Not all workplaces are created equal. A few lucky and intelligent people spend their days in rather enjoyable environments. Most of us are stuck somewhere in the middle. And other unfortunate souls are — seemingly — sentenced to a life of hell on earth. Nowhere is this better portrayed in cinema where the best occupations are too good to be true and the worst are, well, not far off from clocking in as the janitor for Satan himself.
Here are ten of the absolute worst workplace portrayals in film. And no, Office Space does not make the list. It’s too cliched and, honestly, Initech wasn’t quite terrible enough.
Maybe it was the impressionable age that I saw this movie, but Joe Banks’s factory job is what I think when I think “most depressing workplace in cinema history.” Which I guess was the point.
I know this movie was supposed to in some way pay tribute to the restaurant industry, but all it did was depress the hell out of me and make me take a blood oath with myself that I would never be a part of it.
Big box retail in a crappy Texas town? Yup, that makes the list.
For obvious reasons.
Whether it was the completed Death Star or working as an independent contractor on the second version, this was just a terrible gig. If you’re not being berated/killed by your superiors, people are attempting to destroy your workplace. Not. Worth. It.
Everything about the burnt out life after wrestling world is basically hell on earth. The community center signing scene is pretty much a snapshot of one Dante’s circles I’m pretty sure.
Incessantly harassed female coal miner is not a good gig.
Lone trash-sifting robot on an abandoned and ruined Earth? That’s what we call unfortunate circumstances.
Crime scene clean up requires a certain steely disposition.
Really not a bad gig until the dinosaurs start killing everyone.
