One step beyond the world of Slackers is that of Jill Sprecher's brisk, witty, shrewdly observed Clockwatchers, where the characters indeed have to punch a time clock. Four women labor as temps in a soulless rat maze of an office where the abuse isn't so much sexual as existential. Iris (Toni Collette, whose very posture conveys a lifetime of low self-esteem) sees the job as a refuge from the permanence of a position her father wants her to take at a frozen-food company. Jane (Alanna Ubach) has a rich but elusive fiancé in the works; Paula (Lisa Kudrow) is killing time until one of her "auditions" pays off. Their anarchic ringleader, Margaret (Parker Posey, a bit too posed), inspires them with an élan of prankish indifference, though her secret desire is to get a recommendation from her crass boss Lasky (an understated and hilarious Bob Balaban).

Their illusion of solidarity disintegrates when another, even more damaged woman gets a plum position, items start disappearing in the office, and external and internal suspicions tear them apart. Sprecher tells her tale with unassuming subtlety and a wry eye for detail that is often outrageously funny. And tragic, as this quartet of underachievers watch their desperate attempt at identity, purpose, and loyalty succumb to the enforced ephemerality of the work place. At the Kendall Square.