Seedy little men with seedy little jokes

S1E2: ‘Work Experience’ and how The Office smacks of gender

This piece is part of a series on The Office (UK), running up to the 20th anniversary of its finale this Christmas. Don’t miss out by following me on Medium.

Four women form the grid of this episode’s story: the new girl, the female boss, the semi-requited lover, and David Brent emasculated twice over: dressed down by his boss and lampooned as a porn actress.

The first one David interacts with is Donna, the work experiencer of the episode title. In a callback to the last episode when Tim dropped Gareth’s stapler out of the window, David pretends for Donna to defenestrate his nagging answerphone (the one on which we first heard Chris Finch, perving over their boss — more on both later) but he makes a pratfall of himself. Although there’s a trace of him trying to impress a pretty woman, David’s main attitude towards Donna is patronising, faux-paternal protectiveness.

As he explains in a team meeting, she’s the daughter of his best friends Ron and Elaine as well as his lodger. She’s also young: the show’s never explicit about her age, but she’s only doing work experience yet, although old enough to be out of school and living away from home. (Gareth’s ditty in a couple of episodes’ time about when…