“Today are performance reviews,” Jim explains to the camera, “which means that I actually have to do work.” Jim smiles tightly and twiddles a pen between his fingers. “I wonder if I can get Dwight to do it.”
“Kevin,” Jim begins looking through his reports. “Your performance has been cuddly.”
Kevin laughs for a moment and then suddenly stops. “What does that mean?”
He didn’t think an elaboration would be required. “Keep up the good work,” Jim explains.
Meredith is in Jim’s office next and he seems to be fighting for the appropriate words. “Well your performance has been good to an extent,” he begins. “I’m just a little worried about other aspects…” he sighs.
Meredith furrows her brows, “What aspects exactly?”
Jim sighs heavily, sifting through the papers on his desk. “I’m not supposed to interfere with employees’ personal lives but…” he sets a brochure on the edge of his desk. The camera catches the words “12 Steps,” Meredith only stares.
“I think it’s pretty obvious how your performance has been,” Jim begins looking at his next report. “I mean this stationary? It’s hideous.”
Pam laughs.
“And your penmanship?” He continues. “This isn’t seventh grade, Beesley. You’re not passing notes to your BFF about how ridiculously good looking your boss is.”
Suddenly Pam isn’t laughing anymore. Her eyes catch the camera and then quickly drop to her hands. Jim’s grin disappears as well and he presses his lips together and flips the page.
Angela is now sitting in the chair that Pam has vacated. Jim looks up from his report and then back down. He repeats this gesture a few more times, never actually speaking.
“There are some people in this office that I am afraid of,” Jim explains to the camera. “Terrified of even.”
“Your performance has been very good,” Jim says with a nod. “Very good.” He reads a little closer, “There is one thing…” he looks up to catch Angela’s glare and flinches. “Never mind, that was just a little dust,” he blows on the paper. “Just some dust, nothing at all.”
“I don’t know why nobody at work ever finds anything to judge me on,” Angela shrugs. “Every week at church I can list at least fifteen transgressions that I need to be forgiven for.” She pauses for a moment, “Well, it’s not fifteen different things, more like two or three. Some of my sins have become habits that are hard to break.”
Jim has had a pizza delivered and is opening up a soda when Dwight walks in.
“I’ve been highly anticipating Dwight’s performance review,” Jim informs the camera. “And I’m estimating it will last at least an hour and a half.”
“Pizza?” He offers.
Dwight is too busy setting up his presentation. “I,” he begins, “am Dwight K. Schrute.”
“I know who you are, Dwight,” Jim says dryly.
“I have been a regional salesman for the past seven years,” Dwight continues pointing to a chart that displays “Dwight’s Work Career.” Jim notes the different stages including ‘Daycare Supervisor’ from age 2 through 5, ‘Teacher Assistant’ from ages 5 through 8, ‘Animal Care and Training’ from age 8 to 9, ‘Hall Monitor’ age 10 to 13, ‘Library Assistant’ age 13 to 16, ‘Beet Farm Manager’ age 17 to present.
“Hold up Dwight, hold up,” Jim interrupts. “How do you intend on working to your fullest potential here at Dunder Mifflin, if you’re juggling us with the rigorous job of beet farming?”
Dwight holds up a finger and with a voice eerily similar to Ron Popeil says, “Funny you should ask.” The next chart is a pie chart. “Although the hours of my day are divide as such—,” Jim narrows his eyes at the 17 percent section dedicated simply to ‘Girlfriend.’ Dwight quickly switches slides, “I have listed the relationships between beet farming and sales.”
Jim reads over it and chuckles, “You forgot one, Dwight.”
“No I didn’t,” he says looking over the board carefully.
“Forgot, works with ‘hoes,’” Jim says biting back a laugh.
“That’s not funny,” Dwight says sternly.
Jim takes a deep breath. “Okay, taking your presentation into consideration as well as your performance over the past quarter, we are offering you an 8 percent pay increase,” Jim says reviewing the form.
“What?” Dwight asks incredulously.
“I said I’m giving you a raise,” Jim says chocking out the words. “I did not think that would be so hard to say,” he mumbles.
Dwight grins, “Thanks, Jim.”
