The Michael Scott Experience™ (as Jim had begun to think of it) was somehow both completely unpredictable and exactly as he’d expected it. He was grateful that he’d had Pam’s perspective on Michael to confirm his own, though, because if he hadn’t had that microscopic little bit of extra certainty that it was Michael and not he who was insane, he might have folded halfway through—or worse, revealed that he was not entirely enthralled and disappointed Michael. It wasn’t that he loved Michael or even really liked the man. Rather, he could tell from the first moment, when Michael popped the video into the VCR and then ran around like a small child to sit next to Jim and watch his own orientation video with an attitude of complete enrapturement (with elbows in Jim’s ribs at particularly “good” parts) that Michael was the sort of man-child who needed special, careful management, and that a large part of that management would take the form of making Michael believe that Jim and everyone else in the office shared his bizarre obsessions and strange quirks, or at least found them delightful and not wearing. He was pretty sure, as well, that this was not the truth: the heavy sigh the older pair of Stanley and Phyllis shared when Michael bubbled up to them to introduce Jim was a sign, as was the accountants’ mutual conspiracy not to make eye contact when Michael swept into the back—or the “annex” as it was apparently called. Fortunately Michael seemed to have some kind of beef with Toby, the HR guy, who had seemed not just harmless but aggressively so, and so they were out of the annex before the accountants’ standoffishness (or that one girl, Kelly’s, strangely emphatic wink) could get too weird.

What he had not counted on was that the Experience™ included not only a tour of the upper office but of the lower warehouse as well. Currently he was standing by a large stack of reams of paper that was about to go out to customers—once Michael stopped fooling around with the forklift, that was. At least the man wasn’t driving it. But he was tapdancing back and forth between the arms of the lift (which was fortunately on the ground) while a very frustrated, almost square woman named Madge visibly held herself back from yelling at him. Darryl, the warehouse manager, was leaning against the other side of the stack of paper, and Jim shared a glance of sympathy with him in a way that suggested that Darryl was entry number two on Jim’s small but important list of vaguely sane people at Dunder Mifflin.

“So, Jim…” Darryl drawled as Michael, for no reason that Jim could tell, started humming something that in another world, with different musical scales and no concept of pitch, might have been the theme to Footloose.

“Yeah?” He couldn’t say more without letting out the belly laugh that was threatening to erupt from deep within his soul.

“You got any plans tonight?”

“Nah.” He waved a hand vaguely and changed his mind. Focusing on this conversation was probably the only thing that would actually keep him from laughing, because even noncommittal noises had their limits. “Got a lease signing at 5:30, but if that goes beyond like 5:45…”

“You’re screwed.” Darryl grinned. “Got it.”

“Exactly.”

“You want to join me and the boys for a drink?” Darryl nodded towards the square woman, who looked like she was deciding whether it was really such a bad idea to lift the forklift to its full height with her boss’s boss dangling between the tines. “And Madge, of course. We usually head out to Poor Richard’s, play some darts, drink some beers.”

“Of course.” Jim considered. Was going out with a bunch of warehouse guys he didn’t know (and Madge) any worse than a night at home with his parents? Well, they probably didn’t have his mom’s chocolate chip cookies, but he was making an effort to be an adult after all. “Sure, I’d love to.” He coughed. “I mean, sounds cool.”

“Cool.” Darryl grinned again and Jim was glad to have found at least one person here he didn’t feel he had to pretend to be cooler than he was around. Well, two—he couldn’t forget Pam, but then again, that phone call had gone well beyond “not pretending to be cool” into “just being himself.”

“Hey, Roy!” Darryl raised his voice and a worker Jim hadn’t noticed before—probably because he’d been inside the truck they were supposed to load, from which he now emerged—stuck his head out and yelled back. “We got company tonight!” He gestured at Jim. “New blood upstairs.”

Roy. That wasn’t that common of a name, Jim thought. But what were the odds that Pam’s fiancé worked at Dunder Mifflin? On the other hand, Kelly had said something about noticing Roy yesterday—Jim was embarrassed to admit even to himself how carefully he’d listened to that conversation—and that suggested that he might indeed be the same Roy. On the other…no time for another hand, Roy was sticking his hand out to shake, and it was time to go back to pretending to be cool. Just in case this was Pam’s fiancé, somehow, this big beefy guy with muscles on his muscles and a wide grin.

“Roy Anderson.”

“Jim Halpert.” Wait. Anderson? No way Pam was going to be Pam Anderson. Had to be another guy.

“You work upstairs?” Roy gestured towards the ceiling using a finger not normally employed for such work.

“Yeah. Just started in sales.” He nodded towards Michael, who was now piling boxes onto the forklift around himself to make a little fort. Michael caught his eye and yelled “Hey Jim, I made a fortlift! Get it? Fort-lift?” Jim smiled and waved, and Michael went back to playing.

Roy shook his head. “Better you than me.” Jim started to grin. That had to mean this wasn’t Pam’s fiancé, since Pam herself worked upstairs, and he couldn’t imagine the man wouldn’t want to work with his lovely, hilarious bride-to-be. But then Darryl cut Roy a sarcastic look, complete with raised eyebrow, which raised his suspicions again.

“I don’t know,” Jim shrugged. “It’s not that bad so far.”

“How long you been up there?” Roy asked. Before Jim could answer, Darryl shook his head. “It’s his first day.”

Roy clapped a hand on Jim’s shoulder. “Just you wait, Jim. I’ll bet you a beer tonight that by the time we all meet up at Poor Richard’s, you’ll be wishing you never replied to that job ad.”

“It’s a bet.” As they shook on the bet—the second time they’d shaken hands, and the second time Jim had noticed Roy had a tendency to squeeze a little harder than he needed to—Darryl headed over to Michael, apparently deciding that it was time to actually get a little work done, which obviously required rousting their erstwhile leader from his protective ring of boxes. Roy took advantage of the moment to shake his head sadly at Jim. “Sorry Halpert, but it’s a sucker bet.” He grinned. “My girlfriend works reception, so I know how crazy it gets up there.” He clapped Jim on the shoulder again and walked over to help Darryl reload the boxes the right way onto the lift, shooting a Parthian shot back over his shoulder. “I look forward to that beer!”

Jim raised a hand in farewell and trailed behind Michael on his way upstairs, nodding along at Michael’s excited jabbering—“did you see my fort, Jim? Did you?”—and pondering the fact that Roy was definitely winning that beer, even if not for the reason he thought. Jim was already regretting answering that job ad, but not for the reasons Roy might think. No, he wished he’d somehow answered it much sooner—soon enough to get there before a funny, delightful receptionist met a macho warehouse worker—or never at all—so he wouldn’t have to deal with the sudden twist that had ripped through his guts at Roy’s words.