Peter Gibbons Yeah. I got the memo.
Played by Ron Livingston 
Office Space (1999) · 91 quotes
Office Space (1999) · 91 quotes
Most-quoted character in Office Space (1999): in 38 of its 91 quotes
Most scenes with: Michael Bolton (10), Samir Nagheenanajar (8), Lawrence (6)
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.
More lines from Peter Gibbons
4 quotes Peter Gibbons Peter Gibbons We don't have a lot of time on this earth. We weren't meant to spend it this way. Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about mission statements.
Peter Gibbons What am I gonna do with 40 subscriptions to Vibe?
Peter Gibbons I can't believe what a bunch of nerds we are. We're looking up "money laundering" in the dictionary.
Scenes with Peter Gibbons
33 scenes Peter Gibbons Hey, guys.
What's up, G?
Peter Gibbons Want to go to Chotchkie's? Get some coffee?
Oh, it's a little early.
Peter Gibbons I gotta get outta here. I think I'm gonna lose it.
Female Temp
Uh-oh. Sounds like somebody's got a case of the Mondays.
Peter Gibbons Boy, I'll tell ya, some days... One of these days it's gonna be just like— (Imitates loading and firing a machine gun)
Brian, Chotchkie's Waiter
(Does the same, laughs)
So can I get you gentlemen something more to drink? Or maybe something to nibble on? Some Pizza Shooters, Shrimp Poppers, or Extreme Fajitas?
Peter Gibbons Just coffee.
Brian, Chotchkie's Waiter
Okay. Sounds like a case of the Mondays.
Peter Gibbons What if we're still doin' this when we're 50?
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.
Uh, yeah, well, I work at Initech and I don't consider myself a pussy, OK?
Yes, I am also not a pussy.
Dom Portwood
Hello, 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. Uh, did you get that memo?
Peter Gibbons Yeah. I got the memo. And I understand the policy. The problem is, I just forgot this one time. And I've already taken care of it so it's not even a problem anymore.
Dom Portwood
Yeah. It's just that we're putting new coversheets on all the TPS reports *before* they go out now. So if you could just remember to do that from now on, that'd be great. All right!
Peter Gibbons Our high school guidance counselor used to ask us what you'd do if you had a million dollars and you didn't have to work. And invariably what you'd say was supposed to be your career. So, if you wanted to fix old cars you're supposed to be an auto mechanic.
So what did you say?
Peter Gibbons I never had an answer. I guess that's why I'm working at Initech.
No, you're working at Initech because that question is bullshit to begin with. If everyone listened to her, there'd be no janitors, because no one would clean shit up if they had a million dollars.
You know what I would do if I had a million dollars? I would invest half of it in various mutual funds and take the other half over to my friend Asadulah who works in securities and—
Samir, you're missing the point. It's supposed to tell you what you'd do if...PC Load Letter! What the **** does that mean?
Doesn't that chick look like Anne?
Peter Gibbons Yeah, a little bit...
Hey, she hasn't been over here in a while. You two still goin' out?
Peter Gibbons Yeah. I guess... I don't know. Sometimes I get this feeling like she's cheating on me.
Yeah, I get that feeling too, man.
Peter Gibbons What do you mean by that?
I don't know, man. I just get that feeling lookin' at her like she's the type of chick that just...[shudders]
Peter Gibbons Let me ask you something. When you come in on Monday, and you're not feelin' real well, does anyone ever say to you, 'Sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays'?
No. No, man. Shit, no, man. I believe you'd get your ass kicked sayin' something like that, man.
Peter Gibbons What would you do if you had a million dollars?
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?
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.
Well the kind of chicks that'd double up on a dude like me do.
Peter Gibbons Good point.
Well what about you now? what would you do?
Peter Gibbons Besides two chicks at the same time?
Well yeah.
Peter Gibbons Nothing.
Nothing, huh?
Peter Gibbons I'd relax, I would sit on my ass all day, I would do nothing.
