22 Details Hidden In “The Office” That Many People Didn’t Notice

It’s been seven years since the workplace mockumentary series finale aired on screens. We are 15 years after The Office debuted, but surprisingly or not, it has managed to stay as relevant as ever. In fact, The Wall Street Journal reported that almost 3 percent of total Netflix user minutes last year were spent watching episodes of The Office. Three percent of total minutes spent watching TV on Netflix makes 52 billion minutes.

Somehow, The Office has only grown in popularity since it left the air in 2013, boosted by Netflix. No wonder people on Twitter went into a frenzy when NBC announced it would be pulling The Office from Netflix service in 2021. Once the series leaves Netflix, it will become exclusively available on the NBCUniversal streaming service Peacock.

And while Friends or The Simpsons offer us some form of escapism, a comfortable shelter where we can leave our daily dreads behind, The Office remains as real as the office you just spent your day in. Thus, the phenomenon of its enduring popularity is rather different from its sitcom counterparts.

The film critic Emily VanDerWerff suggests that “the series features a kind of social realism largely missing from more current notions about the importance of 'meaningful' work.” As we are under so much pressure to invest ourselves in meaningful jobs, hobbies, and lifestyles, The Office doesn’t ask any of that.

“The Office is a little gray and drab, a little like being devoured whole by a week of Mondays. It takes place in a world where you wear a tie to work, drive every day to a dull office park, where the closest thing to excitement is playing a prank on a coworker,” explains Emily.

As a result, “this contrast makes The Office feel like it takes place in a weirdly bygone era, where our lives are not our jobs and our jobs are not our passion.” And this is something most of us have learned to carefully disguise.

Just think about it. What if we love The Office because it soothes our anxieties, not making us feel guilty because we don’t love and don’t care about our jobs and routines as much as we’d like to?