Peter Gibbons: What would you do if you had a million dollars?
Lawrence: I'll tell you what I'd do, man, two chicks at the same time, man.
Peter Gibbons: That's it? If you had a million dollars, you'd do two chicks at the same time?
Lawrence: Damn straight. I always wanted to do that, man. And I think if I had a million dollars I could hook that up, cause chicks dig a dude with money.
Peter Gibbons: Well, not all chicks.
Lawrence: Well the kind of chicks that'd double up on a dude like me do.
Peter Gibbons: Good point.
Lawrence: Well what about you now? what would you do?
Peter Gibbons: Besides two chicks at the same time?
Lawrence: Well yeah.
Peter Gibbons: Nothing.
Lawrence: Nothing, huh?
Peter Gibbons: I'd relax, I would sit on my ass all day, I would do nothing.
Lawrence: Well you don't need a million dollars to do nothing, man. Just take a look at my cousin, he's broke, don't do shit.
Michael Bolton: If we get caught, we're not going to white-collar resort prison. No, no, no. We're going to federal "pound me in the ass" prison.
Samir: I don't want to go to ANY prison!
Michael Bolton: You haven't even been showing up for work, and you got to keep your job.
Peter Gibbons: Actually, I'm being promoted.
Peter Gibbons: You see Bob, it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care.
Bob Porter: Don't... Don't care?
Peter Gibbons: It's a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don't see another dime, so where's the motivation? And here's another thing, I have eight different bosses right now.
Bob Porter: Eight?
Peter Gibbons: Eight, Bob. So that means when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That's my only real motivation is not to be hassled, that, and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.
Joanna: How dare you judge me! You are just this penny-stealing, wannabe criminal man.
Peter Gibbons: Well, that may be, but at least I never slept with Lumbergh.
Peter Gibbons: So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life.
Dr. Swanson: What about today? Is today the worst day of your life?
Peter Gibbons: Yeah.
Dr. Swanson: Wow, that's messed up.
Bob Slydell: Would you bear with me for just a second, please?
Peter Gibbons: OK.
Bob Slydell: What if - and believe me this is a hypothetical - but what if you were offered some kind of a stock option equity sharing program. Would that do anything for you?
Peter Gibbons: I don't know, I guess. Listen, I'm gonna go. It's been really nice talking to both of you guys.
Bob Slydell: Absolutely, the pleasure's all on this side of the table, trust me.
Peter Gibbons: Good luck with your layoffs, all right? I hope your firings go really well.
Bob Porter: Excellent.
Bob Slydell: Great... Wow.
Milton: I'm going to set the building on fire.
Milton: I could put strychnine in the guacamole.
Bob Porter: Looks like you've been missing a lot of work lately.
Peter Gibbons: I wouldn't say I've been missing it, Bob.
Peter Gibbons: Lawrence, you awake?
Lawrence: Yeah.
Peter Gibbons: You wanna come over?
Lawrence: No, thanks, man. I don't want you fucking up my life, too.
Samir: No, not again. I... Why does it say paper jam when there is no paper jam? I swear to God, one of these days, I just kick this piece of shit out the window.
Michael Bolton: You and me both, man. That thing is lucky I'm not armed.
Samir: Piece of shit.
Bob Slydell: You see, what we're trying to do is get a feeling for how people spend their time at work so if you would, would you walk us through a typical day, for you?
Peter Gibbons: Yeah.
Bob Slydell: Great.
Peter Gibbons: Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late, ah, I use the side door - that way Lumbergh can't see me, heh - after that I sorta space out for an hour.
Bob Porter: Da-uh? Space out?
Peter Gibbons: Yeah, I just stare at my desk, but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch too, I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.
[Discussing going to prison.]
Peter Gibbons: The most they would do is put us for a few months into a white-collar, minimum-security resort. You know, they have conjugal visits there?
Samir: They do?
Michael Bolton: Shit. I'm a free man and I haven't had a conjugal visit in six months.
Peter Gibbons: Before we go any further, all right, we have to swear to God, Allah, that nobody knows about this, all right? No family members, no girlfriends, nobody.
Samir: Of course.
Michael Bolton: Agreed
Lawrence: [Through the wall from the next door apartment.] Don't worry man. I won't tell anyone about this either.
Michael Bolton: Who the fuck is that?
Peter Gibbons: Uh, don't worry about him. He's cool.
Peter: Let me ask you something. When you come in on Monday and you're not feeling real well, does anyone ever say to you, "sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays"?
Lawrence: No. No, man. Shit, no, man. I believe you'd get your ass kicked saying something like that, man.
Michael Bolton: Peter, you're in deep shit. You were supposed to come in on Saturday. What were you doing?
Peter Gibbons: Michael, I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything that I thought it could be.
Peter Gibbons: What if we're still doin' this when we're 50?
Samir: It would be nice to have that kind of job security.
Peter Gibbons: Lumbergh's gonna have me work on Saturday. I can tell already. I'm gonna end up doin' it, because, uh... Because I'm a big pussy... Which is why I work at Initech to begin with.
Michael Bolton: Uh, yeah, well, I work at Initech and I don't consider myself a pussy, OK?
Samir: Yes, I am also not a pussy.
Samir: No one in this country can ever pronounce my name right. It's not that hard: Samir Na-gheen-an-a-jar. Nagheenanajar.
Michael Bolton: Yeah, well at least your name isn't Michael Bolton.
Samir: You know there's nothing wrong with that name.
Michael Bolton: There was nothing wrong with it... Until I was about 12 years old and that no-talent ass clown became famous and started winning Grammys.
Samir: Hmm... Well why don't you just go by Mike instead of Michael?
Michael Bolton: No way. Why should I change? He's the one who sucks.
Dom Portwood: Hi, Peter. What's happening? We need to talk about your TPS reports.
Peter Gibbons: Yeah. The coversheet. I know, I know. Uh, Bill talked to me about it.
Dom Portwood: Yeah. Did you get that memo?
Peter Gibbons: Yeah. I got the memo. And I understand the policy. And the problem is just that I forgot the one time. And I've already taken care of it so it's not even really a problem anymore.
Dom Portwood: Ah! Yeah. It's just we're putting new coversheets on all the TPS reports before they go out now. So if you could go ahead and try to remember to do that from now on, that'd be great. All right!
Answer: Simply because he is basically invisible to them. Anyone can walk into that place, no guard outside, no key-card required. Nobody cared. At least you got a taxi.
lionhead
Exactly. These things can happen. It depends on the place and how they operate. As recently as January 2024, I read about one young woman who went into a Kroger grocery store and worked for six hours, as an experiment. She has also done this at Target and Walmart. She wears clothes that look like a real employee's.