Dwight enters the office and hangs his jacket on the coat rack. Pam is at her desk biting back a smile, and already Dwight is aware that Jim is up to something. He then turns his attention towards his desk, which is missing.
“Damnit Jim!” He exclaims running towards the bathroom. Jim is not a man of many pranks and is known to repeat from time to time, the gelatin encrusted in his stapler is evidence of that fact, but as he enters the Men’s room, he sees that this is not such an occasion. “Damnit, Jim!” He repeats with a growl.
Hesitantly he peers into the Lady’s room, cautious that he will again be reprimanded for his investigations. “Damnit, Jim!” He shouts again. “Where did you put my desk? Where did you put it?”
Dwight rushes into Jim’s office and is cut short when he plows right into a second desk. A desk that just so happens to be his.
“Oh, hey Dwight,” Jim says innocently, sipping from his mug of coffee that says ‘World’s Best Boss.’ “How’s it going?”
“Why is my desk in here?” He demands.
Jim looks down suspiciously at the extra desk and then back at Dwight, “Oh, right. I figured we’d both work more productively if we were in familiar surroundings. You know? Side by side. Just like the old days.”
“Studies have shown that I worked 52 percent more productively without constant interruptions,” Dwight counters.
Jim narrows his eyes, “Who conducted studies, Dwight?”
“I did,” he answers quickly.
Jim struggles not to laugh for a moment and then shrugs his shoulders, “Fine, my first goal as regional manager of the Scranton branch is to make all of my employees happy, and I just so happen to know you’ve always wanted an office.”
“Not with you,” Dwight says shaking his head frantically.
“Truth be told,” Jim leans his elbows against his desk, “I was getting a little lonely in here all by myself.”
“Then put Stanley in here,” he reasons. “He can protect you.”
Jim glances at the camera and widens his eyes before looking back at Dwight. “But Stanley and I aren’t partners in crime,” he hits his hand against his desk. “Not like you and me. We are regional manager and assistant to the regional manager.”
“Assistant regional manager,” Dwight corrects.
“That was under Michael’s regime, the title has been adjusted accordingly.”
“We need to work together,” Jim continues as he sits back in his chair and kicks his feet on top of his desk. “Like Batman and Robin.”
“We are not partners in crime,” he refutes, “because you are not my superior, your superiors are my superior.”
“So what,” Jim touches the tips of his fingers together thoughtfully. “I’m just the middle man?”
“Exactly.”
He grins, “But I can still fire you.”
Dwight’s eyes widen, he obviously overlooked that fact. “No,” he says quickly.
“I think I can,” Jim presses his lips challengingly and nods his head.
“No you can’t,” Dwight refutes again.
“No, I definitely can.”
“Am I going to fire Dwight?” Jim asks the camera. “No. I’m going to get him to quit. That way we don’t have to give him severance pay and I save the company money. Plus we can start off a new seller at a lower wage.” Jim flashes a smile, “See, they promoted me for a reason. I spent the past six months coming up with different ways to terrorize Dwight; a new scenario every day I was gone which adds up to like 180 or something, so I don’t really have to put in that much more effort. I like to consider it more of a side project.”
Pam sits quietly at her desk when the phone beeps. “Yes, Jim?”
“Could you connect me to my assistant please?”
“Right away, sir.”
Dwight’s phone rings. “Dwight Schrute,” he says upon answering.
“Hey Dwight, its Jim.”
Dwight looks off through the doorway not more than ten feet away where Jim is sitting, tapping his fingers carelessly against his desk.
“What do you want?”
“Could you come here for a second?” He asks scrunching his face.
“What do you want?” Dwight asks again after making the three yard trek.
“I have some dry cleaning I need picked up before 3,” he explains. “I was hoping you could run out and get it.”
“Ryan usually does that kind of stuff.”
“Which is a travesty,” Jim exclaims. “He is the temp, you are the assistant.”
“No, I am a salesman…” Dwight corrects.
“Whose first duty is to assist the regional manager in his needs,” Jim finishes.
“Who will close these sales though?”
“Stanley… or Phyllis… or Meredith,” Jim suggests.
“Meredith isn’t in sales,” Dwight counters.
“Well she could still close one,” he defends.
“What about the commission?”
“What about my slacks clean and pressed, Dwight?”
“No I mean Meredith’s,” Dwight explains, “she doesn’t have a seller code.”
“She could make one up.”
“Yeah, but how would she get the money?”
“I would know because I wouldn’t recognize the code,” Jim decides.
“But what if she just so happened to make up a code that was the same as one of ours?”
“Then that would be her fault.”
“Could you give her mine?” Dwight suggests.
“Get my dry cleaning Dwight,” Jim says sending him away.
Dwight sighs, “Fine.”
“My first implementation is to make Dwight my personal assistant.” Jim explains. “I mean he was basically Michael’s, but that was on a completely voluntary basis.” Jim tilts his head thoughtfully as he watches Dwight hang a painting on the opposite wall. Dwight checks over his shoulder for approval as Jim shakes his head. “So it’s a fun project to make Dwight’s life miserable.” He shrugs, “And in the process, I get stuff that I would have had to do during my free time done during work.” He smiles proudly, “Everybody wins.”
