Did you miss last week’s episode or are you whooshing?
I’m pretty sure that Toby and Ryan are both targeting Jim out of jealousy for Pam.
-Joe
Oops. Come to think of it, I actually did.
-Joe
I think Ryan is pissed because Jim complained about his website. He told Jim last week to watch his back. I’m sure the Pam aspect didn’t help any but I don’t think that was the primary cause of this warning.
Ok. Last week Michael and Dwight went clubbing with Ryan in NY, and it was heavily implied that Ryan had a drug problem.
And what about Dwight?
Using the Jedi-mind trick to buy Andy’s SUV and then jacking up the price for a quick resell.
Then the emergency power shift flow chart, trying the same hard sell technique on Michael who didn’t fall for it.
I have to watch this one again.
I reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally wanted to see Michael try and tickle Stanley. What did Darryl call it? Puffy fingers or something?
Fluffy fingers. I was so disappointed that Michael didn’t do that.
I think it was “fluffy fingers”.
Dwight’s car buying skills with Andy were great, and it looked like Angela noticed Dwight’s victory. Michael not falling for Dwight’s hard sell on the emergency power chart was another indicator that he’s not a complete idiot.
Yeahhh, I’m gonna have to go ahead and disagree with everyone about Michael acting like a boss and a man with Stanley at the end of the episode. After everyone left the room, the first thing Michael did was break down and cry, and ask Stanley why he’s always so mean to him. Stanley told him the bald truth - he has no respect for Michael, he dislikes him more every day, he thinks he’s an idiot. A good boss (and a man, in the Vito Corleone sense) would have told Stanley “Well, then we cannot work together any longer. You need to either transfer to another branch, or leave the company.” Instead, Michael basically told him to fake it in front of other people. That’s not what a good boss (or a man) does.
If Stanley is still useful to him as a salesman, yes it is.
Huh, I totally blamed with Jim’s reprimand on Toby. I figured he filed a complaint and Ryan jumped on it because of Jim’s criticisms.
I was in painful anticipation of Michael tickling Stanley after everyone left.
Remind me how Ryan got to his current position? He’s totally incompetent. Michael is too as a manager, but at least he worked his way to his position through excellent sales. Did Ryan sleep his way up or what?
He MBA-ed his way up.
I enjoyed this episode. Stanley was being a dick in the meeting, but he was apprpriately outraged at the fake firing. Michael handled the whole thing extremely childishly by trying to pretend it didn’t happen, trying to see who else could do it, not ever confronting Stanley but instead coming up with the fake firing and then crying. At the end he wasn’t nearly foceful enough, he just told Stanley not to talk back to him in front of the others. He shoudl have said that Stanley will not bring his crossword puzzles into meetings, he should have said, if you have a problem with me you come discuss it with me, my door is always open. Instead he was almost asking Stanley for a favor, basically saying at least treat me like you respect as your boss, even htough you don’t.
Angela creates some truly wacky Mad-Libs…seriously a man eating dog food…CRAZY!
I loved that Pam is basically blind without corrective lenses. Apparently, she wears coke-bottle contacts.
I agree that Michael wasn’t very forceful in looking for respect (or even general boss-employee attitudes) from Stanley, but I think (on some level) he’s at least aware of some of all the racially offensive stuff he’s said to Stanley and that he would be in deep shit (i.e. lose the job he loves so much) if he were to really challenge him.
Agreed. We saw in that episode where they all went on sales calls that Stanley definitely has a group of clients (namely, the group of black guys who made Ryan uncomfortable), who are probably pretty loyal to him after 10+ years of him working at D-M. I can see why Michael wouldn’t want to mess that up.
Plus, Michael still likes Stanley even if Stanley doesn’t like him.
Michael breaking down in tears is also totally in-character - it’s exactly what he did when Oscar was similarly mean to him when Michael was being grossly inappropriate in regard to Oscar’s coming out.
I actually really liked that whole interaction. Michael has been too much of a bufoon lately, and I thought the way he dealt with the Stanley situation showed that it’s not that he doesn’t know how to be a good boss, it’s that most of the time he’s just too preoccupied with trying to get everyone to like him. Once Stanley took that possibility off the table, Michael was able to do what he needed to instead of letting Stanley walk all over him.
My prediction for the end of the season is that Ryan will fire Jim, which will land Ryan himself in a world of trouble, as the higher-ups at D-M are clearly grooming Jim for upper management (and he probably would have gotten Ryan’s job if he hadn’t withdrawn himself from consideration).
I don’t really see Ryan demoted back to Scranton, though; I imagine he’d be able to play his current job title into a decent position at another paper company rather than become a salesman again.
Cat food. Even crazier!
My dad and I were on the edge of our seats for this episode, too (we get together to watch The Office) - begging Michael not to “fluffy fingers” Stanley. That would have been sooooooo bad.
I think Michael kept Stanley on also because he’s really emotionally attached to the people in his office. He doesn’t really have a life outside the office. He may or may not know that new people just wouldn’t work in that office because Michael is so fucked up. So he’d much rather keep around the folks who know him than deal with new folks. Ryan used to be “new” and he blew through and kicked Michael’s ass. The other new people from NYC didn’t do well either.
How does Michael feel towards Andy? I forget their dynamics.
I see it coming down to Michael and Jim vs. Toby and Ryan. Michael manages to stall Jim’s firing long enough for DMI to finally blow up in Ryan’s face, and Ryan to get fired.
Michael takes Ryan’s job. Jim takes Michael’s job. Steve Carrel still appears semi-regularly, but uses the extra time to make more movies. Jim and Pam get engaged, but the fact that Jim is now Pam’s boss complicates things.
Toby is just miserable.