THE BELKO EXPERIMENT
During the years I worked at the corporate monolith, IBM when we all sat in cubicles and wore business dress code - whichever is the one where you have to wear a tie but no jacket, truly the worst of both worlds – a bunch of us who worked there had the annual tradition of watching the movie Office Space. We’d watch it to be reminded that our stupid job that we hated was meaningless and we didn’t need to take it so seriously. I feel like The Belko Experiment would serve that same purpose, but for psychos. Watch Office Space and dream of telling your boss that you’re not going to do something because you don’t feel like it. Watch The Belko Experiment and dream of belting Kyle in accounts over the head with a stapler.
The elevator pitch for The Belko Experiment is this: what if one day everybody in the offices of Belko Industries was locked inside and a voice came over the PA and said “kill three of your co-workers or we will kill six others”. It’s a heck of a premise, written by Guardians of the Galaxy/The Suicide Squad dude James Gunn, but it’s best not to scrutinize it too much because instead of fixing the fundamental flaw in the believability of the whole thing Gunn kind of papers over every problem with another problem.
“What about this idea? One day at work, everybody in the building is told that they have to kill a certain number of employees or else they themselves will be killed?”
“Yeah, that’s good! Wait. Why wouldn’t they just leave?”
“Um. The doors and windows are all locked.”
“Cool! That works! Wait. How will they be killed?”
“Um. They all have tiny bombs implanted in their heads.”
“Yeah! Nice! Wait. Why would they have bombs implanted in their heads?”
“Um. When they started working at the company they were told they were tracking devices and needed them to work there.”
“Great! Perfect. Wait. Why would they accept having tracking devices implanted in their heads?”
“Um. They are in Colombia and Americans often get kidnapped in Colombia.”
“Of course! That’s it! Wait. Why would an American office building be in Colombia?”
“Um. It just is.”
“Perfect. That is actually perfect.”
As to how I would fit into The Belko Experiment, this one is easy. I’ve worked at plenty of shitty office jobs and my absolute favourite thing to do in every boring ass office job I’ve ever held is to go on break. Spending more time than needed in the bathroom, that should be the top line of my CV. Especially if you have an allocated break time, and you have to log in and out of your phone, and somebody is monitoring it. That’s the best. That’s so good. I loved having a straight faced conversation with a manager about why it is you spend so much time in the toilet. So if I was in The Belko Experiment I know exactly where I’d end up.
IF I WERE IN 'THE BELKO EXPERIMENT' I WOULD: BE HELD FOR RANSOM UNTIL I AM EVENTUALLY FREED AFTER MY KIDNAPPERS AND I BOND OVER A SHARED INTEREST IN THE CHAINSMOKERS. THIS COMES UP BECAUSE ONE OF THE KIDNAPPERS IS ALWAYS CHAINSMOKING AND I NOTE THAT THERE ARE A MUSICAL DUO NAMED THE CHAINSMOKERS AND ONE OF THE MEN SAYS “HALSEY” AND I SAY “YEAH, THEY’VE GOT A SONG WITH HALSEY”, AND THEY TALK AT LENGTH ABOUT HOW THEY WERE NOT INTO ‘ALL WE KNOW’ AS MUCH AS ‘CLOSER’ AND I SAY “I AGREE, PHOEBE RYAN ON THAT ONE.” AND THEY SAY “SHE’S NO HALSEY” AND I SAY “WHO IS?”
