Grot

Long before The Office (Brit version), before Office Space (pieces of flair!), before the American Office, there was a Brit sitcom called The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. I credit (or blame—take your pick) that show for forming my sense of humor and for giving me my earliest sense of what it meant to have a job, to work for The Man, to be a corporate stooge. Reggie Perrin is a seething-on-the-inside, sniveling-on-the-outside middle manager type with a classic barking bastard of a boss named CJ. This little wooden desk ornament (what do you call them?) is the sort of thing CJ would've had on his desk, and I only wish I'd found it when I actually had a job. Now it's on the desk of my home office and there's no one to be cowed by it except me. And the kids, when they're on my computer playing games.