Angela glares across her desk at Kevin and Oscar. She sighs heavily and files away a folder.
“I don’t consider myself a hard worker,” Angela says to the camera. “I am an efficient worker, and that’s more important. I could be working hard on something for hours and not get the job done or I can get it done and move on to something else. My coworkers are neither. They play games all day and check sports scores.” Her tone is still stale, “It’s infuriating.”
Jim leans against Pam’s desk and fishes out an M&M from her candy dish. “So I’m thinking about sending Dwight on a scavenger hunt,” he begins.
She smiles leaning in closer, “How so?”
“Well I’ll give him a simple task, like making a photocopy of phone records or something,” he explains. “Then when he lifts the lid of the copier, there will be another thing like, ‘I left my lunch at home, make me a sandwich.’”
“Brilliant.”
“Things between Jim and I are great,” Pam is obviously excited as she speaks to the camera. “We really worked through a lot of our issues, so it’s good.”
“What about this Lisa girl?” The cameraman asks.
At reception, the phone rings and Pam picks it up, “Dunder Mifflin this is Pam.” She frowns, “Yeah, he’s right here.”
Jim points to himself curiously as she hands him the phone. “Hey, how’s it going?”
Pam ducks away shyly and picks up a crate of papers that need to be shredded.
Pam forces a smile to the camera. “Lisa sounds great. They’ve been seeing each other for about three months now and are trying out things long distance for a while until they figure out whether they can get their lives back into the same city.” She nods dully, “It sounds really romantic.”
“Don’t you have work to do over there?” Jim teases, still on the phone. “How can you be a good agent if you never make any sales? You’re always calling me.” He laughs, “Well when they find out that this Jim Halpert hasn’t signed up for any of the plans they may think differently.”
Pam watches this scene as she feeds paper into the shredder with eyes that match Angela’s.
“Well I’ve got work here,” Jim explains, “yeah a big project. Talk to you later.”
Jim steps up beside Pam and starts feeding in paper with her. “So after the sandwich I was going to lead him to get my car washed or something.”
Pam only smiles sadly.
Toby organizes a pile of complaint forms. There is a weeping sound and as the camera pans two desks over, Kelly sits brushing tears out of her eyes. Toby swallows thickly and glances at the camera before going back to work. Kelly glares at him over her shoulder and sighs heavily before magically recomposing herself and going back to work.
Dwight is at the Monster dot com website when his phone rings. “Dwight Schrute,” he answers.
“Hey Dwight, it’s me,” Dwight looks to his right where Jim offers a small wave from his desk.
“What do you want?” He groans.
“My coffee’s a little cold,” he sighs. “Could you warm it up for me?”
Oscar is checking football scores from the night before. Angela glares at him and then at the camera.
Ryan talks to the temp agency. “Well I’ve been here for almost two years now,” he argues. “I just don’t see anything very temporary about that.”
Pam is flipping through a magazine at reception when the phone rings. “Dunder Mifflin this is Pam.”
“Pam pa Pam, Pam.”
She narrows her eyes at the phone, “What was that?”
“Pam pa Pam Pam, Pam!” The voice singsongs.
“Hi Michael,” she says trying to mask the annoyance in her tone. “Do you need to speak with Jim?”
He laughs, “How’d you guess it was me?”
She rolls her eyes, “Just a lucky guess. Should I connect you over to Jim?”
“Actually I figured you could just pass me around the office, you know let everyone get a quick ‘hello’ in.”
“Everybody seems pretty busy,” Pam says, watching Phyllis powder her nose in her compact mirror. “Very busy,” she says when her eyes catch Kevin struggling to stay awake.
There’s a pause, “Can I just talk to Ryan then?”
Pam looks down at the phone, “His line is actually busy right now.”
“Just disconnect him, this is important.”
“Okay,” she says reluctantly. Pressing a few buttons she hangs up the phone.
Across the office Ryan is looking around confused. “Hello?” He checks his phone. “Hello?”
“Ryan! It’s your mothah!” Michael whines with a Jewish Brooklyn accent. “Ryan why don’t you ever cawll?”
Ryan looks straight ahead in horror.
Jim is on the phone with a client. “No I’m looking at the summary right now and you’re completely right. The paper you ordered is in stock and should have been delivered to your company at least three days ago.” He nods. “There must have been a little miscommunication with warehouse. Yes, you’re right, two weeks is a long time.”
“Apparently warehouse doesn’t like me very much,” Jim explains to the camera. He holds up a stack of papers, “This is a list of complaints I’ve gotten from various companies because their orders have all been shipped late.” He reads through them quickly, “Strange how all of them were orders that took place after I took this position.” He touches a finger to his chin and cocks his head thoughtfully, “Weird.”
