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Author's Chapter Notes:
Jim finds his letter from his younger self.

April 2007


About fifteen minutes into the ride, Jim Halpert was really starting to regret taking the train from Stamford to Manhattan. Not because it added a good half hour to his travel time, though that was another downside, but because it was leaving him to fret about his upcoming interview at the corporate offices of Dunder Mifflin. At least if he was driving he would have to focus on the road and traffic, now all he could do was just overthink all possible questions: What’s your greatest strength and weakness? How do you work under pressure? Why do you want this job?


“Because my girlfriend all but applied for me,” he thought to himself with a small chuckle. He shouldn’t think that, Karen didn’t apply to this position for him, she just very strongly suggested he do it. The vice president of regional sales spot was open thanks to what was rumored to be a spectacular flame-out by Jan Levinson. She had been dating Jim’s old boss, Michael Scott, for six months so the news of the “meltdown” was of no surprise. Karen always scoffed at the tales of working under Michael Scott, declaring “This cannot be true, he’d be fired” at Jim’s retelling of things like speaking like Apu from the Simpsons to his Indian co-worker Kelly, making everyone take time off watch Michael fight Jim’s old deskmate/nemesis Dwight, shouting “this boat is sinking” on a lake cruise to the point that someone jumped off. Then there was the cocktail party at CFO David Wallace’s house, when after months of rumors Jan and Michael announced their relationship, and Jim could tell Jan regretted the announcement instantly as Michael could barely contain his giggles and “that’s what she said”s at any and all possible double entendres.


Karen and Jim had a good laugh about the Jan and Michael situation but if Jim thought about it long enough, it also brought out a change in Karen. They had been together for nearly a year, it was all registered with HR, everyone knew and no one had accused them of being inappropriate at work. As the assistant regional manager, Jim was technically Karen’s superior (though the title was as meaningless as he always teased his ex-coworker Dwight about, mostly just signing things on the days the regional manager Josh wasn’t around) but no one made accusations of favoritism. Still, before that cocktail party, Karen and him had fun at work together, playfully bantering and finding ways to fill slow afternoons with things like searches for chips and trying to pass off the squeaky chair to each other. After the cocktail party, and the second-hand embarrassment felt for Jan, Karen was different at work. Distance, maybe even a touch cold, a little like she was with him when he first moved to Stamford. Not that Karen was ever much for public displays of affection, but Jim missed even the small little strokes of his shoulder when she passed by or her trying to fix his unruly hair in the breakroom.


He sighed remembering the almost-fight over his hair for this interview. He saw no problem, David Wallace seemed to like him just fine with his longish hair, but like the application, Karen basically dragged him to the barber. “No one in New York is going to take you seriously with that hair,” she said, “You may as well be homeless.”


It shouldn’t have gotten under his skin the way it had, Karen wasn’t trying to be mean, and she was right, he needed a professional haircut for this professional interview. Still, it made him wonder if she had always thought that about his hair, about him, that he was just some likeable idiot who needed to be told what to do all the time.


Snap out of it, Halpert, he thought, returning his attention to possible interview questions. Describe a challenge you had to overcome at work. Easy, losing his biggest client to Dwight but still managing to be a top 10 salesman for the year. What’s your greatest weakness? Karen had coached him on this one, make sure to turn the negative into a positive, like that he knew he could get over confident and push too hard on a sale, so he had learned to back off a little with initial sales then gently push to up orders during renewals.


Where do you see yourself in 10 years? He struggled with this one, at least when imagining himself in ten years in a professional sense. Personally, he wanted to be married with a couple kids, playing HORSE with them in the driveway. He didn’t really see himself at Dunder Mifflin still, then again, he hadn’t really seen himself at Dunder Mifflin for the five years he had been there.


What did Karen say again about this question? He remembered Karen had written up a few pointers and put it in his expense report folder in his satchel. He started to riffle through the bag, pausing when finding a large white envelope with red emblem on it.


“Oh no, your tenth high school reunion?” Karen said when she spotted this on his coffee table a month or so ago. “Can't believe I'm dating such an old man.”


