I know he's supposed to represent the stereotypical selfish and greedy boss, but he more of struck me as just a dumb, sort of clueless boss rather than someone really mean or dickish.. Which impression did he give you?
Why are these subtleties so hard for people to get?
First, people don't get the whole 'do you want me to wear more buttons'-scene (I tried to explain it somewhere).
And now people don't EVEN get this crucial point as to WHY the boss is the worst scum you can ever encounter.
Before I start explaining, consider this old wisdom: "I'd rather be slapped with truth than hugged with a lie".
I would much rather have someone that's outwardly and directly a jerk to me, so I could always know what to expect and at least get honesty from them.
Lumbergh is sneaky and deceitful to the max, because he never honestly and directly expresses his true self, he never openly scolds anyone, he never TAKES RESPONSIBILITY that belongs to him, so people wouldn't hate him. He's like a spineless people-pleaser, a manipulator rather than confronter, and so on.
Also, because he's extremely politically-correct and a bureaucratic manipulator, you have to 'read' him and try to 'decrypt' what he means, and so on. He drones on and on, because he can't say anything simply and directly. He doesn't respect your intelligence, or your humanity, but dances all over you in a passive-aggressive way, and makes YOU do all the work of piecing things together, and then expresses no genuine human empathy of any kind, and CLEARLY doesn't care about you (or any worker).
Instead of being honest and facing possible 'unpleasant' feelings, situations or consequences, and thus taking the lead properly, he, in an underhand and cowardly way deals with every situation, manipulating people until he gets what he wants.
It's similar to Aniston's (well, the character's) boss, that passive-aggressively wants to manipulate Aniston to figure it out and to out of her own will, express desire to be a better worker, when Aniston just passively waits for him to ORDER HER DIRECTLY to wear more buttons (which he would, of course, never do, as that would defeat the purpose).
umbergh uses these 'smoothing' phrases that become annoying, because they're not genuine, they're just learned tactic to repetitively manipulate the workers, especially into thinking Lumbergh is their friend or someone they can easily talk with, and thus more easily bend to his will.
The long 'yyeeeaah', is supposed to convey 'relaxedness' and bring a 'friendly atmosphere', and it is also a 'positive suggestion', if you are familiar with hypnosis, because the word 'yes' brings us into more positive mode than 'no'.
Then he doesn't say "You have to do this", he doesn't tell "This is your task for tomorrow", he doesn't negotiate, as in "Where can you fit this task in your schedule" or explain, as in "This needs to be done by thursday, because the company.."
He just expresses that HE (Lumbergh) needs something (.."for you to come in on saturday"), and then presents the order as if it's an option, with "so IF you can just go ahead and", which includes this softening phrase ("..go ahead and"), which sub-consciously implies that the 'going ahead' is the thing he wants you to do, and the addition to it is just something extra, so it must be easier and lighter task, almost an after-thought.
He also gives him a false authority by doing that, when talking about himself. "I am just going to go ahead and.." sounds like he's on some important mission sanctified by the corporate, and thus has authority and legitimacy of performing the following action. He has been given a mission, and now he is going to go forward, or 'ahead', by doing that action. It's psychologically effective, if very annoying as well.
Notice the word 'just', to belittle the signifigance of the task being done (if it's done by himself), and to belittle the difficulty of the task or unreasonableness of the request when it's done by someone else.
Lumbergh is a scummy little passive-aggressive manipulator that uses every trick in the book to avoid having to ACTUALLY do his job like a proper leader should, directly, with responsibility, confidence and dominance. He's a short, dweeby, nerdy guy with nasal voice that no animal would follow as a pack leader.
(And by 'short', I don't mean his physical size, I mean his posture and demeanor - he does not project 'power' or 'confidence' - he doesn't STAND tall)
And you have to let him manipulate you, even while you know exactly what he's trying to say, but instead of respecting you and giving it to you straight, he curves and twirls and goes to all kinds of verbal acrobatics before basically passive-aggressively forcing you to do something. It's like psychologically and emotionally BEATING YOU DOWN every time he talks to you, while outwardly looking like he's a good guy, and 'not much of a jerk', like some poor saps here seem to think.
Without caffeine for a week now, I don't think I can be clearer at the moment.
Maybe not mean. Just totally self centered and smarmy.
shareFor me I disliked Lumbergh more than Stan (Chotchkie's manager) because of the way he treated Milton.
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