Bob Goldman
If you want a truly terrifying horror film experience, don’t go to a movie theater. Go to the office.
It’s true! There are more thrills, chills and jump scares in your workplace than in any monster flick. The popcorn is better, too.
It’s the ordinary office location that makes workplace horror so frightening. You don’t expect to see a ghoul emerging from the supply closet or a radioactive swamp creature, sitting next to you at the daily status meeting. But the fiends are there, and trust me, and they’re out to get you.
What follows is a basic taxonomy of the monsters you face every day at work. (If you think you’re safe because you work from home, think again. Workplace monsters, especially from the depths of the HR department, know where you live.)
No. 1: Office Vampires.
Movie vampires drink your blood. Office vampires suck your energy. Office vampires don’t have sharp canine teeth, although, if they’re in sales, they may have flashy veneers. Once an office vampire has you cornered, you are helpless to escape as they drain your spirit with spoilers on TV shows you’ll never enjoy again and videos of wonderful vacations you can’t afford.
Like their bloodthirsty comrades, office vampires can be stopped with a wooden stake through the heart, but if your vampire is a manager, they have no heart, so you’re doomed.
No. 2: Healthy-Eating Xenomorphs.
Xenomorphs are the endoparasitoid extraterrestrial species that stalked the first 50 “Alien” movies. The Xenomorphs’ biological life cycle involves traumatic implantation of “chestbuster” larvae, which erupt from the host’s body after a short incubation period, mature into adulthood within hours and seek out more hosts for implantation.
In the office, it’s fad diets and doubtful health regimes that the Xenomorph implants, like Mark in accounting, who once preached against eating unsaturated fats and now never eats anything but. Or Millie in marketing, who is so pleased with the results of her fermented papaya supplement she now offers free samples of the noxious compound in the breakroom at lunchtime. Don’t even try to say no. Resistance is useless.
No. 3: Friendly Freddy, the Slasher.
Freddy is the affable creature hired by management to clear out the deadwood. Deadwood is anyone Freddy doesn’t like, which is pretty much everyone. Unlike other slashers, Freddie can appear in your dreams, so don’t expect to get much sleep once he arrives. You can make up for it at work until Freddie appears in your inbox.
No. 4: The Invisible Co-Worker.
This shape-shifter is a threat to your career success. Though normal in appearance and enthusiastic in attitude, the moment anything goes wrong with a project, these seemingly ordinary team members can suddenly disappear, leaving you to take the blame.
As experience has no doubt taught you, when a project goes right, they will appear out of nowhere to take the credit.
No. 5: M3GAN from IT.
M3GAN is a typical IT representative, listlessly withholding updates and delaying service calls. Falling asleep at her desk after a morning of deleting requests for help, M3GAN is subjected to a training session for the company’s new artificial intelligence system. Waking up with new powers, the former IT slacker develops an obsession to replace everyone in the company with AI.
Don’t bother trying to explain why a human touch is essential in your job. When M3GAN arrives at your desk to discuss new ways to facilitate your work duties — run.
No. 6: Frankenstein VP.
Created from random parts of modern management philosophy, stitched together in Gucci and Loro Piana, this monster knows all the buzzwords and can speak convincingly about Transformational Leadership Styles, PERK diagrams and Critical Path Methods to improve Employee Engagement.
The result is a scary, if stylish, creature whose superhuman powers are focused 100 percent on ending remote work. Encourage your co-workers to gather in the parking lot to protest. Don’t forget the burning torches. This is the only chance you will have to scare the monster back to their corner office — at the morgue!
No question, working in an office horror movie will fill your workdays with fear and dread. So, after work, why not star in a rom-com, proving love and laughter can conquer all? On weekends, become a superhero in the Marvel Universe — a fighter for truth and justice.
These home movies are Academy Award material and should be enjoyed in IMAX and Dolby Sound — at least, until 9 a.m. Monday morning, when it’s horror movie showtime once again.
Bob Goldman was an advertising executive at a Fortune 500 company. He offers a virtual shoulder to cry on at bob@bgplanning.com.
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