“Yes, I gave Dwight a raise,” Jim confesses. “Sales are up, we just signed a contract with the county over, things are looking pretty good for this branch, so we came into a little extra money and I was able to give a few employees a pay increase and Dwight just happened to be one of them.” He bows his head, scratches behind his ear and looks back at the camera. “Just… don’t tell anyone, okay?”
“And then,” Kelly continues her story to Jim. “I bought a new shirt, but I had to return it because the sleeves were way too short, but they weren’t short enough at the same time, you know? It was like too short for long sleeve but not long enough for 3/4 sleeves, kind of like 5/8 sleeves.”
Jim purses his lips and stares dully at his desk. “5/8 sleeves are shorter than 3/4,” he says flatly.
“Okay then,” Kelly rolls her eyes, “7/8 sleeves.”
“Better,” he says, puffing out his cheeks simply out of boredom. “Look Kelly, when I asked if you had any questions or comments I meant about your job… or the company…”
“I get it,” she says a flirty smile spreading across her lips. “You want to talk about Pam don’t you?” Jim frowns. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anybody about it I swear!”
“I actually meant paper.”
“Oh,” Kelly looks dumbfounded for a moment. “Doesn’t paper just make you want to kill yourself sometimes?”
Michael enters the office and holds a hand up to cover the camera. “No pictures please,” he says in a very serious tone. He takes down his hand then laughs pointing to the camera, “Ha! I got you for a second didn’t I?”
“My job as manager supervisor,” Michael begins to the camera, “is to come around during review periods and to review the manager of each branch. Due to one of the regional managers of the past, we now have a rubric to judge their performance, and it’s my job to administer this ‘pop quiz’ if you will.” He thinks about it for a moment. “Well it’s not really a pop quiz because they know it’s coming…” he taps his chin with his finger. “Hold on, I’ll come up with a better analogy.” He continues to sit thoughtfully occasionally mouthing words before shaking his head, “Just cut that part.”
“Let’s see,” Michael begins touching his pen to his tongue. “Mmm,” he says licking the pen again, “that metal taste is not bad at all.”
Jim just stares at Michael blankly.
“Okay, name, James Halpert, first question over and done with,” Michael says scratching his name across the form. “Branch. Scranton, Pennsylvania. Well Jim, looks like you’re doing great so far!”
Jim smiles tightly, “Yep, once I got the name and location thing down, it was all smooth sailing.”
“Ha! The jokes! Did you get the jokes?” He asks the camera. “Sadly the sense of humor jokes were omitted from the final copy of the review rubric,” Michael says, “for undisclosed reasons.” He scans a little further, “Role models of mine include…” Michael doesn’t hesitate, “Michael Scott… FDR, Franklin David Roosevelt that is… who else do you admire… John Lennon’s a good one,” he says jotting it down.
Jim doesn’t even bother to correct him and only nods helplessly.
“My greatest strength…” Michael reads off, “I am the Zach Morris of the office.”
Jim presses his lips together, furrows his brows, and cocks his head.
“Okay, now that we have the preliminary stuff filled out, let’s move on to the multiple choice.” Michael turns the page. “Alright, question one. Over the past business quarter, my company has performed: a, above expectations. b, at expectations. c, below expectations.” Michael scratches his head, “This is actually very poorly worded,” he admits. “Because we don’t know what the expectations are… okay, we’re going to have to reword that one.”
Jim rests his head in his hand and nods.
Michael gets up and goes behind Jim’s desk, “Okay I think I have the document in my e-mail account,” he says leaning over Jim awkwardly as he takes control of his computer. Jim widens his eyes to the camera.
“Do you?” Jim points to his chair, “Do you want me to move?”
“No, no, it’s fine,” Michael says, his face dangerously close to Jim’s. Jim continues to stare into the camera. “My company… well that’s all wrong to begin with, let’s change that to branch.”
Jim taps his hands against his armrest, “You know what, I’d really feel more comfortable over there,” he points to the other side of the desk. “It’ll be easier if we have the positions switched, with you at the desk, and me over there,” he says pointing even farther across the office.
