What Fictional Office Do You Work In?

From the White House to Sacred Heart Hospital, here are ten of the best fictional office spaces.

Published September 23, 2015

Updated August 25, 2022

The Gear Patrol headquarters is a combination of sleek minimalism, rustic accents and lots of bikes. Natural light floods the conference rooms with large windows for roughly a third of the day and the smell of fresh coffee wafts from the kitchen for at least half. The closets and cabinets are overflowing with gear for photo shoots and testing — to the point where it could be a fire hazard. It’s a pretty good place to spend the day, but we’d be lying if we said we didn’t occasionally dream of working somewhere else. Here are the fictional offices where some GP staffers would be most at home.

The West Wing from The West Wing

Pros: Righteousness, winning, unlimited future employment opportunities, playing pick-up basketball with POTUS, playing hardball with members of the legislature.

Cons: Baggy suits, mediocre coffee, getting fired for leaking state secrets.

Victory is mine, victory is mine. Great day in the morning, people, victory is mine… I drink from the keg of glory, Donna. Bring me the finest muffins and bagels in all the land. – Josh Lyman

– Jeremy Berger

Netflix | Amazon

The Legacy Newsroom

Pros: Honor and defiance, actually finding sources for stories, understanding that “fact checking” means more than quoting Business Insider, being blissfully ignorant of social media apps like Instaface, “Style Guide” doesn’t mean what shirts editors are wearing.

Cons: Still measuring stories by inch columns, naively ignorant of social media apps like Instaface, writers are still using Windows NT, designers are still using a Macintosh Quadras, maybe a “style” guide wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

“Welcome to the legacy newsroom. Where editors yell, writers yell back and the “filing deadline” looms large. Here in the newsroom, style guides still refer to citations and apostrophes, not denim and fit, the Associated Press reigns king, CNN and Fox News out. – Eric Yang

The Study from Clue

Pros: It’s quiet and secluded, so it’s unlikely that anybody will interrupt you.

Cons: No coworkers to bounce ideas off of. The mansion is old and probably doesn’t have central air — so sultry August days could be uncomfortable. Secret passageways make it easy for strangers to move around unnoticed.

Nothing inspires productivity like profound quiet, the scent of century-old books, and a veil of safety that only large blinds and warm radiators can provide. That’s why the library (a.k.a. the study) in 1985’s Clue is my ideal office space. Plus, if you get stir-crazy or stricken with writer’s block, the fireplace swings around to unveil a secret passageway so you can spy on others (with a knife, rope or candlestick). – Tucker Bowe

Netflix | Amazon

Glengarry Glen Ross from Glengarry Glen Ross

Pros: Plenty of motivational inspiration.

Cons: Coworkers aren’t exactly self-esteem boosters.

If Alec Baldwin’s motivational chat from hell didn’t make you feel sorry for the three desperate real-estate salesmen forced to listen to him, then the high-school-detention-style decor of their offices might. Nothing says morale boost like a large chalk board depicting your sales stats, a coffee machine that’s only for closers and a dream of winning that Cadillac El Dorado. – Ben Bowers

Netflix | Amazon

Handwritten Greeting Cards from Her

Pros: Plenty of natural light, modern minimalist design, open and airy.

Cons: There may be too much red, you could end up falling in love with a computer.

Spike Jonze’s futuristic greeting card company set in Los Angeles has to be one of the best office spaces to grace the big screen. Let the creativity flow, but whatever you do, don’t upgrade your OS. – AJ Powell

Netflix | Amazon

Sacred Heart Hospital from Scrubs

Pros: Guy Love with Turk and JD. Saving people’s lives, making friends in between. It’s a teaching hospital — the perfect place to hone medical skills.

Cons: You have to navigate a minefield of anger from perpetually stewing Dr. Cox, downright mean Dr. Kelso and, invariably, an irate Carla. Being a doctor can be heavy stuff. The on-call rooms are dens of sexual activity. The hospital can steal your mojo (or in the words of JD, put your “peep on the fritz.”)

Sacred Heart Hospital was an oasis of drama, love, and IVs in the downtown of San DiFrangeles (a blend of San Francisco, San Diego, and Los Angeles), California. Its hallways were extensive enough to hold the vast majority of eight seasons’ worth of Scrubs, considered one of the most accurate portrayals of life as a doctor on TV. Sacred Heart was a big part of that. Hookups in the on-call room, showdowns at the nurse’s station, escapes on the roof, scrubbing in at the OR, and hours spent in the staff room, searching for clues in medical books (or watching soaps) made for perfect, strikingly real set pieces in which some of the best characters on TV struggled through daily life’s ups, downs and in-betweens. – Chris Wright

Netflix | Amazon

The Incubator from Silicon Valley

Pros: Desirable city (Palo Alto), coworkers are also roommates so there are endless opportunities for team-building exercises and no commute, colorful coworkers.

Cons: Server fires, colorful coworkers.

There’s no denying that the incubator from Silicon Valley isn’t exactly on par with some of the country’s best startup incubators, but being in such tight quarters can be as much an asset as it is an annoyance. There’s a quick line of communication between coworkers (even if that communication is telling someone their code sucks), and one does not need to go far for after-hours shenanigans. Sure, elbow room is sparse, but a true code monkey wouldn’t care. – Andrew Connor

Netflix | Amazon

Dumbledore’s Office from Harry Potter

Pros: All the books you’ll ever need, plus a handy device that stores all of your important memories.

Cons: The moving paintings on the wall can be distracting at best, creepy at worst.

With a glass ceiling through which to view the stars, all the books you’ll ever need, and a Pensieve to help you when you forget anything important, Dumbledore’s office from Harry Potter is my ideal office space. And while the talking paintings on the wall are not ideal for productivity, they make for great collaboration. – Caitlyn Girardi

Netflix | Amazon

The Office from Brazil

Pros: Little need for high-level thought, or any thought at all. A wardrobe made entirely of grays is easy to maintain.

Cons: Cog-in-a-larger-system mentality a must. Everything must be carbon copied, including yourself.

The gray interior of sameness, the hum of everyone rushing, pens scribbling across forms. It’s all very hypnotic. One could almost lose themselves to the basic routine of eat, sleep, work. And after that, do you really have anything more to worry about?

I assure you, Mrs. Buttle, the Ministry is very scrupulous about following up and eradicating any error. If you have any complaints which you’d like to make, I’d be more than happy to send you the appropriate forms. – Sam Lowry

– J. Travis Smith

Netflix | Amazon