i have done an excellent job this quarter... i am awesome

A year isn’t very long, and he sells a lot of paper, so things are good. Michael shows him the plaque and the certificate (they stopped making plaques), and the implication hangs in the air around them. Dwight knows that it could be him someday.

The performance review is easy, but “well, it’s settled then” isn’t quite what he expected. He pushes forward, because a good salesman doesn’t stop (that’s what she said), but Michael snaps and he doesn’t understand what happened. (“Jesus, Dwight… just give it a rest.”) Something is caught in his throat, or stuck in his back, and he feels a funny itch like maybe things won’t work out the way he thought.