The film "Office Space" is a comedy about several men in their early 20s who work as software developers for a company called "IniTech". As the film progresses, they endure an unempathetic boss, they experience a miserable workspace, they face the prospect of unemployment (including meeting an unemployed software developer who poses as a recovering drug addict peddling magazine subscriptions), and on and on and on until one of them finally snaps and sets fire to the office.
Although it is never specifically mentioned in the movie, it was filmed in Austin, Texas, USA. It was released in 1999.
I began work as a software developer myself in the year 2009, ten years later.
Most every source I look at says that software development is one of the best careers available today. I'm told that Austin is one of the best places in the United States, if not in the world, to be a software developer because of the high number of high-paying jobs available. I'm told that unemployment of software engineers is about 1%.
This is the exact opposite of what is portrayed in "Office Space".
Has something changed in the past ten years since this film was made? I can't imagine an unemployed software developer selling magazine subscriptions in my town. Were things really that bad for software developers back in 1999, or is the film simply exaggerating for comedic effect?
software developer 1998..1999
on Google.com, you get a lot of results, especially on new startups. Sounds like the software industry was just as booming back then as it now.