“...the night cometh, when no man can work.” (from John 9:4)
I like the NBC sitcom “The Office”. It’s pretty much “must viewing” for me whenever I’m home on Thursday nights. Like virtually all television of today, some of the “situations” are more “suggestive” or “risque” than I’d prefer, as is some (although not much) of the language. The American version of “The Office” is quie tame, however, compared to the original British version which airs at various times on PBS. The humor on “The Office” is very much MY kind of humor. In the same way that “Malcolm in the Middle” was a characature of a dysfunctional mddle-class American family, and the animated “King of the Hill” is a characature of a middle-class family from north Texas; in the exaggerated characters of “The Office” we see glimpses of people we’ve known and worked with. We may even see ourselves.
I know that if you’ve never seen “The Office” I’m going to be hard pressed to explain the show and the characters to you. A few days ago, I found myself thinking about “The Office” as I was straightening up some chairs in a room at our church. The church I pastor is SO small that I end up spending at least two-thirds of the time during my “office hours” all by myself. It was very different many years ago when I was on staff at a large church. There, including the janitor and me, there were 6 full-time employees. I hate to admit that the office dymanics of working there were not all that much different than what you’d see on ,“The Office”, but they weren’t. People are often shocked to find out that working for a Christian orgaination is not very much different than working for a secular business, and in fact it can be worse. The Senior Pastor who was our boss was not very much different from “Michael” on “The Office”. Once, he set off a stink bomb in my office! He would tell outsiders who came to visit that his employees were all one big happy family and everybody loved him. Well, there was SOME truth to that, but we were happiest when he was away on long trips, which as the years went on became more and more frequent. The other Associate Pastor, Denny, was sort of a “Jim”, although he wasn’t flirting with anybody at work- he was happily married. He did have that “Jim” sense of humor, and was quite willing to play the kind of jokes on people that Jim plays on Dwight on “The Office”. The main Secretary, Shirley, was kind of like Angela on “The Office”, but she was older and not QUITE so serious. Even so, Shirely was stuck in her ways theologically and politically and in how she did things, and if you were smart, you just kind of went with that! Another employee was Alice. Alice was heavy-set and an accomplished floutist. She worked as a Secretary and clashed with Shirley all the time. She was kind of a combination of several of the women on “The Office”.
I like to WATCH “The Office” but (although this may offend some people) I’m really glad I work mostly by myself!
I know that if our church ever does grow into a large church, it would eventually mean having a whole staff full of people. I don’t know if I’m quite ready for the “Michael” role!
I like the NBC sitcom “The Office”. It’s pretty much “must viewing” for me whenever I’m home on Thursday nights. Like virtually all television of today, some of the “situations” are more “suggestive” or “risque” than I’d prefer, as is some (although not much) of the language. The American version of “The Office” is quie tame, however, compared to the original British version which airs at various times on PBS. The humor on “The Office” is very much MY kind of humor. In the same way that “Malcolm in the Middle” was a characature of a dysfunctional mddle-class American family, and the animated “King of the Hill” is a characature of a middle-class family from north Texas; in the exaggerated characters of “The Office” we see glimpses of people we’ve known and worked with. We may even see ourselves.
I know that if you’ve never seen “The Office” I’m going to be hard pressed to explain the show and the characters to you. A few days ago, I found myself thinking about “The Office” as I was straightening up some chairs in a room at our church. The church I pastor is SO small that I end up spending at least two-thirds of the time during my “office hours” all by myself. It was very different many years ago when I was on staff at a large church. There, including the janitor and me, there were 6 full-time employees. I hate to admit that the office dymanics of working there were not all that much different than what you’d see on ,“The Office”, but they weren’t. People are often shocked to find out that working for a Christian orgaination is not very much different than working for a secular business, and in fact it can be worse. The Senior Pastor who was our boss was not very much different from “Michael” on “The Office”. Once, he set off a stink bomb in my office! He would tell outsiders who came to visit that his employees were all one big happy family and everybody loved him. Well, there was SOME truth to that, but we were happiest when he was away on long trips, which as the years went on became more and more frequent. The other Associate Pastor, Denny, was sort of a “Jim”, although he wasn’t flirting with anybody at work- he was happily married. He did have that “Jim” sense of humor, and was quite willing to play the kind of jokes on people that Jim plays on Dwight on “The Office”. The main Secretary, Shirley, was kind of like Angela on “The Office”, but she was older and not QUITE so serious. Even so, Shirely was stuck in her ways theologically and politically and in how she did things, and if you were smart, you just kind of went with that! Another employee was Alice. Alice was heavy-set and an accomplished floutist. She worked as a Secretary and clashed with Shirley all the time. She was kind of a combination of several of the women on “The Office”.
I like to WATCH “The Office” but (although this may offend some people) I’m really glad I work mostly by myself!
I know that if our church ever does grow into a large church, it would eventually mean having a whole staff full of people. I don’t know if I’m quite ready for the “Michael” role!
1 comment:
I love that show... Pam and Jim rock.
I like that one where Jim takes stationary from Dwight's stuff and sends him faxes signed "future Dwight" and freaks him out. I can't wait for new episodes.
Post a Comment