It's time to be a bit more Malcolm

With 6 months of my first office job in the back pocket, it’s safe to say my mental image of office life has changed a good deal. Turning up for my first day at The Customer Closeness Company, I had a lot of expectations about office life with limited experience to back them up. However what I lacked in lived experience, I made up for in plenty of office TV and movie minutes.

The Office (US version, unfortunately) has established itself as a staple in my family. Although very American, I found myself expecting shades of the program’s dysfunctional but warm character.

This side of the pond, The Thick of It has its own distinct brand of dysfunctionality. Watching it on repeat, that series burned itself into the pixels of my uni TV, and with cringe-crinkled eyes through fingers I watched Malcolm Tucker struggle and stress to keep his party above water, throwing anyone under the bus to survive. His colourful language is ingrained in my mind, but thankfully not my vocabulary.

Whilst I was very relieved not to find an “omnishambles” or a crossbow-wielding assistant (to the) regional manager, I was a tad disappointed to find a work ethic which lacked schemes to get out of the office hours early. On the plus side, I’ve seen people supported through slip-ups rather than being subject to an infamous Malcolm-style tirade.

Despite TV fiction not translating fully into my office reality, these characters have some characteristics to learn from, in the same way we might learn from colleagues, mentors, or the polished personalities we see on LinkedIn - often just as carefully constructed as the ones written for television.

I find myself carrying some of the characters with me. In moments where I might be getting unnecessarily stressed, I think to myself ‘be a bit more Stanley’; and when I need some confidence, I think ‘be a bit (but only a bit) more Malcolm’.