Bill Lumbergh

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Bill Lumbergh, or just Lumbergh, is a fictional character played by Gary Cole in the 1999 cult movie Office Space. A sort of everyboss, Lumbergh's demeanor is very evocative of the Pointy-Haired Boss from Dilbert. He's the regional manager of the software company Initech, and serves as an unassuming antagonist to the other characters. Another character, a clone of Bill Lumbergh, is Stan (played by Mike Judge), the manager at Chotchkie's, a restaurant modeled after those of a national casual dining chain. Stan is known for his annoying habit of forcing his employees to wear useless buttons, pins and other "pieces of flair" to make the restaurant seem friendlier.

Bill is known to micromanage and often asks his employees, such as Peter Gibbons, to come in to work on Saturdays. He is obsessed with making sure all the office's paperwork (such as TPS reports), no matter how pointless it may be, is done perfectly. His character is known for saying "What's happening?" as a greeting, and (when telling an employee they're going to have to do something undesirable) starting his sentences with, "myeah, I'm gonna need you to" or "if you could just go ahead and", as well as ending these requests with "That'd be great".

He often tries to make himself out as his workers' friend, usually by engaging in pointless small talk and using annoying buzzwords, but the fact that this is just to lighten the mood before he forces the employee to do something tedious or frustrating always makes his persona more see-through. His personality can be seen in a line he says when addressing the Initech grunts: "And remember, next Friday is Hawaiian Shirt Day! So, you know, if you want to, wear a Hawaiian shirt...and jeans."

He seems to represent the impersonal and oppressive business practices that Peter despises so much. This idea is possibly further suggested with Peter calling him, "all that is soulless and wrong."

In a deleted scene, Peter asks at the end of the movie "Did any of you attend Lumbergh`s funeral?" the all shake their heads. It is assumed he perished as a result of the fire, either in it or from the shock of losing his business.

In a second deleted scene, Peter's new boss, a foreman at the construction site, speaks to him with the same demeanor as Bill Lumbergh. This indicates that his new boss will be of the same mold as Bill, and that, ultimately, frustrating bosses are inescapable.

The character (voiced by Cole) makes a cameo appearance in animated series Family Guy, episode "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Fonz".