Since it didn’t have much of a premise beyond friends hanging out in New York, Seinfeld was able to tackle a bunch of different topics over its 9 season run.
There are episodes about the dating world, episodes about friendship, episodes about irritating social conventions – and despite the fact that the lead character is a comedian who’s never had a job and his neighbor doesn’t have any discernible source of income, there are episodes about the world of work. George and Elaine faced crises in office politics on a daily basis. So, here are Seinfeld’s 10 Best Episodes About Work, Ranked.
The Chicken Roaster (Season 8, Episode 8)
When Elaine takes over J. Peterman, it doesn’t take her long to start abusing her power. With access to the company’s accounts, she goes on a spending spree. However, she’s dismayed to discover that the company’s accountant expects her to justify every purchase as a business expense.
She buys George a sable hat for $8,000 that he leaves in a date’s apartment in an attempt to snag a second date. When Elaine tries to get the hat back, the woman claims he never left it there, landing Elaine in some pretty hot water.
The Calzone (Season 7, Episode 19)
All of George’s interactions with George Steinbrenner (voiced, but not physically played, by Larry David) when he was working with the Yankees were hilarious. But “The Calzone” might be their finest hour as an employer-employee combo.
Steinbrenner takes a liking to the calzones that George brings in for lunch, so they start eating together. As a result, George gets to advise his boss on trades. However, when he gets banned from the calzone restaurant for stealing back his own tip, he has to cut a deal with Newman, who flakes on him on day one.
The Frogger (Season 9, Episode 18)
In “The Frogger,” Elaine becomes furious at the number of parties that are thrown at her office, forcing her to interact with her colleagues and eat cake. Elaine eventually gets so sick of her co-workers that she takes a sick day to complain about it to Jerry.
Having never worked in an office, Jerry doesn’t understand the problem: “What is so bad about having a little piece of cake?” Elaine hysterically replies, “It is the forced socializing. I mean, just because we work in the same office, why do we have to act like we’re friends?”
The Barber (Season 5, Episode 8)
In season 5’s “The Barber,” George interviews for a job as a sales rep. It seems to be going really well, but the interviewer leaves mid-sentence. He’s away for a week, so George decides to just show up on Monday and assume he has the job.
He’s given “the Penske file,” which he just screws around with for a week (in five days, all he does is transfer the file into an “accordion-style folder”). He immerses himself in the office’s atmosphere, attending a birthday party, and even giving a speech.
The Red Dot (Season 3, Episode 12)
In season 3’s “The Red Dot,” since George is on a job hunt, Elaine lands him a position at Pendant Publishing. Despite the fact that he names his favorite author as sports writer Mike Lubika and his only “experience” is writing book reports in high school, he manages to get the job.
And on one of his first days, while he’s working overtime, he sleeps with the cleaning woman on his desk. Mr. Lippman finds out and confronts George about it. George pretends he didn’t think it was wrong, but Lippman doesn’t buy it and promptly fires him.
The Bizarro Jerry (Season 8, Episode 3)
When Kramer wanders into the offices of Brandt/Leland to use the bathroom, he unwittingly ends up with a job. He’s not actually on the payroll, but he enjoys the office atmosphere. He likes getting up early and wearing a suit and taking a briefcase full of crackers to work.
Despite never having really worked at Brandt/Leland, he gets fired for handing in reports that didn’t make any sense: “These reports you handed in…It’s almost as if you have no business training at all…I don’t know what this is supposed to be!”
The Voice (Season 9, Episode 2)
In the early episodes of season 9, George worked at a playground equipment company called Play Now. He got the job because he was walking with a cane due to a temporary injury, so he just kept using it in order to receive special treatment. When they found out he wasn’t really disabled, they wanted to fire him.
However, since he had a one-year contract with them, they couldn’t fire him. Instead, they tried to get him to quit by locking him out of his office, but he refused to leave. The way he saw it, he could just collect a paycheck for a year and do nothing as long as he showed up at the office and put up with all the hate. It’s a living.
The Fire (Season 5, Episode 20)
In season 5’s “The Fire,” while George is pushing old ladies and children out of the way to escape a house fire, Elaine is being upstaged at work. Elaine can’t stand her co-worker, Toby, whose bubbling positive energy drives her up the wall.
The two are competing for a promotion, and after Toby loses a toe in an accident involving a street sweeper, the bosses at Pendant take pity on her, Elaine is passed over for the promotion and it goes to Toby.
The Revenge (Season 2, Episode 7)
This episode was apparently based on Larry David’s real experience when he quit his job at Saturday Night Live and instantly regretted it. George quits his job triumphantly, calling out his boss and storming out of the office.
But when he speaks to Jerry and realizes his prospects of getting another job are slim, he decides to just go back on Monday morning and pretend it didn’t happen. When his boss chews him out in front of everybody, he teams up with Elaine to “slip him a mickey.”
The Opposite (Season 5, Episode 22)
Both Elaine and George have hilarious work-based storylines in the season 5 finale “The Opposite.” George realizes that all of his instincts are wrong and decides to start doing the opposite of everything he thinks he should do.
This lands him an interview with the New York Yankees, where he yells at George Steinbrenner for his questionable decisions, earning him the job. Meanwhile, Elaine plummets to George’s level as a Jujyfruits-related incident leads to the demise of Pendant Publishing.
