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i.
After graduation he applies to every job that he thinks he’s even remotely qualified to do. Sales, HR, tour guide, you name it, Jim’s pretty sure that’s submitted a resume. He’s applied to more jobs than he can name, but there’s one that he wants. It’s a low paying, entry level job at a sports magazine in Philadelphia, and he’d be doing grunt work, like fetching coffee and making copies, but it would just be so awesome.
He gets a call back from a paper company first. He goes to the interview and it’s in a non-descript building and the guy seems nice, a little strange, but nice, and by the end he’s convinced that the job is his if he wants it.
The magazine calls him later that afternoon as he’s sitting with his new roommate enjoying a beer and toasting to Jim’s potential first real job.
“Mr. Halpert? We’d like you to come and interview, if you are available?” And two days later Jim is down in Philadelphia talking about the Sixers and Flyers with some hot shot editor, and he’s shaking his hand and accepting the job offer and he calls Mr. Scott from the paper company back and politely declines the sales position.
ii.
He’s not sure what he expected this job to be, but this wasn’t it. It’s clear in the first few moments after meeting his new boss that Michael Scott isn’t quite like any other manager. He comes up with at least thirteen nicknames for Jim by the time lunch rolls around, and he’s already asked at least four times if Jim has any weekend plans, and maybe they can go play laser tag at this really awesome laser tag place he knows?
The older guy has already called him John, Joe, and Jeff, and Jim has already decided it’s not worth correcting him. The red head has hit on him, and not very subtly, not very subtly at all, he’s got a headache starting to edge in, and the guy in the desk next to his keeps glaring at him like he’s got the plague or something, and this is not how his first grown-up job was supposed to be like.
But there is a silver lining, and her name is Pam. She’s the receptionist, and she’s cute. Really cute, with curly hair and a little cardigan and she smiled at him when he walked in this morning, and hooked her finger so that he would come closer and she looked so serious, so adorable and so serious, when she said, “Enjoy this moment, because you are never going to go back to this time before you met your desk-mate Dwight.” And she was right, because then on top of being called Joe and Jeff and John and Fat Halpert, there's Dwight, but she keeps giving him these sympathetic looks and it almost makes Dwight’s existence worth it, almost.
At the end of his first day, he’s just happy that he survived, and he suddenly gets a burst of courage and when he walks past Pam’s desk, he taps his knuckles on the top and smiles at her.
“Hey, do you want to get dinner sometime?” And she beams, and her smile is really, really beautiful, and she says,
“Sure, that would be really great.”
iii.
It’s do or die time.
Jim’s always worked best under pressure. Works best when there’s a deadline, and there is a deadline. June 10th.
He’s talked to Jan about a transfer. He’s only mentioned it to Toby, and Toby raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. Toby’s not stupid; he knows that it’s about Pam. Everything’s about Pam.
He can’t watch Pam marry that oaf. He can’t sit back and watch her make the biggest mistake of her life and then stay around and watch their marriage implode. He can’t. He just can’t.
Jan told him that she would look into it, check around and see if there were any sales positions available at any of the other branches. He thanks her and hopes, hopes, that he won’t need the escape route. But he’s not stupid and so he has a back-up plan. Please, please, please don’t make me use my back-up plan.
Jim doesn’t plan to make his grand announcement at Michael’s ridiculous Casino Night. But Pam’s there and she looks so beautiful, and he’s maybe had too many drinks and he’s feeling brave and all kinds of nervous and it all just spills out.
He’s not sure what he expected her to say, but “I can’t” was not at the top of that list.
After she walks away, his head in his hands, he pulls out his phone and calls Jan. He needs to get out of here. He needs to get out of here.
Jan answers on the third ring and she sounds exasperated, and Jim is pinching his eyes shut and hoping his voice doesn’t crack when he asks her about the transfer. When he tells her that he can’t be here anymore.
“I’m sorry, Jim,” Jan says. “I looked, but there just aren’t any openings. Between you and me, things aren’t looking so great for the company, we’re thinking of shutting a branch down. Now’s just not the time to transfer. Maybe in a few months?”