“When I give a performance review,” Michael begins to the camera. “I want to get every gritty detail. It’s like being on Oprah or you know Last Call with Carson Daly, I want my guest to open up to me and spill their darkest secrets and find something out about themselves that they’ve never seen before and a couple of tears should be common.” He takes a deep breath and nods his head, “It’s just so touching to really connect with these people on a spiritual level.”
“How does that help their performance exactly?” The cameraman asks.
“Um,” Michael considers it for a moment. “The role model aspect of it, I guess.”
Jim is on the couch now as Michael continues to read on intently. “Tell me if this sounds right,” Michael says squinting at the monitor. “On a scale of one to ten, I feel my branch has reached a blank for potential.”
Jim frowns, “I’m not quite sure what this ‘blank’ is.”
Michael cocks his head thoughtfully and looks back at the monitor. “Hmm… I can’t remember where I was going with that.”
“Why don’t we just skip the first one,” Jim suggests.
“Thinks on his feet!” Michael says. “I like that. That is definitely going in the report.”
Jim folds his arms across his chest and tries to stay awake.
“Question two…”
Angela and Dwight are in the kitchen. Angela makes a mug of tea while Dwight burrows through the fridge in search of his lunch. “I got that raise,” he says. “You know what that means.”
Angela smiles.
“Me and Ryan totally got back together,” Kelly announces to the camera. “It was really romantic too. He was like ‘We should really be together’ and I was like ‘I knew you were a really great guy.’”
“Kelly told me she was pregnant,” Ryan explains. He runs his fingers through his hair and shuts his eyes tightly. It’s obvious he hasn’t slept in a few days and as he turns his wide eyes back to the camera he says, “I have no idea what I’m going to do.”
“I don’t know, I could be,” she shrugs. “I haven’t taken a test.”
In Jim’s office, Michael is still trying to straighten the kinks out of his questionnaire. “Do you think I should use ‘him slash her’ or just use ‘they?’”
Jim’s now laying down, resting his head on the armrest. “You have your objects and subjects mixed up,” he says despairingly.
“Women are not objects, Jim,” Michael says shaking his head in disgust. “You know what? We’ll just get back to that one too. Question three…”
Jim considers various forms of suicide with Venetian blinds.
Creed sits at his desk typing out a report. Toby approaches sipping on a mug of coffee. He’s about to say something but instead shakes his head and walks away. The camera zooms in on the photo of Toby’s daughter, Sasha and then widens the shot to reveal it is in fact Toby’s desk.
“That’s really selfless,” Pam says fighting back laughter.
Kevin and Oscar look at Angela’s empty desk. “Where’d she go?” Kevin asks.
Oscar only shrugs.
Michael is munching on pizza while Jim sleeps on the couch. “What’s the word?” Michael says snapping his fingers as if the word is waiting to appear in a puff of smoke. “The word when things are running smoothly and stuff is getting done…” he continues to ponder it. “Starts with an ‘e’…”
“Efficiency,” Jim mumbles.
“Exactly,” Michael says pointing excitedly. “Look at this guy go!”
On the way to Creed’s desk, Toby glances curiously at Ryan. “You okay there?” He asks.
Ryan is staring ahead almost catatonically and only shakes his head in response. Toby presses his lips together and continues walking.
“I try to only listen to people’s problems when they seek me out,” Toby explains. “I just don’t like getting into people’s faces.”
Pam is jotting down a message as she nods her head. She gets out of her chair and heads over to Jim’s office. She pauses to let Angela cross her path and notices something flicker on her left hand. Pam turns to the camera with wide eyes ‘Oh my God!’ she mouths.
She enters Jim’s office still reeling what she’s just seen and shakes her head to gather her composure. “Michael,” she says catching a brief wave of déjà vu when she spots him at his old desk. “Jan called. She said the managers can just fax their self review with the rest of the performance reviews.”
Michael frowns, “Where’s the fun in that?”
“She said you took too long at the other branches and that the managers were complaining.”
“What?” Michael says incredulously. “You’re not complaining are you Jimothy?”
Pam, Michael and the cameraman look down at a sleeping Jim. “Mmm,” he mumbles.
