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Erron Jones

Professor Nichols

HNRS 0298/0495: Econ-Coms

3 December 2023

Term Paper: Office Space + Y2K

From the late 1990’s until the turn of the decade, computers, among many different

technological innovations, were being produced at mass quantities in order to maintain the

supply and demand of mostly the United States, along with the rest of the world. One of the

biggest conspiracies of the 1990’s, as well as the 2000’s was Y2K. Leading up to the turn of the

century, computers and other smart technologies were advancing fast, almost too fast for the

general public, resulting in some concern among the masses, and even downright panic in a few

select individuals. In the film Office Space, our main character and his team have jobs at a

software company called Initech. The basic premise of Initech at the present moment of the film

was to update all software and technologies to instead include a four digit year on the calendar,

contrary to the method used before the year 2000, which was to only include the last two digits

of the year, to shorten the code needed. Although this wasn’t the main plot of the movie, it still

shows us the timeframe that the film and Y2K was active in, which was right at the turn of the

century; late 1990s to very early 2000s. This, along with many other problems that “sprouted”

during the early late 1990’s to early 2000’s would cause issues and challenges for software

engineers and technology researchers in technological innovations. This can also relate to the

film Office Space, as Peter Gibbons and his team of software engineers he recruited from Initech,

as they were able to find a place in the company’s network to install a virus that would round off
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fractions of a cent in all transactions into the company and forward it to an anonymous account,

and the company would barely notice. In today’s technological age, pulling off a software crime

like that is near impossible, thanks to the many innovations made over the years. However, at the

time of the film, these technologies were still quite new, and no one had nearly as much

knowledge about software as many software engineers do today.

So, what was Y2K, and more broadly, why was the technological innovation in the

United States and around the world important in the 1990s? Let’s start with Y2K. Y2K, also

known as the “Year 2000 Problem,” was a scare and conspiracy in the 1990s that referred to the

formatting of the numerical calendar data and the dates shown on the computer. Many software

programs only showed two digits for a four digit year. For example, “78” would indicate 1978,

and so on. The scare was about what would happen to that code when the year 2000 rolled

around. Many people speculated and believed that programs would be unable to differentiate

between the years 1900 and 2000 and would ultimately cause infrastructure in the software

industry to go down. In fact, the problem was expected to be so severe that individual companies

determined that the cost of fixing such a problem worldwide would be anywhere from $400

million to $600 billion (Congress, 1998). How did this problem effect the economy? For one,

software companies saw large drops in stock prices, as many speculators’ opinions were being

effected by the ‘millenium bug.’ Those who were especially panicked turned to preparing for the

worst. Handfuls of individuals started to purchase large quantities of drinkable water,

unperishable food, firearms and ammunition, and some even opted to make a “shelter.” The

reason that these people prepared the way they were preparing was because of how they

expected the public to react. If most of the world’s software infrastructure ends up collapsing,

people might start getting at each other’s throats, and the world might even go into an
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apocalyptic-anarchical state (Uenuma, 2019). However, despite all of these scares and

expectations, the final verdict was that nothing seemed to be affected, and companies like Initech

in Office Space worked on updating all of the computers to instead show four digit years. There

were still some errors due to this “Y2K” bug, but only minor issues that were fixed abruptly. One

such example was an electronic sign shown at Ecole centrale de Nantes, which after January 3 rd

showed the date as being “January 3, 1900.” Still, no major repercussions were felt from the

seemingly significant incident. Still, the problem indicated to be one of mass human ingenuity, as

even President Bill Clinton referred to Y2K as “the first challenge of the 21st century successfully

met,” though the comment can be seen as subjectively funny, as Y2K referred to the turn of the

20th century into the 21st century. Though the issue of Y2K seemed abrupt in brief in 1998 and

1999, the problem had been publicized and panic-inducing since 1985, when a certain Usenet

newsgroup posted, specifically Spencer Bolles, about the scare and concern for Y2K (Bolles,

1985). Still Y2K was not seen as completely trivial, as many countries including the United

States forked over a large amount of money to counteract and prevent the issue.

