Office Space (1999)

John C. McGinley: Bob Slydell

Photos 

Quotes 

• Peter Gibbons : The thing is, Bob, it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care.

  Bob Porter : Don't... don't care?

  Peter Gibbons : It's a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime, so where's the motivation? And here's something else, Bob: I have eight different bosses right now.

  Bob Slydell : I beg your pardon?

  Peter Gibbons : Eight bosses.

  Bob Slydell : Eight?

  Peter Gibbons : Eight, Bob. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That's my only real motivation is not to be hassled, that and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.

• Bob Slydell : You see, what we're actually trying to do here is, we're trying to get a feel for how people spend their day at work... so, if you would, would you walk us through a typical day, for you?

  Peter Gibbons : Yeah.

  Bob Slydell : Great.

  Peter Gibbons : Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late, ah, I use the side door - that way Lumbergh can't see me, heh heh - and, uh, after that I just sorta space out for about an hour.

  Bob Porter : Da-uh? Space out?

  Peter Gibbons : Yeah, I just stare at my desk; but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch, too. I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.

• Bob Slydell : Milton Waddams.

  Dom Portwood : Who's he?

  Bob Porter : You know, squirrely looking guy, mumbles a lot.

  Dom Portwood : Oh, yeah.

  Bob Slydell : Yeah, we can't actually find a record of him being a current employee here.

  Bob Porter : I looked into it more deeply and I found that apparently what happened is that he was laid off five years ago and no one ever told him about it; but through some kind of glitch in the payroll department, he still gets a paycheck.

  Bob Slydell : So we just went ahead and fixed the glitch.

  Bill Lumbergh : Great.

  Dom Portwood : So, uh, Milton has been let go?

  Bob Slydell : Well, just a second there, professor. We, uh, we fixed the *glitch*. So he won't be receiving a paycheck anymore, so it'll just work itself out naturally.

  Bob Porter : We always like to avoid confrontation, whenever possible. Problem is solved from your end.

• Peter Gibbons : You're gonna lay off Samir and Michael?

  Bob Slydell : Oh yeah, we're gonna bring in some entry-level graduates, farm some work out to Singapore, that's the usual deal.

  Bob Porter : Standard operating procedure.

  Peter Gibbons : Do they know this yet?

  Bob Slydell : No. No, of course not. We find it's always better to fire people on a Friday. Studies have statistically shown that there's less chance of an incident if you do it at the end of the week.

• Bob Slydell : Would you bear with me for just a second, please?

  Peter Gibbons : OK.

  Bob Slydell : What if - and believe me this is a hypothetical - but what if you were offered some kind of a stock option equity sharing program. Would that do anything for you?

  Peter Gibbons : I don't know, I guess. Listen, I'm gonna go. It's been really nice talking to both of you guys.

  Bob Slydell : Absolutely, the pleasure's all on this side of the table, trust me.

  Peter Gibbons : Good luck with your layoffs, all right? I hope your firings go really well.

  Bob Porter : Excellent.

  Bob Slydell : Great... Wow.

• Bob Slydell : I'd like to move us right along to a Peter Gibbons. Now we had a chance to meet this young man, and boy that's just a straight shooter with upper management written all over him.

• Bob Slydell : I'll be honest with you, I love his music. I do. I'm a Michael Bolton fan. For my money, I don't know if it gets any better than when he sings "When a Man Loves a Woman".

• Bob Slydell : [telling Lumbergh who's going to be fired]  There's two more people we can easily lose, and then there's Tom Smykowski... He's useless.

  [laughs] 

  Bob Slydell : Gone.

• Bob Slydell : What you do at Initech is you take the specifications from the customer and bring them down to the software engineers?

  Tom Smykowski : Yes, yes that's right.

  Bob Porter : Well then I just have to ask why can't the customers take them directly to the software people?

  Tom Smykowski : Well, I'll tell you why, because, engineers are not good at dealing with customers.

  Bob Slydell : So you physically take the specs from the customer?

  Tom Smykowski : Well... No. My secretary does that, or they're faxed.

  Bob Porter : So then you must physically bring them to the software people?

  Tom Smykowski : Well. No. Ah sometimes.

  Bob Slydell : What would you say you do here?