If you’re a fan of workplace humor like The Office or Office Space, you will probably have a soft spot in your heart for Sam. As the titular character in writer and director Kody Zimmerman’s short film The Familiar, Sam (Torrance Coombs) has one of the worst jobs imaginable. He’s a familiar for Simon (Paul Hubbard), a 400-year old vampire. For Sam, this once sounded like a perfect job, especially considering the promise that one day he, too, might join the ranks of the living undead. But being a familiar is hard — and often disgusting — work. And after five years of it, Sam is having second thoughts.

Zimmerman manages to make Sam a sympathetic character. Sam narrates the tale, so we’re meant to see things from his sardonic point of view. With his pop culture references and his desire to advance in his career, he’s not particularly dark and brooding. He’s that guy who works in the cubicle next to ours. What makes Sam believable as a character is his voice. This is a character that knows what it means to suffer silently. The Familiar is a small film, but it’s well done with some surprisingly good effects. It may not always be laugh-out-loud funny, but it is amusing. And by the end of it, it has us cheering for Sam, too.