So, why is it important to talk about Y2K? Even though looking back the issue seems

trivial, it had a great impact on the economy, and had a large grip on many newly founded and

young software companies, much like the Initech we see in Office Space. Even though software

was a fairly new resource available to the populace, whole governments, including the United

States was concerned enough to pay software companies in order to prevent the issue. The scare

was big, but with that scare came new economic opportunities after the turn of the century. Y2K

kind of proved that technology and software is something that we should not be afraid of, even

though we might not know much of everything about it. The innovations and ideas used by

engineers during that time are what helped us as a society move forward and push software to a
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whole new level. To this day, software is still being worked on and improved. Even though

stocks for software companies dropped before Y2K, many bounced back afterwards, some did

even more than just bounce back to where they were. Now, software is a large part of every day

life, both within personal lives and the ‘lives’ of companies and businesses that use software. Not

only did stock prices for companies like Microsoft go up, but many companies that did not even

engineer or work on software had stock prices rise, as many people saw the future of software

increasing the efficiency of businesses and how they work, and how it would affect people in

their every day lives.

Here is where Office Space comes into play. Although the movie is not solely about Y2K,

it does have a pretty significant role in the plot. To get back at Initech for firing most of them,

Peter and his team that he employed from Initech developed a virus that would round off the

fractions of a cent displayed on every transaction that went into Initech, and would subsequently

send those fractions of a cent into an anonymous bank account that they have access to.

However, Michael Bolton, played by David Herman, made an error in the code, most likely by

not putting in the correct decimal place. Instead of rounding off the fractions of a cent, they

instead were rounding off whole dollars. While that does not seem like a lot, Initech has millions

of transactions within a day, as they also help banks with transactions of money into accounts.

Within the span of a day, the account built up a little over $300,000, and the team was panicking

for the worst. Their idea was that Initech would be so backed up with work over Y2K, and trying

the prevent the issue over the few years that Initech would not notice the transactions over the

course of a few years. However, due to a minute error, they almost faced dire consequences. Still,

with relating to the broader topic proposed, and how technological innovations affected the

economy as well as how it was reflected in the film, we can see an obvious parallel with the
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printer in Initech’s office. All of the main characters hated the printer; it was slow, it was

inefficient, and unlike software it was not new, and no technological innovations were being

researched into printers. The characters ended up hating the printer so much that right after

developing the virus, they destroyed the printer in a ‘gangster breaks your kneecaps’ kind of way,

both in celebration of their newfound fortune and to get back at the printer. But this exactly

resembles the technological innovations of that time. People as well as companies were obsessed

with finding new technologies and wanted to get rid of the old ones. Cell phones replaced wired

phones, printers replaced fax machines, and so on. People wanted more efficient software to do

tasks faster. The printer in Office Space was not at all fast or efficient, resulting in its untimely

demise. However, just as the movie had also interpreted, the introduction of software and other

technological innovations did not improve quality of job life. Many characters in the movie were

unhappy with the job, no matter what the pay was, and whether or not the movie was funny, that

can reflect what many people feel in office jobs such as those shown in Office Space in real life.

Roughly 60 percent of American workers are satisfied with their jobs, and even less than 60% off

people with office or cubicle working jobs are satisfied with their careers (Zippia, 2023).

Still, in the film Office Space, which was also filmed in 1999, none of the characters were

perceived as extremely paranoid about the potential dangers that Y2K posed, indicating that

many people within the general populace had their doubts about whether Y2K would actually

cause mayhem or not. In fact, in the state of Delaware, the Center for Applied Demography and

Survey Research from the University of Delaware did a survey with the citizens of three different

counties, including Sussex, New Castle, and Kent counties within the state. Overall, the average

consensus was that the Y2K issue would only be a minor problem. 64.1% of people surveyed

stated that the issue would be a “minor problem,” while 18.1% stated that the issue would be “no
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problem.” Even though the majority of people within the state of Delaware interpreted Y2K as

not being a big deal, the remaining 17.8% of people surveyed prepared for the worst. That is still

a pretty significant amount of people among a population (Ratledge, 1999). This shock was felt

throughout both the East and West coast, leaving many people in the Midwest and South kind of

“out of the loop.” This uncertainty was caused by people not being familiar with technology. At

the time, technology like computers and the Internet were still pretty new concepts to many

people. In fact, many school districts around Joplin, Missouri, such as McDonald County and

Neosho did not get WiFi or Internet Access until the late 2000’s. At the time, the Internet had

been available for around 20 years, and there were still places such as these that were unsure or

not educated in the use of technology such as the Internet and computers. Many people in the

survey that assumed the issue was going to be minor or no problem most likely did not

understand technology and its uses, but the general consensus still was that Y2K was not going

to be a large and profound issue. Still, governments around the world spent money to avert the

issue if it was to cause a worldwide anarchy. The United States alone spent $100 billion to $200

billion, and the world in total spent around $400 billion to $600 billion in order to resolve any

potential problems caused by Y2K (Manion and Evan, 2000). One other problem that arrised

from Y2K was the leap year fallacy, in which programmers were worried how the leap year,

which occurred on February 29, would affect programs and digital clock visuals. Though this

issue was minute compared to the potential dangers explored with Y2K, this was also an issue

programmers scrambled to fix shortly after Y2K (Manion and Evan).

