Holly Hope

This week, Micheal continued his lecture circuit of the Dunder Mifflin branches, bringing Pam along as his assistant. She encouraged him that they should go to Holly's branch to do a presentation so that he could either get closure or rekindle the relationship. Upon arriving, Micheal learned that Holly was away from the branch on business, and that she has a new boyfriend, A.J. Micheal proceeded to inappropriately grill A.J. during his presentation. Afterwards, Michael went to her desk and noticed a file on her computer that was addressed to him. He burned the file to his USB key, and he cut a piece of her sweater sleeve for a personal momento.

Back at the office, Jim and Dwight were having great difficulty throwing Kelly a birthday party. They did a lousy job decorating and spelt her name wrong on the cake, much to her dismay. In the end, they let Kelly pick a theme for her party. She chose the theme of nap time and proceeded to sleep under the conference room table until Dwight woke her by banging metal lids together.

I found the whole birthday party story line to be quite amusing. At my previous workplace, it seemed like we were always having a party. They were enjoyable, however, they often detracted from productive work. This was highlighted in The Office, as Kelly was sleeping on company time. Although birthday celebrations are fun, perhaps they should be celebrated outside of working hours.

Funny moment of the week:
When Michael cut off the piece of Holly's sweater for a keepsake.

Emergency Exercise

Angered that the office staff was not paying attention to his presentation, Dwight decided to test them with a practical emergency scenario. He lit a garbage can on fire, heated the door handles, and put firecrackers on the floor causing the room to cloud with smoke. The office dissolved into chaos. Everyone was fighting to get to the door in a state of panic. The pressure of the situation proved to be too much for Stanley and he had a heart attack. Naturally, Dwight got in trouble for his irresponsible actions, and was asked to present the staff with a statement of regret.

In his misguided effort to be a caring boss, Michael responded to Stanley’s heart attack by engaging the office staff in meditation exercises. Unfortunately, instead of relaxing the staff, Michael proceeded to further stress them out. Each time he approached Stanley, his stress monitor would sound a large series of beeps, which would disappear when Michael receded. Michael was distraught to learn that he produced negative feelings amongst his staff, so he told them he would hold a roast and give them all an opportunity to hurl insults at him. By the end of the roast, Michael was devastated. He took the next morning off for some personal reflection. Eventually, he came back into the office and made peace with the staff by hurling insults back at them until he felt they were even.

Aside from Michael’s unnerving presence, I do not think I would have been able to benefit from the meditation. I have tried meditation before in a peer setting and it did not work for me. The whole time I just couldn’t wait for it to be over, and I found the relaxation pose to be quite uncomfortable.

Funny moment of the week:
Trying to save her cat from the fire, Angela threw it up into the loft, only to have it fall through the ceiling seconds later. As well, Oscar tried to escape into the ceiling to no avail and his legs poked through the roof to the horror of the office staff. Their shocked expressions were hilarious.
This episode was quite comical and entertaining. It was a noticeable improvement from the shows that have been broadcasted over the past few months.