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.
You think the pet rock was a really great idea?
Sure it was. The guy made a million dollars. You know, I had an idea like that once. A long time ago.
Peter Gibbons Really, what was it, Tom?
Well, all right. It was a "Jump to Conclusions" mat. You see, it would be this mat that you would put on the floor, and it would have different conclusions written on it that you could jump to.
That's the worst idea I've ever heard in my life, Tom.
Yes, this is horrible, this idea.
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.
Peter What are you doing for lunch today?
Well, the specials today are... uh, blackened chicken and... the menu's actually right there. [walks off]
Peter Gibbons Doesn't it bother you that you have to get up in the morning and you have to put on a bunch of pieces of flair?
Yeah, but I'm not about to go in and start taking money from the register.
Peter Gibbons Well, maybe you should. You know, the Nazis had pieces of flair that they made the Jews wear.
So, where do you work, Peter?
Peter Gibbons Initech.
In... yeah, what do you do there?
Peter Gibbons I sit in a cubicle and I update bank software for the 2000 switch.
What's that?
Peter Gibbons Well see, they wrote all this bank software, and, uh, to save space, they used two digits instead of four. So, like, 98 instead of 1998? Uh, so I go through these thousands of lines of code and, uh... it doesn't really matter. I uh, I don't like my job, and, uh, I don't think I'm gonna go anymore.
You're just not gonna go?
Peter Gibbons Yeah.
Won't you get fired?
Peter Gibbons I don't know, but I really don't like it, and, uh, I'm not gonna go.
So you're gonna quit?
Peter Gibbons Nuh-uh. Not really. Uh... I'm just gonna stop going.
When did you decide all that?
Peter Gibbons About an hour ago.
An hour ago... so you're gonna get another job?
Peter Gibbons I don't think I'd like another job.
Well, what are you going to do about money and Bills and...
Peter Gibbons You know, I've never really liked paying Bills. I don't think I'm gonna do that, either.
So what do you wanna do?
Peter Gibbons First I'm gonna take you out to dinner, and then I'm gonna go back to my apartment and watch Kung Fu. Do you ever watch Kung Fu?
I love Kung Fu.
Peter Gibbons Channel 39.
Totally.
Peter Gibbons You should come over and watch Kung Fu tonight.
Ok. Ok. Can we order lunch first? Ok.
You were supposed to come in Saturday. What were you doing?
Peter Gibbons Michael, I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything I thought it could be.
Looks like you've been missing a lot of work lately.
Peter Gibbons Well, I wouldn't exactly say I've been *missing* it, Bob.
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.
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.
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.
Peter Gibbons You see, Bob, it's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care.
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.
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.
Would you bear with me for just a second here.
Peter Gibbons OK.
What if - and believe me this is 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 you guys.
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, really well.
Excellent.
Great... Wow.
Peter Gibbons You're gonna lay off Samir and Michael?
Oh yeah, we're bring in some entry-level graduates, farm some work out to Singapore, that's the usual deal.
Standard operating procedure.
Peter Gibbons Do they know this yet?
No. No, of course not. We find it's always better to fire people on a Friday. Studies have statistically shown that there's less chance of an incident if you do it at the end of the week.
Hello Peter, what's happening? Listen, are you gonna have those TPS reports for us this afternoon?
Peter Gibbons No.
Ah. Well then I suppose we should go ahead and have a little talk.
Peter Gibbons Not right now Lumbergh, I'm kinda busy. You know what, in fact I'm gonna have to ask you to just go ahead and come back later, I've got a meeting with the Bobs in a couple minutes.
I wasn't aware of a meeting with them.
Peter Gibbons Yeah, they called me at home.
Peter Gibbons So you guys are gonna fire Mike and Samir, and you're gonna give *me* more money?
Uh-huh.
Peter Gibbons Wow.
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 Look, I don't know about you guys, but I'm tired of being pushed around. Aren't you?
