That’s a cool idea, but the show seems to be in ‘real time’. As the talk about Obama being president, and hard economic times.
Michael has caused Pam a vast amount of stress, embarrassment, and anger over the years (notwithstanding his complete lack of malice), and she’s dealt with that by cordoning off her personal life from her work life. She’s contorted her work personality to the point where she’s actually thriving there, but it’s clear that she still sees Michael as a loose cannon who could unwittingly go off at any time. It’s apparent from this episode that she’s told her Mom all of this, and she sees her mother’s invitation of Michael into her life as belittling everything Pam has told her about how he has made her life difficult. Pam doesn’t have a right to choose who her Mom dates, and yes, she could be a bigger person about it, but I understand why she feels so hurt.
What about emailing the topless picture of Jan that was taken in Jamaica?
Of course not, she just had an angry reaction the first day she found out about the whole thing when her pregnancy hormones made her more out of whack than normal. She had kind of chilled out by the end of the day and will probably be dealing with it reasonably well by next week’s episode.
As for the Pam sleeping with her boss thing, they had been dating for over a year and were engaged to be married when he was promoted.
That is the definition of a perfect Office episode.
Also, I guess Michael is plainly a bad person sometimes. I don’t think of him as the type of person to not ever reflect on his hurtful actions. His selfishness in the face of, (I’m assuming), the monumental frustrations he must’ve gone through, throughout his life and present to this day, are just enough to have me care about his character. I think he really tries to be a good guy.
It was horrible how he treated Pam’s blind date.
Frankly, Pam is really, really lucky that Michael is the sort of manager who approaches all work problems as if they were family problems, and that she’s sleeping with the other manager, because otherwise her blatant insubordination in this episode would have her ass in a sling. No other management team in the world would put up with her acting like that in a staff meeting. Even Michael reamed Stanley out for less disruptive behavior and disrespect.
And honestly, I think the fact that Michael didn’t issue her an official reprimand is proof that he’s not a malicious person. He was in a perfect position to cause a lot of trouble for Jim and Pam, to have her reprimanded or fired and make a really strong case that one of them should be transferred because she’s being allowed to get by with unacceptable behavior because of their relationship. And he didn’t do it.
Mind you, I’m not blind to Michael’s faults. He’s a clueless, unthinking person who lacks empathy for people he sees as inferior to himself, like the fat or elderly or unattractive, yes. But you know, that last is a trait all of them have to some extent. They’re socialized enough to have different criteria for seeing someone as inferior, but they all look down on Michael and none of them have any empathy for him until he throws out some utterly pitiful cry from the heart that would make any decent person feel about knee-high to an ant.
That was an accident.
So? It’s still a boundary issue that she goes around banging coworkers, and he wasn’t the first one. It’s defiitely more of a boundary issue than who Michael sleeps with outside of work.
How about having a topless picture taken of her and him while she was sleeping?
Jan was Michael’s boss when they first got together.
It was just her gut, emotional reaction when she very first found out about it. If she was still behaving that way a month later, I would agree with you.
You’re sticking by this like it’s scoring you points. Pam has been in some form of relationship, even if just an “emotional affair” with Jim since the first season. And has been having sex for well before he became her boss.
Boss and sexual partner are two coincidental points. Nothing more. Jim was given the promotion with full understanding that he was engaged to an employee. So what?
Was Pam overreacting, was it irrational? Yeah, on both counts. Do people do irrational things? Absolutely. It’s one of the better points of this show. Everybody, even the most absurd caricatures, have good and bad (but ultimately human) elements.
I don’t remember the circumstances, but you couldn’t really see anything anyway.
So what? What does that have to do with Michael and Pam?
Regardless of her emotional reaction (which at bottom is just snotty and self-centered), her behavior was completely unprofessional and unacceptable.
She was also a bitch to her mom, don’t forget.
This is why I come here to talk about the show, so many opinions, so much to consider. I’m addicted to watching the show, and coming here to see what everyone else has to say about the individual episode. Last week when my computer broke, one of the many frustrations I had to deal with was not reading what others here had to say about the last episode.
As I recall. She was topless and asleep and he had someone take a picture of him in front of her. It was clear that she was topless but it was edited on TV so that the TV audience couldn’t see the goods. He only meant to send it to his buddy Packer but accidentally sent it to all email users. Having someone take the picture and emailing it to his friend, who knew and worked with Jan, was a pretty dick move. He was being a show off at Jan expense.
Will you at least concede that he treated someone he was dating poorly at least once?
I think one boundary issue with Michael is that he doesn’t know what kind of conversations are necessarily appropriate for the workplace. Michael has historically dropped inappropriate details about his relationships around the office, presumably to boost his “image” with his co-workers. An example in this episode was answering the phone call from Pam’s mom during the meeting, and holding the conversation right there in front of everyone.
I imagine one fear of Pam’s is that this sort of inappropriateness will continue, only this time the inappropriate relationship details will involve her mother.
Plus, Dio, as others have said, her reaction doesn’t have to be rational. There are a lot of people I associate with that I would NOT want fucking my mother. For Pam, Michael is one of those people. Does a kid have any right to control who their parents date? Of course not. Does a kid have the right to be upset about who their parents date? Absolutely. Was Pam out of line with Michael? Absolutely. Are there gray areas in life where things aren’t just absolutely “right” or “wrong?” Yep.
So what? It’s still a boundary issue (and it’s questionable for the company to have put Jim in a position of being Pam’s boss in the first place – especially since he’s been showing her favoritism since he got in there). The point is that using the “boundary” excuse for her behavior is hollow and hypocritical since whatever boundary she imagines that Michael has trangressed (and I don’t think there even IS one) is still less significant than the fact that she’s boning the boss.
One good bit was how Pam was all “Oooh, gossip” when Michael told her that he was dating a co-worker’s Mom and how that turned to horror when it ended up being hers. It did kind of serve her right.
No. I don’t find any malice in that. He was clueless and inexperienced, but wasn’t trrying to hurt her. And I don’t recall anyone saying she was asleep when the picture was taken.
This is pretty thin gruel to uses as proof that Michael mistreats women. Jan was the one who was abusive to him.
Pam’s reaction has nothing to do with any fear for her mom’s welfare or happiness anyway, but with her snotty feelings of superiority.
Good point. Another hole in her “boundaries” argument.
I think in the end, most will agree Pam was “overreacted”, (not sure that’s even the right way to put it), but can see why, without hesitation. Not to say I don’t agree with **Dio’s **take on Michael’s character more than other posters. I don’t think he’s a horrible person, simply because he often makes the, (often failed), efforts not to be.
God I loved Jim’s reaction to the news.
“TAKE ANOTHER WAY HOME MAN!!”
One of the best lines in the show was, “You can’t talk to me that way; I’m your boss. And I may someday be your father.”
She’s a sales representative. But you knew that, right?