Overall, Y2K was an idea that was blown out of proportions, but still brought smart

minds all over the United States and around the world together to fix a potentially huge setback

in human technology. Many researchers who reported that Y2K was massively over publicized,
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they still recognized the fact that human ingenuity and quick thinking was put to the test, and a

test in which the people beat. Although the film Office Space was not focused on Y2K, it still

showed some pretty strong opinions much of the United States. The laid back feelings towards

Y2K showed a sentiment that expressed a feeling of unknowingness, but confidence that the

issue is not as big as people think it is. Films like this helped reassure people that there was

nothing to worry about, and they were right. Not only did it satisfy people’s fears of Y2K, but it

also showed the technological innovations that the United States and also the world were going

through. Many things like fax machines, unfortunately with the exception of printers, were

replaced with better and more efficient technology. The characters’ reactions towards the

inefficient printer within their office expressed this feeling, as the turn of the decade indicated

that many more new technologies would be produced and enjoyed. The company they worked

for, Initech, showed us the corporate hierarchy in many companies, and how that same feeling

that had been held towards upper management and higher chain corporation workers was not the

same feeling that was felt in the 1990s and 1980s. Corporate America was starting to stretch

itself further and further from the general public, and the feelings felt towards corporate America

started to become more negative. The year 2000 signified many things; a time for huge

technological innovation, a problem, and the first big challenge that people were able to face

against at the turn of the millenium. Big changes were coming.

Even though I had already watched Office Space before this assignment, I may have been

a little young to understand many of the economic topics discussed, including Y2K. It was nice

to rewatch the film and analyze the topics and situations in which the characters referred to. Even

though we were unable to watch it for an assignment in class, it was still a fun film to watch, and

very reflective to the two movies we watched for the 1980s and 1990s, which shown a “positive”
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light on corporate America. Office Space did quite the opposite which really showed the opinions

of many people at the turn of the century. The cinematography was quite lacking in many places,

but the characterization within the film was great. Milton’s character had to be up there with my

top ten characters from films of all time. Also liked the cast of characters used in the film.

Although the film used this as an angle to use some raunchy and dark humor, I like to think that

it also signifies the mixing of cultures at the start of the millenium. With the Internet starting to

become a larger-than-life kind of thing, people could meet people they never even dreamed of

meeting before, simply by typing a message and sending it instantly to someone across the

world, or even across town. The possibilities for technological innovations such as these were

limitless! And best of all, the humor within the film reflected a turn in the kind of humor that

would be seen in movies in the years to come. Around the time of this film, films started to

incorporate raunchier and darker humor like Office Space, which is my personal preference in

comedic films. Ironic and dark humor allows people to, in particular circumstances, relate to

other cultures, or even understand cultures more. All within the boundaries of being respectful to

the people around you, of course. Overall, I liked Office Space more now than I did before, as the

humor and topics mentioned I can actually understand better. Is it my favorite comedic film? No,

but it is definitely one that I would recommend to something, especially if they want learn about

Y2k on a basic level, as well as some extra corporate terminology. Great film, and also great

class overall! Learning about economics through the use of films is a fantastic class outline, and I

highly enjoyed everything that I learned in this class!

WORKS CITED

Bolles, Spencer. Computer Bugs in the Year 2000, 18 Jan. 1985,

“Job Satisfaction Statistics by Country [2023].” Zippia, 19 Oct. 2023,

Manion, Mark, and William M. Evan. "The Y2K problem and professional responsibility: a
retrospective analysis." Technology in Society 22.3 (2000): 361-387. Accessed 6 Dec. 2023.

Ratledge, Edward C. The Y2K Problem in Delaware: Public Attitudes and Perceptions. Center for
Applied Demography & Survey Research, 1999. Accessed 6 Dec. 2023.

Uenuma, Francine. “20 Years Later, the Y2K Bug Seems like a Joke. That’s Because Those
behind the Scenes Then Took It Seriously.” Time, Time, 30 Dec. 2019,
time.com/5752129/y2k-bug-history/. Accessed 3 Dec. 2023.

Union Calendar No. 469 - Congress.Gov, www.congress.gov/105/crpt/hrpt827/CRPT-