Paper push

Twice a month, Dunder Mifflin has a big paper sales push, and all of the sales reps have to meet a set quota by 5 p.m. every other Tuesday.

Those Tuesdays and the Monday before are particularly hectic around the office. I’m not a salesperson, but it is my job to make sure everything is organized and to finalize the sales paperwork, so I usually end up with the most to do on these days.

Our boss, Michael, likes to try to boost morale on “paper push” days by sharing jokes, gossip and funny things he finds online. He genuinely believes the time lost that he is not working — and therefore that we are not working — as he is sharing these gems is time well spent. That happy workers are productive workers.

But I don’t usually even have time for a lunch break on these days … and lunches generally make me happier than Michael.

One Tuesday a few weeks ago, Michael was in full swing. As of 11 a.m., he’d spent about 40 minutes total at his desk. The rest of the time was spent mingling among the stressed-out sales people and intermittently singing to himself “They call me mellow yellow,” demonstrating how cool and calm he was under such high-pressure situations.

I couldn’t take it. I had an especially big pile of paperwork to plow through and asked the receptionist at Vance Refrigeration (another company in our building) if I could hide in their lobby and work for a bit.

She agreed. She’s met Michael.

It’s nice to have a sympathetic ally.

I had only completed a few of the sheets when I saw a figure in the hallway shifting around to get a better look through the glass doors that lead to Vance Refrigeration.

It was Michael. I had been found.

I brace myself to be scolded for not being a team player or how I wasn’t there when he needed me for something. But it was worse.

“Hey Pam. There you are. Uhhh, hey, did you hear Ryan say he was in at 6:30 this morning to help prep for the big ‘paper push?’”

“Oh no,” I think to myself. “He’s in gossip mode. And worse yet, he wants to gossip about his boss from corporate. I’m doomed”

“Uhh no I hadn’t heard that,” I say. (I had)

“Well if he came in at 6:30, I don’t know what exactly he did because everything still needed to be done by the time I came in,” he goes on.

And on.

And on.

15 minutes later, and Michael had outlined every item he can think of that Ryan should have had done in the early morning hours that he claimed to be working, adding that some days he just can’t figure out what exactly it is Ryan DOES anyway.

I literally bite my tongue the whole time wanting to scream at Michael that the only thing that he had gotten done in the 6 hours he had been at work was one phone call and an in-depth conversation with Meredith about American Idol. And that now he’s wasting not only his own time, but mine as well.

But I resign myself to my normal “uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh” while trying to focus on the papers in front of me, praying he will get the hint that I am overwhelmingly busy and totally uninterested in whether or not Ryan was actually working at 6:30 a.m.

Because when Ryan doesn’t get his work done, I am not affected.

But when Michael doesn’t get his work done … it means I’ll probably be canceling my evening plans.

Again.