Yes, Peter, but I'm not going to do anything illegal.
Peter Gibbons Samir, this is America. This isn't Riyadh; they're not going to saw your hands off.
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?
They do?
Shit. I'm a free man and I haven't had a conjugal visit in six months.
I have a question.
Peter Gibbons Yes?
In... in these conjugal visits, you can have sex with women?
Peter Gibbons Yep, you sure can.
OK, I'll do it.
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.
Of course.
Agreed
Who the **** is that?
Peter Gibbons Uh, don't worry about him. He's cool.
Peter Gibbons Um, the 7-Eleven, right? You take a penny from the tray.
From the crippled children?
Peter Gibbons No, that's the jar. I'm talking about the tray, the pennies for everybody.
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.
Why don't you call me when you grow up! Wait a minute, that will never happen, so why don't you just not call me, yeah...
Peter Gibbons Say hello to Lumbergh for me!
Peter Gibbons Lawrence, you awake?
Yeah.
Peter Gibbons You wanna come over?
No, thanks, man. I don't want you **** up my life, too.
Is there some way to just give the money back?
Peter Gibbons What? You mean just hand them a check for the exact amount they're missing? I think they'd figure that out.
Peter Gibbons It's not just about me and my dream of doing nothing. It's about all of us. I don't know what happened to me at that hypnotherapist and, I don't know, maybe it was just shock and it's wearing off now, but when I saw that fat man keel over and die - Michael, we don't have a lot of time on this earth! We weren't meant to spend it this way. Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about about mission statements.
I told those fudge-packers I liked Michael Bolton's music.
Peter Gibbons Oh. That is not right, Michael.
Peter Gibbons Listen, that virus you're always talking about, right? That one that could, er...rip off the company for a bunch of money?
Yeah, what about it?
Peter Gibbons Well, how does it work?
It's pretty brilliant. What it does is, every time there's a bank transaction where interest is computed–and there are thousands a day–the computer ends up with these fractions of a cent, which usually rounds off. What this does is it takes those little remainders and puts them into an account.
Peter Gibbons This sounds familiar.
Yeah, they did it in Superman III.
Peter Gibbons Right.
Underrated movie, actually. And then there were a bunch of hackers that did it in the 70s as well. One of them got busted.
Peter Gibbons Well, so they check for this now.
No, no. Here's the thing: Initech's so backed up with all the software we're updating for the year 2000, they'd never notice.
Peter Gibbons You're right. And even if they wanted to, they couldn't check all that code.
Thumbs up their asses.
Peter Gibbons [Explaining the plan to steal from Initech to get revenge for him, Michael and Samir being mistreated]
Alright, so when the sub routine compounds the interest it uses all these extra decimal places that just get rounded off. So we simplified the whole thing, we rounded them all down, and drop the remainder into an account we opened.
Peter Gibbons Ah no, you don't understand. It's very complicated. It's uh it's aggregate, so I'm talking about fractions of a penny here. And over time they add up to a lot.
Oh okay. So you're gonna be making a lot of money, right?
Peter Gibbons Yeah.
Joanna: Right. It's not yours?
Peter Gibbons Well it becomes ours.
How is that not stealing?
Peter Gibbons [pauses]
I don't think I'm explaining this very well.
Okay.
Peter Gibbons Um... the 7-11. You take a penny from the tray, right?
From the cripple children?
Peter Gibbons No, that's the jar. I'm talking about the tray. You know the pennies that are for everybody?
Oh, for everybody. Okay.
Peter Gibbons Well those are whole pennies, right? I'm just talking about fractions of a penny here, but we do it from a much bigger tray and we do it a couple a million times.
Peter Gibbons [Peter is now working construction with Lawrence, cleaning up the burned Initech building]
This isn't so bad, huh? Making bucks, getting exercise, working outside...
****in' A.
Peter Gibbons [Nods]
...****in' A.