He scoffed, and opened up the envelope, finding the itinerary and rsvp form inside, along with another envelope addressed to himself in his own handwriting. “Looks like it's on June 23rd,” he told Karen, tucking the other contents back inside.


“Are you thinking about going?” Karen said with a skeptical tone.


Jim shrugged, “It’d be good to see some of my old teammates.” Someone who was definitely not his basketball team was crossing his mind, though.


Eventually he would send back the RSVP that he was not going, and slip the large envelope into his work bag unread. Now here he was facing the same envelope, knowing he should keep digging for his expense reports and the interview tips. But instead he opened the white envelope up, slowly sliding out what looked like an essay in his own handwriting with some photos behind it.


“1997 - Where do I see myself in 10 years by Jim Halpert.” the top of the essay read. Jim laughed at little reading the first few lines, oh how idealistic he was, thinking he could easily get a job like being a sports journalist in Philadelphia (or that being a journalist paid well at all), just needed a four-year degree and a little hard work. He envied his younger self, not really being aware of the terms that now ruled his life: quotas, cold-calls, tonnage prices, customer retention, loss leaders. His younger self hadn’t endured the task of sitting next to Dwight Schrute or Andy Bernard, or been under the management of Michael Scott.


“Just over year ago I finally got the courage to talk to a girl that I had been wanting to talk to for months. I was so scared she’d reject me, we didn’t seem to have anything in common, but my dad told me that most good things in life are a little scary at first, and that the worst thing would be her saying no. Of course my intention when I talked to her was to ask her out, but first we were just friends, even best friends. Now that we’ve been dating for a year, my favorite thing about her is her smile. Don’t get me wrong, I like some other stuff too, but when she smiles at me and when we laugh together it’s like everything feels okay. I can’t predict the future and it seems silly to try, I can only hope that when I read this in 2007 I still have that smile to remind me even when things are tough, everything is okay.”


Jim chewed the inside of his lips as he flipped to the photo collage behind the letter, pictures of him playing basketball, hanging out in the hallways, and the last one a photo of him hand in hand with the girl he was gushing about in his letter. He hadn't seen her in nearly 10 years, last he heard she was engaged or married or something, living in Pennsylvania, though not in Scranton. Sometimes he was tempted to reach out and get in touch, seemed a shame to lose all contact when they were once so close. Then again it still stung, even nine years on, how quickly and completely it fell apart.


He let his eyes linger on the black and white photo, her hair a little frizzy and everywhere, her smile so wide and sincere. Karen had a nice smile, her perfect white teeth framed with full, shapely lips, something a little mischievous behind it which at certain times drove him crazy. But the girl in the photo, she had the sweetest smile he had ever seen, even still.


A muffled voice announced they were pulling into Grand Central soon, and Jim put the pictures and letter back in his satchel, and stood to get ready to disembark. After a quick transfer to midtown, then an elevator up, he was in the Dunder Mifflin corporate offices. His mind wandered to the 18 year old boy in the photo, hand in hand with the girl with the sweet smile. That boy would probably be aghast at him applying for this suits job, pushing paper and working for “The Man”. The girl though, she wouldn't love it but she would be encouraging, always encouraging.


“Mr Wallace will see you now,” a young, pretty assistant wearing a blue tooth headset said, and Jim took a deep breath and stood. He heard Karen's slightly smoky voice in his mind repeating her interview tips, “Remember to make it a positive even if the question is asking for a negative, hold eye contact, sit up straight, don't move your hands too much.”


But then a softer voice started speaking in the back of his mind, “You'll be okay, Jim, people like you, you make them laugh and you make them feel listened to, just be yourself.”


Towards the end of the interview, during the “Do you have any questions for me?”, Jim ask if it was required of him to be a Knicks fan, because he'd be unable to take the job if that were the case. David Wallace laughed, and Jim was pretty sure he was going to get the job. He knew Karen would be pleased when he told her, would flash him that smile with the blindingly white teeth and full red lips. He found himself thinking about how he longed to see a different smile, something a little softer and sweeter.

Chapter End Notes:
Yikes, so yeah, probably not winning Nanowrimo this time around unless something miraculous happens, but I am still going to work on this story. 

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