Office Space Day: Peter Gibbons’ Journey to 2025

February 19 marks the 26th anniversary of Office Space, the cult classic that perfectly captured the absurdity of corporate life in the late '90s. From TPS reports to red staplers, this movie gave us a comedic yet painfully relatable look at the modern workplace. But what if Office Space characters found themselves in 2025? Would they adapt, or would they still be trying to avoid meetings?

In this special Office Space Day blog, we explore how much work and technology have changed—or stayed the same—through the eyes of the movie’s lead character: Peter Gibbons.

Peter Gibbons' Journey to 2025

So, somehow, I woke up in 2025. One minute, I was in my cubicle at Initech, zoning out while Lumbergh droned on about TPS reports. The next, I’m here—where the coffee machines are fancy, people work from anywhere, and nobody seems to be getting hassled about cover sheets. Let me tell you, things have changed.

Printers: The Silent Survivors

I was really hoping printers would be extinct by now. But no, they’re still here. The good news? Nobody prints TPS reports anymore. The bad news? Printers are just as frustrating as ever. They don’t jam as much, but now they “lose connectivity” just to mess with you. And somehow, people still get mad at them. I get it.

Where Did the Fax Machines Go?

Back in 1999, fax machines were these noisy beasts that nobody actually understood. Turns out, they went extinct faster than Y2K panic. Now, people just sign stuff on their phones and email it like it’s no big deal. It’s like faxing, but without the screaming modem noises and paper jams. I approve.

TPS Reports (or Whatever They Call Them Now)

Turns out, even in 2025, bosses still find ways to create pointless busywork. There may not be actual TPS reports, but now it’s a sea of emails, Slack messages, and dashboards. You’re still being asked for “quick updates” that nobody reads, and somehow, meetings are still a thing. Some things never change.

Floppy Disks? Not Even a Save Icon Anymore

In Office Space, tech workers were still dealing with 3.5-inch floppy disks, storing a whopping 1.44 MB per disk. To put that in perspective, a standard 16 GB flash drive today holds the equivalent of over 11 million floppy disks. And even those are becoming outdated with the rise of cloud storage and external SSDs. Fast, reliable storage is no longer a luxury—it’s an expectation.

The Internet Then vs. Now

Initech employees were stuck in a world of dial-up, painfully slow load times, and the ever-dreaded "You’ve got mail!" notification. In 1999, the average commercial internet speed was around 56 Kbps if you were lucky and had a solid dial-up connection. Today, the average commercial broadband speed in the U.S. is over 200 Mbps, with fiber connections easily reaching 1 Gbps or more. That means we can now stream 4K video, download entire movies in seconds, and—most importantly—work from home without dealing with a screeching modem.

What Hasn’t Changed?

While technology has improved and work has become more flexible, some things are still eerily familiar. Middle management still loves pointless meetings, corporate jargon is still out of control, and yes—someone in every office still has an irrational attachment to their favorite desk item (looking at you, Milton).

So, on this Office Space Day, take a moment to appreciate how far we’ve come—and maybe, just maybe, give your printer a break. It’s been through enough.