If you haven’t seen “The Office,” Shea Serrano’s essays may convince you to watch it, but that’s about it.
I’ve seen five, maybe six, episodes of “The Office.” It was a show I wasn’t able to get into, and now that it’s off of Netflix, I’m not sure that I’ll ever have the opportunity to give it a second chance.
Knowing my background with one of America’s most popular sitcoms, I can’t say I was all that excited about reading Shea Serrano’s “Conference Room, Five Minutes.” (Is the title a joke about the show? I’ll never know.) Even after starting (and making it halfway through), I still found myself a bit bored with the content.
These “Ten Illustrated Essays About ‘The Office’” may be something of worth to “Office” superfans and stans, but it’s not something worth your time if, like me, you haven’t actually watched the show.
This isn’t to say Serrano’s essays are poorly written or bad altogether. If you’ve seen “The Office” and have a particular affinity for the show, there may be something here for you.
Although I mentioned above that if you haven’t seen “The Office,” there isn’t much for you in Serrano’s essays, I can think of one instance where I’m wrong: if you’ve been wanting to watch the show but either (1) haven’t had the time, (2) haven’t been able to get into it or (3) don’t really understand the hype around it.
As mentioned above, I’ve only seen a few episodes of “The Office,” and honestly, I can’t say I was very entertained. Perhaps this is because I only saw episodes from the first season — which everyone says you have to get past in order to really “get into it.” Perhaps it’s because the show simply does not cater to my type of humor.
I don’t really know. What I do know is that reading “Conference Room, Five Minutes” made me want to watch “The Office.” Despite the show’s failure to impress me, reading about its plot, its characters and its storylines made me want to join the cult.
That being said, a large part of why I wanted to start watching “The Office” after reading Serrano’s essays was simply because I didn’t understand half of what he was talking about. Who are Kelly, Toby and Ryan? Why is Dwight trying to steal Michal’s job? What is this obsession with “Prison Mike”? For an “Office” outsider, I was left either bored, confused or both with much of the ten essays.
Now, before you accuse me of being biased because of my lack of knowledge of the show, I want to defend myself and then share some positive aspects of this piece of literature.
First, I want to say that even though I’ve never watched “The Office,” this is not the sole reason I wasn’t a huge fan of Serrano’s essays — I wasn’t a fan of his style either. I understand these essays were not intended to be taken too seriously, but something about Serrano’s voice was bothersome, obnoxious and cumbersome — a bit like reading the work of a 7th grade boy.
While I appreciate the light-heartedness of this piece, I didn’t really gain anything from it other than the desire to watch the show. Since I don’t have a way to do that (nor is the desire strong enough to make me go out of my way), I decided to watch compilations of cute Jim and Pam moments on Youtube. (Who doesn’t love a good love story?)
Overall, “Conference Room, Five Minutes” is not worth your time unless you’ve actually seen “The Office.” Unless you want to feel left out or are trying to inspire FOMO, go ahead and skip these essays and opt for something you’re more familiar with.
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