Friday, January 23, 2009

Deceptive Deeds

In this week's episode, Michael's boss asked him to obtain their competitor's client list, so Dunder Mifflin could increase their business. Michael took Dwight on an undercover mission to "Prince Paper", and they took turns going into the shop under false identities to try and trick the owner of "Prince Paper" into divulging client information. Eventually, Michael was successful and obtained the list, however, while exiting the parking lot, he smashed the front of his car, and the owner of "Prince Paper" came to the resue, so Michael began to second guess his actions taking advantage of the owner.

Michael showed his compassionate side in this episode, as he wanted to protect the "Prince Paper" company after they were so kind to him. Nevertheless, business decisons sometime involve letting someone down, in order to maximize personal gains.

Back at the office, the staff spent the day deciding whether or not Hilary Swank qualified as hot. When they could not settle the discussion with a vote, they took turns making arguments to support their position. Eventually, the tie was solved by a comment from Michael who passed by and said that she was hot.

I have worked in an office before, and I am familiar with the fact that there is free time in the day, but it is kind of wacky that "The Office" staff is able to devote so much of their workday to a nonsense discussion about Hilary Swank's appeal.

Funny moment of the week:
Dwight says: "You're heart is a wonderful thing Michael, but it makes some terrible decisions."
Michael: "That's true, it has gone down the wrong path many, many times - Jan, Ryan..."

Friday, January 16, 2009

Surprising Situations

When Michael was called into the head office, he thought he was being summoned to account for a mistake. To his surprise, he was being congratulated for having the most successful branch. The chief financial officer tried to pick Michael's brain to find out the secret behind his success during these harsh economic times, but instead Michael uttered a prolonged unintelligible sentence.

In my experience, at some work meetings very little actually gets accomplished. A lot of the time, it appears as though meetings are merely called for the purpose of the team members seeing eachother face-to-face, to reinforce feelings of togetherness. I've been at several meetings where everyone just sat around bored with nothing constructive to do. While meeting with a superior, I find that the meetings run the most smoothly when participants are given the subject of the meeting beforehand so that there is time to prepare material and collect one's thoughts.

Also, during this episode, Andy discovered that Angela has been having an affair with Dwight. Andy was shocked to learn this news, and he promptly confronted Angela, who admitted that she was still sleeping with Dwight, "a little bit". Andy then confronted Dwight, and they decided to have a duel to determine who belonged with Angela. In response, Angela said, "I will respect the results of the duel".

I am glad that Andy has finally finished with Angela, because she never really seemed to love him. It appeared as though she was only in a relationship with Andy to get even with Dwight for running over her cat. Dwight also called off his relationship with Angela in this episode when he learned that she slept with Andy whilst she was sleeping with him. I predict that Angela and Dwight will eventually get back together sometime in the future.

Funny moment of the week:
When Michael wanted to tell Andy that his fiance was having an affair with Dwight, he asked Andy to accompany him to the parking lot. Michael waited until he was securely in his car with the engine on an then he blurted out, "Dwight and Angela are having an affair, they have been sleeping together for some time." then he drove away.