You should also know there are a lot of really mean, stupid bosses out there. But there are also some really good ones that do good things.
Mike Judge
UC San Diego Commencement 2009, 2009
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This characteristically deadpan observation captured the sensibility that had made Mike Judge one of the sharpest satirists of American workplace culture. The creator of Office Space — perhaps the most beloved workplace comedy ever made — knew more about the dysfunctions of corporate life than almost any commencement speaker alive. The line worked on multiple levels. It was funny in its matter-of-factness, as if he were delivering a weather report about workplace conditions. It was surprisingly balanced — coming from the man who created Bill Lumbergh, the patron saint of terrible management, the acknowledgment that good bosses exist was generous. And it was useful advice for graduates who might otherwise assume all bosses are either heroes or villains. Judge's entire body of work — from Beavis and Butt-Head's critique of teen stupidity to King of the Hill's affectionate portrait of middle America to Silicon Valley's skewering of tech culture — was built on this same clear-eyed, neither-cynical-nor-naive observation of how people actually behave.