Nearly every day, I urgently clock out from my job to escape to someone else's. An overcrowded bus ride home, a click of my streaming platform of choice, and then I haplessly arrive at my new workplace. 

My mother’s generation had ‘the second shift’. Mine has a fierce obsession with existing in the confines of someone else’s job via the static of my TV screen. Of course, I’m not just watching people work – I’m watching them forge intense bonds, heal past traumas and find meaning in the very structures most of us resent.

If the Emmy nominations are anything to go by: I’m far from alone. The last few years have ushered in a new wave of workplace-themed TV, winning both our hearts and critical acclaim. Carrie Battan has even contended for The New Yorker that the workplace hasn’t been so prevalent on our screens since the days of Mad Men.

Of course, the phenomenon goes back far beyond the Scotch-stenched halls of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. The workplace show du jour has been a touchstone of television for decades. Since TV’s earliest hits, the workplace afforded networks a built-in structure and an excuse to throw wildly different characters into daily collision. It’s a tidy backdrop that can work for both social commentary and sitcom hijinks.

The appeal is simple: a workplace show offers audiences just enough recognisable antics to hook us – and just enough fantasy to forget our own works. TV lets us clock on to jobs that feel far more important than our own. Be it: horny hospitals, chaos-riddled schools or dystopian offices. 

The rise of employee-led content, or ELC, points to a similar trend. We are an inherently voyeuristic species; naturally curious about how everyone spends those 40 plus hours a week. Particularly when our own job begins to be soured by stress or monotony.

But something’s shifted in how work is portrayed on screen. The cynicism of noughts-era sitcoms like The Office or The IT Crowd and the predictability of case-fuelled formulas like Grey’s Anatomy and Suits have been swapped for a blaring earnestness. Today’s workplace TV has traded ambition and functionality for emotional fulfillment through camaraderie. It’s not about climbing the ladder anymore - it’s about surviving. And surviving together.

A (found) family affair 

As the modern workplace becomes a battleground of bureaucracy and burnout, TV has doubled down on belonging. It presents the workplace as the last viable site of intimacy and care – a place where family is found rather than lost.

In the real world, any suggestion of the F-word at work tends to be grounds for resignation. In the world of television, workplaces functioning like a family is central to a show’s success.  HBO’s critically acclaimed foray into the world of medical dramas, The Pitt, closed out its first season with a moving final scene of the ER staff in a dark park.

“We survived that craziness,” says the dreamy Dr. Robbie, referring to a day which included assault, a miscarriage and a terrorist attack. “To The Pitt crew,” they cheers – accepting their fate to repeat this god awful day in the name of healthcare tomorrow. 

The balance between gruelling work and heart-warming kinship extends far beyond that Pittsburgh hospital. The Bear bills itself a ‘found family’ story following a trauma-bonded kitchen crew who are forced to endure the chaotic and, arguably, very bad leadership of Carmy and his familial dysfunction. The show’s beloved characters don’t keep coming back for the wage alone. They’re coming back for the emotional validation only their coworkers can provide.

The emphasis on the theme of found family in workplace television feels like a logical progression given how drastically the role of work has evolved in our own lives. As the very concept of community slips from our grasp and loneliness rates climb, work has undoubtedly had to play an increasingly significant role in our socialisation post-pandemic. According to a recent study, your work friends are reported to even make you more engaged, satisfied and connected to your work. 

Yet ironically, these deep connections – so frequently represented on screen – are increasingly rare in real life. Work friendships have steadily been on the decline since 2019.  And it’s this tension – between our craving for connection and the scarcity of real workplace friendships – that’s allowed the current influx of workplace TV to thrive. 

TV continues to offer us a means of escapism but not only for a different career. For one that’s rich in emotional fulfillment and connection.

It’s business; not personal

With blurred boundaries and baked-in codependency, these shows raise an obvious red flag: is the recent influx of workplace TV just romanticising dysfunction?

Despite what TV may have us believing, work is not your ‘family’. There’s a reason that very word has been banned from C-suites the world over. 

“Calling work our family at its core can be problematic,” shares mental wellness educator Gloria Chan Packer. “Doing so, psychologically infers a really big blur and betrayal in our boundaries. Work and family are different entities with different goals, expectations and responsibilities...”

But still, we continue to see a similar formula on our screens. Workers get subjected to objectively shitty conditions, but accept them. All in the name of survival and the genuine love they have for their co-workers. 

Severance’s return to our screen this year depicted this trope best. The dystopian drama felt like it grounded itself in our reality when its core four agreed to return to their hellish Lumon cubicles – under the condition that they all got to see each other again. Arguably, a compromise many workers undergo every day as burnout rates reach an all time high and worker dissatisfaction continues to climb.

Workplace shows aren’t just selling us more than drama or distraction but a fantasy of emotionally fulfilling labour, wrapped in the warm language of community and care. We might be watching people work – but more often than not, we’re watching them stay underpaid, overextended and committed to a system they probably should be critiquing. What we’re calling this genre of ‘found family’ TV might better be identified as co-dependent survival.

The fantasy of ‘found family’ offers comfort in a fractured world, but it also risks normalising toxic loyalty to broken systems. Maybe what we really need isn’t another show about surviving together – but stories that remind us to hope for better than just that.

Until then, I’ll keep tuning in, enamoured with these messy, beautiful illusions of work and community. Just yelling: “please call your union rep!” at my screen.