An immature government programmer’s promotion is denied by his overbearing boss, so he resorts to childish pranks with his beleaguered coworkers in the hope he’ll get transferred.
NikkiArcanePenpusher
An immature government programmer’s promotion is denied by his overbearing boss, so he resorts to childish pranks with his beleaguered coworkers in the hope he’ll get transferred.
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Nikki,
This sounds good structurally, especially since it’s a comedy. Is it a feature or series?
Why doesn’t the boss just fire them, replace them with more compliant employees? ?IOW: ?what’s so special about them that he hasn’t or can’t?
Or if they’re any good at what they do, why don’t they just take the job and shove it — find work elsewhere? Which is SOP in the tech industry. ? Why must they save their jobs at this company when there is no lack of job openings in the tech industry for technically proficient people?
The obvious target audience for this story are people who work in the tech industry and as someone who has worked in the industry as an analyst, programmer and network admin, I’m having trouble buying into the concept.
fwiw
“They must fight dirty to keep their jobs…” is a bit clunky. I would start by changing that section of the logline.
I liked the first version better.
Problem is his immature pranks won’t get him transferred; they’ll give his boss the pretext to get him dismissed ?– fired. ? (There is nothing in the logline to suggest that he’s too valuable to dismiss, to replace with someone who will play along by the rules.)
Furthermore, his pranks will go on his permanent work record and come back to ?plague him any time he applies for a promotion or the tries to get a transfer to another department. That’s the way government bureaucracies work.
NikkiArcane:
In response to your questions:
No. Yes. ?Yes. Yes. ?(And you?)
Contract employees can be easily gotten rid of ?because they don’t have civil service protection. ?I saw that happen (too) many times in IT. ?”Snivel” service?employees are, of course, harder to get rid of. ?Actually, practically impossible to get rid of after they pass probation unless they commit a felony.
So yes, lateral arabesque transfers to another department are a tried and true method of dumping problem employees somewhere else.
But I suggest that to optimize the dramatic conflict in your premise, the protagonist’s nemesis should be a worthy one. ?In this case, one malicious and competent enough to make life a bureaucratic hell for the protagonist. ?So that the harder he tries to get transferred, the harder his boss games the system to block him. ?And ?get retribution with the 1,001 petty bureaucratic rules and procedures he can inflict on him. (I’ve seen that happen, too.)
IOW: I suggest the boss should come off as a genuine foe, not merely a comedic foil, an oh-so-convenient plot pi?ata. ?Make it ?a credible threat that the boss and the system can crush the employee. ?(Because it does all the time, as I presume you well know.)
There’s a rich vein of dark comedy to mine in the situation. ?Good luck mining the ore.
fwiw
The logline is too wordy. You can get rid of: “…immature…” this is evident,? “…overbearing…” adds little as he or she are already the bad guy or gal for denying the promotion, and “…childish…” is implied in the action.
Also re state the actions and events in a causal manner, i.e:
After his promotion is denied by his supervisor, a government programmer resorts to pranks in an attempt to get fired.
Not sure there is enough meat on the proverbial bones for a whole feature here,? a short perhaps but a 85+ minute film not so much.