When I was in the rat race, one of my favourite TV shows was The Office. The reason for this was that it was an almost perfect documentary record of 
what working life in a large company is like, and apart from a bit of extra cringeworthiness the characters were true to life.
For example, in one episode (the series is being repeated on UK Gold at the moment) Gareth insists on using the speakerphone to conduct all his calls. I sat within spitting distance of a woman in the Buying Department who did exactly this, day in and day out. She’d listen to her voicemail on speakerphone, and she’d dial out repeatedly using it (Buyers spend most of their working hours on the phone) – even when it was obvious no one was going to pick up at the other end.
I recently saw a discussion in a BBC article, where someone was claiming that the British workplace was nothing like The Office. Trust me, they are totally wrong. The Office was an EXACT representation of the British workplace. Perhaps not every individual workplace, but certainly a highly detailed composite picture across all of them. The only reason people try to deny it is that they’ve been inured to it and don’t realise how bad it is – particularly young people, who have no other experiences to draw on.
I was reminded of this again as I watched a new series on BBC3 tonight. It’s called The Call Centre, and I initially registered it because I worked in a call centre for 18 months while I trained to be a driving instructor. Mine was engaged in technical support, whereas the one on this new show is sales oriented, and it only took a few minutes to realise that there was little similarity between this one and the one I worked in as far as the job itself went. However, anyone who believes that The Office was far-fetched really should watch it. It’s hard to believe that it is a real place – if you didn’t know you’d think it was just another fly-on-the-wall spoof documentary.
It’ll be on iPlayer soon, but the live feed announces the show as follows:
Series following staff at a call centre in Swansea. CEO Nev Wilshire plans to improve the performance of admin assistant Kayleigh by finding her a new boyfriend.
You have to read that twice to make sure you saw it right the first time! The CEO in question is the loudest, most irritating bloke you could ever want to meet. He loves yelling, and laughing at his own jokes – just like David Brent in The Office. A “staff night out” was Speed Dating – compered by him, of course. He even warned off a bloke who’d been sniffing around the “Kayleigh” mentioned in the announcement.
It’s one of those reality programmes (like The Apprentice) where all the characters drive you mad – but you have to keep watching.