Daryl steps into Jim’s office who instructs him to close the door behind him. The cameras zoom in through the blinds. Jim lowers his voice. “Look I think it’s unprofessional to allow personal reasons to effect your guys’ work down there.”
Daryl folds his arms over his chest, “Should we make a list of inappropriate practices within the work place? Because I think you and I coincide in a gray area” He challenges.
Jim’s eye catches the camera through the blinds as he shakes his head slowly. “Let’s just make sure I don’t get any more complaints on my desk about your efficiency.”
As Daryl exits the office he nods at Pam who bows her head guiltily. She quickly lifts her gaze towards Jim’s office where he stands in the doorway, hands in pockets.
Pam’s eyes apologize but Jim doesn’t look at them. Instead he walks over to Dwight’s desk and pats his shoulder. “Good job on that last sale,” he says.
Dwight seems confused.
“About that coffee…” he continues.
Pam pushes a few buttons on the phone before slipping out from behind her desk and towards the elevator. Down in the warehouse, she catches Roy. He’s surprised to see her, and barely gets to react before Pam pulls on his arm telling him that they need to talk.
“Don’t do this,” she hisses from behind a cart of manila folders. “Don’t blame the way things ended between us on him.”
“What are you talking about?” He asks incredulously.
“Why are you guys down here trying to get him fired?” She snaps back.
“You know what? It was bad enough when he fawned over you day after day,” Roy bites. “But now he’s my boss and I’m supposed to respect him? That’s ridiculous!”
“Just,” she’s frustrated and can’t come out with the argument she intended. “Don’t take out your anger on him, okay? Take it out on me. I’m the reason things ended, not him.”
“And why was that?” He counters.
She shakes her head and begins to walk away. “Pam,” he protests grabbing her arm. “I’m sorry, okay?”
She frowns, her eyes still dark and cold. “I hate that after everything we’ve been through; things have to be like this.” He smiles sadly. “Ten years, Pamie. Ten years have to mean something.”
She’s crying now because they do. She brushes away the tears as if they never existed and runs up the stairs. She had imagined her life to be much easier. She remembers the night Roy moved out and she sat in their bed listening to the echoes of silence. She had never felt so alone in her life.
As she heads back upstairs she passes her desk and goes straight to Jim’s. He’s not there, probably eating lunch in the break room, or at a meeting, it doesn’t matter. He’s anywhere but there at that moment. She looks at his desk where a picture of Lisa sits in a frame with a little post it note on the edge that says, “So you don’t forget what I look like.” She’s crying harder now and tucks herself under his desk so no one will see her. And for the second time in her life, she’s never felt so alone.
She hears Jim’s feet against the carpet and cringes. Nobody wants to be caught under a desk crying their eyes out because their former fiancé misses them and there’s a picture above them that’s ruining their life. Nobody wants to be seen in that position. Especially by Jim Halpert.
She’s panicking now, trying to come up with excuses for why she’s huddled under his desk. She dropped a tray of diamonds and needs to find them all because it’s her life’s savings. She and Kevin decided to play hide and seek and she’s better at hiding than she thought. She thought she saw Michael coming.
The tears are coming faster now and she’s ducking her face behind her hands and pressing her legs so tightly against her chest, she wonders if he’d even be able to see her if he found her hiding under here.
Jim hears a rustle and peeks under his desk, “Hide and seek with Kevin?” He ponders with a grin.
She’s laughing and crying because he knows her so well and she can’t take it anymore. His face falls when he recognizes her mood. “Pam, what’s wrong?” He’s saying as he crawls beneath the desk with her, bumping his head before he finds the proper height.
“Nothing,” she dismisses.
“Right,” he says in a tone that sounds anything but belief.
“I talked to Roy,” she says.
Recognition dawns on him. “If this is about before…”
“No,” she lies. “He had lost a pair of boots and I just found them the other day and was giving them back.” She’s impressed with herself for a moment.
“Are you okay?”
“Just made me think of a lot of things, that’s all.”
“And one of those things just happened to be Dwight. That’s it,” he says wiping away a tear. “That explains the crying.”
She kisses him then. It’s shy and timid, the way he always imagined the first time she kissed him would be like. Her hand grips his tie then touches his chest then his cheek. It’s tender and incredible, and he wishes that he knew six months ago that when he told her he loved her that it would lead up to this, because he would have waited for her. He wouldn’t have found a girl that made him smile the way she used to. He wouldn’t have fallen for another girl to the point that he had forgiven Pam for never leaving Roy. He wouldn’t have pulled away when she kissed him.
The camera doesn’t catch this though; the closest they get is to the office window where they peek through the blinds. All they catch is Jim as he stands up abruptly and straightens his tie.
“Nothing happened,” Jim tells the camera after they harass him for details. “She just needed somebody to talk to and I was there for her,” he shrugs, “that’s what friends do. And I think if Pam and I have proven anything it’s that we’re just friends.”
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© 2006-2023 More Than That | Skin created by Kali
© 2006-2023 More Than That | Skin created by Kali