What If Working Life Could Actually Be Fun?

What Does The Office Tell Us About Office Work and Successful Companies?

Many of us have seen at least one episode of The Office. Some love it; others can’t watch because of the secondhand embarrassment. Still, the series touches on something surprisingly essential about working life.

Although The Office is a comedy and deliberately exaggerated, at its core is an idea that has been partly forgotten at work: work can be both productive and fun at the same time.

And yes—even in successful companies.

Fun Does Not Mean Inefficiency

For a long time, we’ve been taught that work is a serious matter.That credibility is built through rigidity, control, and definitely not laughing too much.

But if we look around the world, we notice something interesting:

• Google’s offices are known not for silence, but for creativity

• At Pixar, laughter and storytelling are a central part of the culture

• In many top-performing companies, people dare to be human—not just titles

  
  

Research supports this too: psychological safety, humor, and relaxed interaction increase engagement, creativity, and ultimately results.

The Office shows this as a caricature—but beneath it lies a real phenomenon:when people enjoy themselves, they also care.

Remote Work Took Away What We Didn’t Know to Appreciate

Remote work has brought many good things: flexibility, peace, and better work–life balance. But at the same time, it has taken away something quiet and hard to measure: everyday fun.

Those moments you can’t schedule in a calendar:

• a joke thrown in passing

• shared laughter before a meeting

• facial expressions, gestures, and small reactions

• ideas born by the coffee machine

  
  

The Office is built precisely on these moments.

The series wouldn’t exist in Teams meetings. It requires a space where people are physically together—seeing one another and reacting to each other.

In remote work, efficiency may remain, but spontaneity disappears. And with it often disappears the lightness that makes work meaningful.

The Office Is Not the Problem—How It’s Used Is

Many people today say they don’t want to come to the office. Often, this doesn’t mean they don’t want to meet people—it means there’s nothing at the office that draws them in.

If the office is a place where:

• everyone stays quiet

• the focus is only on performance

• and personality is left at home then choosing remote work is completely logical.

But if the office is a place where:

• you can be yourself

• you’re allowed to laugh

• you’re part of a community then people come gladly.

Michael Scott is a bad leader by many measures, but he understands one thing:

people don’t commit to work—they commit to each other.

Working life is not just tasks and goals. It’s people, dynamics, and shared moments.When physical connection disappears completely, these moments disappear more easily too.

What If We Asked These Questions More Often?

What is the atmosphere in our office really like? What would make it a place people want to come to—not out of obligation, but desire? When was the last time we laughed together during a workday?

Maybe the secret of a successful company isn’t that work is serious—but that it doesn’t have to be taken so seriously all the time.

The Office can serve as a reminder that the physical office still has its place—especially when we want working life to be about more than just efficiency.

AI was used in the creation of this text. The underlying thoughts are my own.