“You know what, he’s had a long day,” Michael excuses, “so I’m not going to mention narcolepsy on his performance review.”
Michael has left Jim’s office, but Jim remains sleeping on the couch. Pam looks at the camera and then crouches down beside him. “Hey,” she says nudging him a bit.
He grumbles a bit in response and she can’t help but think how adorable he looks with one arm draped over his head and the other across his stomach. Pam grins at the camera and then nudges him again. “Hey,” she repeats.
He doesn’t open his eyes, but she can tell he’s almost awake because a tired smile is spreading across his lips. His hand reaches for hers and he laces their fingers. “Hi,” he says groggily brushing his lips against her fingers.
Pam looks towards the camera warily and Jim suddenly remembers that they’re at work and in his office and that there’s a cameraman right behind him watching his every move and snatches his hand away.
Jim swallows thickly and runs his hands through his hair. “Where’d Michael go?” He asks scanning around the room.
“He went back to New York,” Pam explains. “It’s 5:30 so everyone’s leaving, I though I’d let you know.”
“Yeah,” he nods, “okay thanks.”
Pam rocks on her heels and stares at the camera uncomfortably. “Well I’m going to head out too,” she says finally. “Have a good weekend.”
“You too,” he says letting out a deep breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
“I fell asleep watching TV last night,” Jim explains to the camera, “and I guess dreams sort of carried over and I thought that…” he trails off and looks out the window towards reception. The camera quickly whips around to catch his gaze, and then back at Jim who is pulling his microphone from his shirt. “Um, I’ll be right back,” he says darting out of the door.
Pam is slipping on her jacket and is startled when Jim runs up to her. “Hey can I talk to you for a minute?”
She looks worried at first, but her expression quickly turns to curiosity when he reaches behind her back to flip off her microphone.
He nods his head over his shoulder and she follows after him until they reach the ladder up to the roof. The film crew frantically hooks up their boom microphone and chase after them.
It’s mid-January and the sun has long been engulfed by the clouds. There are patches of tar and sand covered snow in the parking lot and it’s obvious that a batch of fresh snow is on the way as flakes begin to fall from the sky. Their feet crunch over the icy remnants of snow and suddenly she’s terrified that she’ll miss her footing and slide all the way to the edge of the roof. Certainly would be an interesting end to her story though, she thinks to herself.
Jim shoves his hands in his pocket and watches as his breath clouds around his face like he’s smoking a cigarette. Suddenly he’s twelve again pushing out air in thin streams to look cool to those who pass by. But then he realizes that he’s stalling. That he’s been stalling for the past four years. Granted the first three she had promised herself to someone else, but now the window was open, the door was unlocked and left open ajar, and there was a key on the banister just in case. “I know we’re dancing around something here,” he begins.
She opens her mouth to speak but no words come out. Her eyes meet his and then fall back to the rooftop. “I was just wondering if you…” She says abruptly, her voice forced as she realizes that this was all harder than she had initially anticipated. Pam looks at her hands and studies them carefully. “What you said all that time ago,” she continues. “I was wondering if you still meant it.”
“The…” he flashes a quick half grin. “Over here thing?”
“Yeah,” she nods shyly.
“Yeah, definitely,” he confirms anxiously as if it were the only thing on his mind. “Definitely,” he repeats.
“Okay, good,” she says trying to keep her tone casual but suddenly she’s smiling and laughing at herself. “Because I do too… or am too,” she corrects herself. “And it took me a long time to realize that and then it was too late…”
He shakes his head and takes a step closer, slipping her hand into his, “It could never be too late.” His other hand cups her cheek as their foreheads touch and the moonlight glistens across the icy surface in such a beautiful way that the boom mike operator pats the cameraman on the back for capturing such a shot.
Back in Jim’s office, Jim picks up his microphone and with a grin says, “Yeah, I’d have to say it’s been a pretty good day.”
From his office window, the camera watches as Jim helps Pam into her car, tapping on the roof a few times before she pulls out of her spot. He walks over to his own car door and turns back to the office, offering a wave towards the window before ducking into the car and driving away.
Abagail Snow is the author of 1 other stories.
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