It’s hardly ever like real life, so why are we so fascinated by workplace drama on television?
The second way in which TV fails to resemble office life is in its lack of restraint. How thrilling for us, for whom workplace indulgence is a cappuccino in a paper cup and a bar of Kit Kat, to fantasise (or feel scandalised) about the drinking and smoking in Mad Men. Even after watching five seasons of it, I haven’t tired of the cigarette lighters and the whiskey decanters on the G-plan-style sideboards. In fact, I rather regret that the writers are moving us into the late 1960s and LSD instead, where the wish fulfilment element is less obvious. I have no desire to be, like Roger Stirling and his friends, crawling around on all fours hallucinating.
