As I was watching yet another uninformative episode of LOST, I began to think how much this show mirrored real life.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized that LOST was really just a metaphor for office life. Take the LOST story and put it in an office setting and see what you get.

A young man loses his job for some reason. At this point it’s not really important, but past is prologue and it will eventually be woven into our story.  He leaves his job (Australia) in search for a new job that will offer him a new beginning. (LAX) Along the way however, the economy crashes into the shitter (Oceanic Flight 815) and he ends up at a company that was never on his career road map. (The Island)

This company has some seriously odd shit going on. There are other business unit managers there (survivors of Oceanic 815) who seem to have a mix-bag of history and personal problems.  Ultimately most of the management team is trying to get out of the company, but some have reasons for wanting to stay.

There’s the slightly retarded manager of PR, who in any other company would be considered incapable of performing most of the tasks required of him. But because of the “uniqueness” of this company he manages to look like a super star. He knows there’s something about the company that gives him a stronger sense of purpose that he wouldn’t have in the real world. He tries his best to show everyone the light. (Locke)

Then there’s the manager of sales. He’s a mysterious fellow that tries to keep to himself. He’s sort of a lone wolf and looks at the rest of the management team simply as tools to get what he needs done. What the rest of the management team doesn’t know, is that half of his resume is bullshit. Not only is his MBA from a mail order facility in Tuskegee Ohio, but most of his work history references were calls to his high school football teammates. This guy is a bucket of lies and daddy issues.  (Sawyer)

The cute little number who manages the call center is another shifty one you have to keep your eyes out for. She bats her eyelashes and makes you think that you can save her from herself.  Underneath her cute exterior and her bright smile is a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. She’s constantly on edge and sometimes her behavior seems completely erratic. She’s stuck at the company because she’s got 2 felonies that she didn’t disclose on her application.  Thankfully the company doesn’t do background checks. Her next company might not be so accommodating. She’s better off here.  (Kate)

No team is successful without a leader. As the group begins to gel a leader is selected. The Operations Manager (Jack) assumes the unwanted role.  Despite his own ambitions, he knows that the team working together is far better than if the team works alone. As our new hire learns about the dynamics of his teammates he quickly realizes that getting out of the company is a long term goal. The short term goal is generating revenue to keep the company functioning long enough to make the great escape. (a.k.a Surviving on the island) The management team and their subordinates (those other 32 people on the island that tend to change season to season) begin to work together to keep the company solvent. But as they begin to explore their options on what the company has to offer, they run into one of the most dreaded and feared things anyone has ever seen. Office politics. (The smoke monster)

Nobody knows the source of office politics or who controls it. It comes and goes at will, sometimes laying waste to projects or even careers. Whenever the management team sees it showing its ugly head, panic ensues. Everyone runs for cover and if someone falls and is claimed by office politics, it’s generally accepted that there was nothing you could do to save them without throwing away your own career.
As the team tries to find a source for the politics, they stumble upon an unusual group. A group of men and women who seem to have been at the company long before they arrived and knows quite a bit about its inner workings. They’re even aware of the “Office Politics”.  This group is referred to as “Information Technology” or “IT”.  (The Others)

IT is a strange group. They have a single leader that interacts with the management team. He refers to himself as the “Business Liaison”. (Benjamin Linus) The business liaison treats the management team as if they’re children, fearing that too much information might make their heads explode. Instead he talks to them in cryptic phrases and sentences, giving them just enough information to trust him, but not enough to truly make any type of informed decision.  He thrives on having more information than the people he interacts with, pushing them to an end goal that only he can see. While IT says it’s on the side of the business (the survivors), often times their actions seem self-serving and not in the best interest of the management team.

The arrival of the business liaison complicates things for the management team. Now someone else is stepping up to lead them. While some are happy to let the Operations Manager continue to lead, others are pissed off because he fucked up that TPS Report project and Bill from accounting ended up getting fired because of it. (See Jack’s long list of leadership failures)  Internal bickering ensues amongst the management team. Some managers decide to rely heavily on the business liaison for guidance, while others continue to follow the Operations Manager. The split causes conflict amongst people who were friends, but have now been driven apart by their decisions. While they’re friendly when they run into each other in the cafeteria (the Jungle), they still return to their respective camps.

The internal structure of IT is complex.There are many parts to the organization that the management team has seen passing references to.  Database support (The Swan), Web Support (The Looking Glass) and Change Management (The Hydra) just to name a few.  The business liaison knows a lot about the groups, but will only answer your specific questions about them in vague, ass-hat type responses.  Obviously your look of confusion is the only way this guy can sustain an erection. Instead of pressing on and grossing yourself out, you let it slide.

In Part 2 we’ll discuss how people manage to leave the company but then feel compelled to return. We’ll also dive into how the Business Liaison is really just a puppet for the CIO.  (Jacob)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 at 11:17 am and is filed under Random, Television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.