That pretty much sums up Peter Gibbon's (Ron Livingston) attitude about his job as a computer programmer. He simply cannot endure another moment of the mind-numbing, soul-sucking routine and pretty annoyances that assault him day after day at INITECH Corporation.

When Peter finds a kindred spirit in a watress, Joanna (Jennifer Aniston), who's suffering in her own employment purgatory, he realizes that life would be a lot more fun if he just got himself fired. So he hatches a scheme that surely will get him booted from his cursed cubicle and free him from the clutches of his smarmy boss (Gary Cole) and the new efficiency experts who plan to put a chainsaw to the INITECH payroll. Punch in at 8am? No way. Peter starts arriving at work at 11am... noon... sometimes he doesn't bother coming in at all.

But somehow in the upside-down world of corporate thinking, Peter's erratic behavior has, instead of resulting in a quick "pink slip," launched him onto the fast track to a promotion. He's become, according to the new efficiency experts at INITECH, a "straight shooter with upper management written all over him."

Meanwhile, another wage slave at INITECH, the nebbishy Milton (Stephen Root), is being pushed closer and closer to both the storage room and to an explosive revenge. Faring no better are Peter's office mates, Michael Bolton (David Herman) - no, not that Michael Bolton - and Samir (Ajay Naidu). Fearful for their jobs, they are puzzled by Peter's advancement, but intrigued by his plans to put them all out of their workplace misery - and on the road to a very early retirement...