A few months is too late, and he shakes his head a couple of times and thanks her before striding into the building and finding Michael.
“Michael? I quit,” before Michael can say anything Jim turns and leaves him sputtering behind as he walks out into the warm, dark night.
iv.
The ride to New York is quiet, Karen sits in the passenger seat and goes over her notes and he can hear her silently practicing her interview answers. He gives her a sideways smile and tugs on her hand and she lets out a sigh and a small smile.
“I’m just so nervous, you know?” She says and he knows, because his hands are kind of sweaty and his heart is racing and he wasn’t sure just how much he wanted this job until right now.
Karen goes first, and while he’s waiting out in the waiting room he notices that he’s misplaced his folder. The receptionist is watching him searching panicked around the room and finally takes pity on him and he’s just thankful that he emailed his resume and numbers to himself and she prints him out a new copy and he clutches them in his hands as he waits for Karen to finish.
When it’s his turn, he sits with David Wallace and when David asks him where he sees himself in ten years, he makes some joke about a private island and maybe his own jet, and David laughs and Jim hands over the new copies of his resume, and he feels pretty confident as he leaves the office, shaking David’s hand.
He takes Karen out to dinner that night in New York to celebrate their interviews having gone so well, and when David calls him the next day to offer him the job, Karen kisses him hard and tells him she’s proud of him and calls Michael up to give him her two weeks.
“Don’t look so surprised Halpert,” she tells him with a teasing smile. And he wraps his arms around her and she may not be his first choice, but she’s here and she’s willing to quit her job for him, and he might just love her after all.
v.
Stamford is lonely.
The people are all right, nice enough, but he can’t be bothered with any of them. To be honest, he can’t be bothered with much.
He doesn’t go on his trip to Australia. He loses some money, but it’s not as much of a waste as it would be if he went, and so he sits in his blank, empty apartment and he drinks a lot and reaches for his phone and doesn’t dial her number, because what if Roy answers? He thinks that might just push him over the edge. Maybe he’s already over the edge.
His mother is worried, his brothers haven’t teased him in weeks, and his father is stoic when he comes to visit, giving him hard looks that are worse than his mother’s pitiful ones.
He has a few missed calls from a number he doesn’t recognize, but he knows the area code, and he wants nothing to do with Scranton, Pennsylvania.
He spent June 10th in a drunken fog, and he goes to a bar and tries to pick up a girl, any girl, but he ends up leaving alone, feeling badly about himself and about the state of the world, and he imagines her in a white dress and she probably looked so goddamned beautiful, and it’s pretty much the worst day of his life.
Two weeks after tenth, he gets five calls in a row from that same number and he finally picks up the phone.
“Jim, honey?” It’s Phyllis, and he can’t bring himself to be rude to Phyllis and just hang up the phone like he wants to.
“Oh hey,” oh hey, like he hasn’t dropped off the face of the earth and ignored her calls for three weeks straight.
“She called off the wedding, Jim,” Phyllis says breathlessly and he stops. There’s a buzzing in his ears, and his hands are shaking suddenly. “I’ve been trying to call you.”
“Why didn’t she call me?” And there’s a knock on the door, and Pam’s standing on the other side and he has to tell Phyllis that he’ll call her back in a voice that he doesn’t recognize and suddenly Pam’s in his arms, crying and gripping his t-shirt in her hands and saying she’s sorry, she’s sorry, and his hands haven’t stopped shaking and he kisses her forehead and he tells her it’s okay, because it’s okay.
“I quit,” Pam tells him. “I quit Dunder Mifflin. Do you think you need a roommate?” And he’s laughing and he doesn’t know how any of this is going to work, but he doesn’t care, he just doesn’t care.
Story Notes:
The title is from a Neko Case song. I'm not sure where this came from, but it's pretty self-explanatory. 5 things that never happened to our favorite salesman.
bashert is the author of 37 other stories.
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