Toward a Labor Theory of Generation X Samir: It would be nice to have that kind of job security. — Office Space IF MIKE JUDGE’S 1999 cubicle farm revenge fantasy Office Space has turned 21, the film’s principal characters would, in fact, be pushing 50 now — a milestone that protagonist Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston), who labors in the alienated vacuum of the Initech Corporation, deemed existentially impossible. Yet here we are: a middle-aged Generation X that has carried on through the irony, the apathy, and the TPS reports. In the exchange above, Peter and Samir (Ajay Naidu) capture the disillusionment and necessity that characterizes Gen X’s orientation toward its own labor, from the time of its entry into the wage labor markets in the 1990s to now. If anyone even cares about Gen X, that is … With a feud between boomers and millennials apparently underway, one could be forgiven for wondering if Gen X had faded into apathetic obscurity. But my aim here is to call forth Gen X — maybe not to the barricades, but certainly to our particular place in the labor markets and the history of US capitalism since the mid-20th century. Or maybe to the barricades.