Masao (Koike) is a school dropout who qualifies as a programmer and, desperate for employment, encourages a misunderstanding about his education in order to get a job. Little does he realize, though, that the company, a sub-contractor for larger firms which do not want to pay the higher costs of hiring regular staff, is also encouraging a misunderstanding about what a 'job' here entails. He finds himself on a constant 'death march': a virtual prisoner at his desk, a foot-(or finger-) soldier in the cause of globalization, stuck in a bizarre group of the desperate, the outcast, the ambitious, and the walking wounded; bickering, using, politicking, blame-shifting, work-evading—in short, your typical 21st-century office.