Liesl Schillinger from Slate wrote a fantastic and interesting analysis of the American, British, French and German versions highlighting the differences in the show as a window in the differences in work life around the world.  While generalities about different cultures are rarely helpful, the differences in the show do highlight how various cultures operate under familiar circumstances.

It’s an interesting and entertaining read and there are some intriguing video clips that, even though they are not sub-titled are really funny.  If you watch the videos, you’ll recognize familiar trappings of office life far from Scranton, PA.  From the article:

Watching all four versions back-to-back is not only a strangely unmooring experience—like seeing the film Groundhog Day over and over—it’s a crash course in national identity. And if any conjecture could be made about the cultural differences that these subtly contrasting programs reveal, it might be this one: These days, Germans and Americans are doing much of their living in and around their offices, while the Brits and French continue to live outside of them. Here, in broad strokes, are the chief differences. In the British version, nobody is working, nobody has a happy relationship, everyone looks terrible, and everybody is depressed. In the French version, nobody is working but even the idiots look good, and everybody seems possessed of an intriguing private life. In the German version, actual work is visibly being done, most of the staff is coupled up, and the workers never stop eating and drinking—treating the office like a kitchen with desks.

Read the full article here: Foreign Office on Slate