Everything Workaholics Gets Wrong About Corporate Life
"Workaholics" is great for a ton of reasons — the quirky cast of characters, outrageous jokes, and of course, Blake's glorious hair. The show did many things right during its seven-season run on Comedy Central, but when it comes to corporate life, they got a few things wrong.
When the three main characters aren't tripping on shrooms or having a rager at their place, they're usually working at TelAmeriCorp, a call center where they spend more time slacking off than making sales. Because of this, a ton of scenes take place at the office.
When Adam (Adam DeVine), Blake (Blake Anderson), and Ders (Anders Holm) are on the clock, they're able to pull wild pranks, talk about porn with their co-workers, and get into all sorts of other shenanigans without so much as a warning from HR. If it was that way in real life, telemarketing would be considered a dream job for many people. As we all know, that's not the case. Below, we're going over everything "Workaholics" got wrong about corporate life. Without further ado, s'go!
There's plenty of time to chat with your co-workers
Whenever the guys are at the office, they always have time to talk. They don't just say a few words to each other in passing; they have full-blown conversations on a regular basis. When they aren't coming up with some crazy plan in their cubicle, they're making dick jokes in the break room. Other characters often join their conversations as well, whether it's Jillian, Alice, Bill, or Montez.
In real life, it's not unusual for employees to go entire shifts hardly saying anything to their co-workers. They might make small talk with each other at the watercooler or coffee machine, but menial office jobs are notorious for overworking their employees, so there often isn't a lot of time to chat. Even if you do happen to have some spare time, you might work in a different department than your work BFF, so the most you could do is send them a quick meme and hope your boss doesn't catch you slacking off.
Corporate life is a hilarious adventure
On "Workaholics," the office is just another place to have some fun. From playing pranks on your co-workers to goofing around with your best friends, working at a call center doesn't seem all that bad. In reality, things couldn't be more different. Telemarketing is known for being one of the worst jobs out there, with long hours, low pay, and bosses that don't appreciate you. DeVine, Anderson, and Holm took this into consideration when choosing where their characters would work.
In a 2014 interview with Xbox Wire, the trio was asked about the worst jobs they've ever had. "Telemarketing, actually," Holm responded. "Adam and I both did it. He did it in high school and I did it out here in LA. When we were kind of figuring out the show, we wondered where these guys were going to work and thought, 'What's the worst kind of job that people could identify with?' And telemarketing came out really quick." DeVine agreed, saying that telemarketing "sucks."
Employees work in cubicles
Many of the employees at TelAmeriCorp work in large shared cubicles. The company can comfortably fit three employees per cubicle, so the guys have plenty of space to goof around and pretend to work. Although spending eight hours a day in a shared cubicle isn't glamorous by any means, the reality of corporate life is even worse. The series took place from 2011 to 2017, but many companies started doing away with cubicles in the '90s, giving employees much less privacy and personal space (per Commercial Café).
Instead of cubicles, most companies started having open office environments in which employees work at long shared tables (or their own desk if they're lucky) without any walls separating them. Companies have been opting for this kind of layout because it cuts down on construction costs and is supposed to solve communication issues, but many employees think it's distracting and makes them less productive (via The Muse).
There's also hot desking, a nightmarish concept that involves cramming multiple employees into a shared work station that they can use at different times (per Commercial Café again). This is similar to the open office environment, except that employees don't have a designated work station, allowing for no personalization of their workspace and questionable levels of cleanliness all around. No thanks.
The office can be decorated in wildly inappropriate ways
The guys might not know how to talk to girls, but they do know how to decorate a cubicle. They keep their workspace filled with décor ranging from mildly amusing to extremely inappropriate. On the tamer side of things, they've had a dartboard, a wrestling mask, and a marionette wearing a cowboy hat. But they've also had plenty of stuff in there that wouldn't be allowed in a real corporate office, like a shirtless picture of Adam flexing his muscles, a sign reading "Hella Gay," and another sign reading "Just say yes ... to sex!!"
They switch out the items in their cubicle pretty often, but you can always count on them having something weird in there. Many of their co-workers stop by their workspace throughout the series, including their boss Alice (Maribeth Monroe), but no one ever seems to question their outrageous décor. In real life, HR typically makes employees take down any decorations deemed offensive or sexual, so by those standards, the trio's cubicle would practically be barren.
You can slack off all the time without getting caught
If you tune in to any episode of "Workaholics" and watch an office scene, nine times out of ten, the boys are joking around rather than getting anything productive done. It makes sense because the show would be pretty boring if they just sat around taking calls all day, but still, it's hard to believe that they never get in trouble for slacking off all the time. Sure, Alice comes around sometimes and yells at them for being lazy, but they don't ever seem to face any real consequences.
