The rules September 30, 2008

Here are some of the rules I follow to help me cope at Dunder Mifflin.
1. As I mentioned yesterday, never go to the break room while Michael is away from his desk. The chances of getting cornered in a conversation you don’t want to be a part of increase infinitely if you can’t revert to [...]

Escape from the breakroom September 29, 2008

I broke one of my rules last week.
And I paid for it.
Never, never, never go the the breakroom unless Michael is in his office. If Michael is on the prowl, any sign that you are not busy with work (like getting a cup of coffee) is an invitation for disaster. And the breakroom is small [...]

Safe keeping September 26, 2008

Michael cannot keep track of anything to save himself. So if it’s important, he’ll often give it to me to look after.
“I need you to keep track of this paperwork for me,” he told me last week. He told me he’d need to fill it out later in the week, so to keep it in [...]

I’ll be home in a few September 25, 2008

So Michael likes to play a little game called “how many hours can I pretend I’m at the office without being at the office.”
Here’s a hint: he always wins.
He established a thing called “front loading.” He says he front loads his hours to the most important part of the week, working one extra hour every [...]

Number 3 September 24, 2008

An over heard conversation from Michael’s office.
Dwight: You know Michael, I was thinking with me being out of town yesterday and you taking some time off soon, we need to decide who is our number 3 if we’re ever gone at the same time.
Michael: Our what?
Dwight: Who will be in charge is something happens while [...]

“Michael was here” September 18, 2008

Whenever I leave my desk, Michael sees this as an opportunity to enter my work space. Besides my lunch break, I am at my desk for all but maybe 15 minutes to go to the breakroom or the bathroom.
But my goodness if he doesn’t take advantage of those 15 minutes.
When I return I often see [...]

Call me … actually, don’t September 17, 2008

Kelly asked Michael and Stanley for their cell phone numbers. They are both leaving for a paper convention in a couple weeks and she wanted to be able to get in touch with them if there were any problems.
“Isn’t it cool how women want our cell phone numbers?” Michael says to Stanley while Kelly is [...]

The final countdown September 16, 2008

The sales people were on deadline, putting together a booklet of stats and sales figures for the year. Dwight was heading up the project and had decided he needed to have the final OK on all information submitted to the report.
“Do we have something we can replace these charts with?” Dwight demanded in the final [...]

Human Resources September 15, 2008

So at my office, we don’t have an on-site human resources employee. We have to contact our assigned rep at the corporate offices.
So I’ve been leaving messages and e-mails for Toby for a couple months and wondering why I wasn’t hearing anything back from him.
I asked Angela if she happened to know what was going [...]

Karen and the almost lost vacation September 12, 2008

As soon as he heard the news, Dwight rushed into Michael’s office.
“How could you let Karen take a week of vacation next month?” Dwight demanded.
“Why wouldn’t I?” Michael asked motioning for Dwight to calm down.
“Because that’s the same week as our annual paper convention in Michigan!”
“But we don’t need Karen to go. We already decided [...]