Wednesday, February 4, 2009

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.

3 comments:

jjccjc said...

I think the presence of the "boss" usually stresses most employees. Therefore, it is hard to believe that meditation exercies with the boss would be relaxing for anyone.

Shannon Bishop said...

I agree that Angela throwing the cat up was definitely one of the funniest moments of the episode haha. I almost felt bad for Michael after the roast though. Also, they advertised that Jack Black and Jessica Alba were starring in the episode, but they were hardly in it at all. Their roles weren't all that important, so it became obvious that they were only in the episode to attract more viewers to stay tuned after the superbowl. Sneaky... or clever...?

Julia said...

Personally, if I turned in to see Jack Black and Jessica Alba, I would have been quite disappointed. They only had minor roles and the parts that they were in were quite stupid. I don't know who their segments were supposed to appeal to, because I found that there scenes were not even the slightest bit humorous.