While slacking off at work is definitely not unheard of, there's a limit to how much it can be done in real life. Employees have to at least get some work done in order to keep their jobs, or else their boss will either write them up or send them packing. During an interview with Entertainment Weekly in 2015, Holm said the trio's bad work ethic was part of what made the show so relatable.
"What I love about our show is the relatability of a s***** job out of college, where your sights aren't that high; you're not out to conquer the world," he explained. "You're just trying to make it to the next day and get down to your basic desires, which is get drunk, meet a girl, have fun. Our characters aren't out to make it big or start a jeans company."
You can say all kinds of inappropriate things to your co-workers and boss
Would "Workaholics" even be "Workaholics" if the characters didn't make obscene jokes? Blake, Adam, and Ders always say the wildest things, whether they're talking to each other, their co-workers, or their boss. It makes for some hilarious scenes, but real corporate offices would never approve of their employees having that much fun. If HR caught wind of such behavior, employees would get verbal warnings, write-ups, or lose their jobs in no time.
Even though Alice is the boss, she says just as many hilariously inappropriate things to the guys as they say to her. Cursing at them, calling them "total losers," and telling them to shut up are nothing out of the ordinary. Apparently, nothing's off limits during conversations with co-workers at TelAmeriCorp.
In one episode, Adam casually mentions to Alice that he's seen someone watching porn at the office before. She ignores this and goes on an angry rant about them planning to hang out with her brother after work. "If you don't bring him back safe and sound, I'm gonna eat your balls for breakfast tomorrow with my Grape Nuts," she tells them, placing her hands intimidatingly on Blake's thighs. "Then I'm gonna murder you, then I'm gonna fire you." Classic Alice.
Relentlessly flirting with co-workers doesn't lead to any HR problems
One of the many things that's great about Adam is that he doesn't seem to have a filter. If something's on his mind, he says it, no matter how dumb or bizarre it may be. That often leads him to flirt with Alice, despite her having a terrible temper.
In Season 2, Episode 4 ("Model Kombat"), Adam really turns up the charm with his newly-divorced boss — at least, he tries to. He asks her, "What kind of dudes are you into?" and "Are you online dating?" She's more interested in finding a "hot as balls male model" for the company website than dating though, so he shifts his approach. "Imagine me, tank top, oiled, wearing a headset..." he begins, but needless to say, his approach annoys Alice more than anything.
If anything even remotely close to that happened at a real office it'd only be a matter of time before HR got involved, but relentlessly flirting with co-workers is all in a day's work at TelAmeriCorp.
Hooking up with the boss doesn't cause any major issues
Hooking up with the boss in real life: Complicated. Hooking up with the boss in "Workaholics": Hilarious. In Season 4, Episode 2 ("Fry Guys"), Adam, Ders, and Blake are on a mission to hook Alice up with a one-night stand so she'll cheer up and let them have an office fish fry. At first, they plan on hiring a sex worker for her, but one thing leads to another and she hooks up with Ders instead. The unexpected turn of events causes some drama, but no major problems outside of that episode.
Things would be way different in real life. Some companies have strict rules stating that bosses and employees can't have any sort of intimate relationship, or else one of them will be transferred to a different location. If they did manage to hook up without their employer finding out, it would probably still lead to some issues later on. Uneven power dynamics, damaged reputations, awkward moments in the break room — the list of potential problems goes on and on.
You can do a terrible job for years without getting fired
You can be terrible at your telemarketing job for a little bit and things will probably be fine, but if it goes on long enough, someone's bound to get fed up. A customer could leave you a scathing review or the boss could realize that your sales have been low for a while, and boom — you're fired.
That's the way it goes in real life, but not on "Workaholics." Adam, Blake, and Ders are essentially professional slackers, spending most of their time getting weird rather than getting any work done. Despite this, they're able to keep their jobs for the entire series without getting fired.
In a 2016 interview with POPSUGAR, Holm said they wanted their characters "to have a job where we just sit with our friends and clown all day and actually get paid enough money to get a s***** case of beer at the end of the week." When he says it like that, working at TelAmeriCorp doesn't sound half bad.
There is a very low turnover rate
With all these ways in which telemarketing jobs can be unfulfilling, it's no surprise that they have a high turnover rate (per My Work Choice). Employees have to deal with stressful phone calls, low salaries, and the guilt of tricking old people into buying things they don't need. Since TelAmeriCorp is supposed to be another typical call center, you'd think the cast of "Workaholics" would see a lot of employees coming and going, but their employees stick around for a surprisingly long time. Blake, Ders, and Adam work there for the entire show. On top of that, Alice, Jillian, Waymond, Montez, Jet Set, and Bill seem content enough to stay with the company forever.
That doesn't mean that every employee stays there for the whole series. Some of them come and go, including a hot Australian temp worker and a couple of potential new cubicle mates played by Zac Efron and Seth Rogen. For the most part, though, the employees stick around, and anyone who's worked at a call center knows how unrealistic that is.