watch: an episode on how not to buy a $500 purse the size of my fist and the subtle art of eating lunch out of a dumpster.

So, leave it to a lowly sitcom, The Office, to educate our nation's youth about financial reality and the modern job market. It's an odd rule, but parody often holds more truth than earnest attempts at the depiction of reality. In this respect, The Office is to reality television as The Daily Show is to cable network news.

For most of its existence, The Office has operated in the realm of inconceivable professional behavior. When was the last time you and your male colleagues spent an entire afternoon inspecting the amenities of the women's restroom? When was the last time your business sent its clients a product marked with images of bestiality and didn't go under? It's been a fun ride for the staff at the Scranton, Pa., branch of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company, but the party is over and the realities of being an irresponsibly run small(er) business on the verge of technological irrelevance are knocking at the door.

Currently in its fifth season, sobering references to economic reality are increasing. In one recent episode, Stanley Hudson (Leslie David Baker), a slovenly, irritable fifty-something, describes his retirement plan in the wake of a minor heart attack but realizes that he doesn't have enough to retire and is too old to start working somewhere else. He likens his job to working in his own casket.

The branch manager, Michael Scott (Steve Carell), is a model product of the last two decades of decadent corporate culture in America. Comfortably paid, he is under qualified, devoid of intelligence and ability and responds to these shortcomings with bouts of selfish immaturity. Recently, Michael decided to quit Dunder-Mifflin after 15 years, a choice of which he learns the repercussions in the latest episode, "Two Weeks."

While serving his last two weeks as branch manager, Michael slowly pokes his head out of the office to discover an unforgiving world that he is no longer familiar with. In the reception area, a man eager to interview for Michael's vacant position describes the job market as "brutal." Shaken, Michael begins searching for jobs. One company he calls, Prince Paper, has gone out of business due to Michael's actions in an earlier episode. Undeterred, Michael decides to start his own paper company and invites his soon-to-be-former co-workers along. Each one, in succession, turns him down and gives him another sobering reason not to continue, such as the decline of the industry or lack of a salary. Later, when Michael is lying on the floor panting in desperation, he tells his coworkers, "Hello. I am your future." He asks them, "Who's coming with me?" If you're really into symbolism, it's a heavy moment.

Appropriately, Michael's replacement, at least temporarily, is Charles Miner (Idris Elba), a no-nonsense corporate fascist trained to cut dead weight wherever he sees it. In his presence, heads are kept strictly down at the desk.

But this is American television after all, and The Office has always had a sentimental streak (more like a full-on layer of paint), so we're left with a glimmer of hope. The receptionist, Pam (Jenna Fischer, consider this my marriage proposal), leaves with Michael, and the two saunter off into an uncertain future.

Now, anyone who's ever read an article on global warming knows that the Chinese word for "crisis" stems from a combination of the words "danger" and "opportunity." (Seriously, environmentalists love that fact). Perhaps that is what we have here. Perhaps the cast will leave with them. Perhaps they will begin anew. Perhaps they will learn from their mistakes and succeed. After all, isn't this what we hope for our own world?