It was her first day at work. She had just moved into her room that morning. Her roommate wouldn’t move in for another week. She tried to enjoy her alone time as much as she could. She had never shared a room with anyone before. She wasn’t sure if the age difference would even be noticeable. She had already spent one year at a community college. She felt like she had gained a little bit of the maturity that her roommate would hopefully have after the year was done. But, to make things go as smooth as possible she hadn’t really begun to unpack anything other than her clothes and her bedding and one picture. She hated whenever a new season of the Real World would start and the first fight would be about how people chose rooms before everyone got there. She took the bed closest to the door because she knew it was often the least desirable. She grabbed the picture and stood it up on her desk against the wall. She did a quick sweep of the room before she grabbed her sweater and headed out of the door.
As she started down the stairs she heard some voices coming from a flight above her. She looked up and saw two guys. Both were tall, incredibly tall. The cuter one was on the verge of preppy, but stopped just short of it. The other one, from what she could see from this angle was probably an engineer major.
“I’m just saying Dwight, I know for a fact that the first week they’re going to do pop quizzes.”
“Who are you sources? Are they reliable?” Dwight asked matter-of-factly.
“Michael and obviously.”
She could see a grin creep across the other one’s face and then suddenly disappear as Dwight looked at him for some sort of facial confirmation that he wasn’t in fact lying. Seeing what he needed, he inquired further. “So tell me what I need to know.”
“First off, you need to know every single person’s social security number along with their student ID number. You will also have to memorize the layout of the inside of your residents’ rooms.”
Dwight looked confused and stopped for a moment. The cute one stopped too. She wanted to stop and finish listening to the ridiculous conversation but continued on down the stairs. “I see the practicality of learning their identification numbers, but why would their layouts be of any importance to me or anyone else?”
She noticed a long pause. The guy was clearly trying to think of a reasonable answer. She stopped now because she had reached the door, but needed to hear his answer. She bent over and untied and began to retie her shoe.
“Come one Dwight, isn’t it obvious?”
“Jim, I assure you if I knew I would not question. I would never question anything Michael advised.”
‘Ah, Jim.’ It was good to now have a name for the face. As they reached the bottom of the step, Jim and Dwight stepped around her and Dwight exited the stairwell first. Jim held the door for her and she quickly finished tying her other shoe.
“Thanks,” She said meekly, afraid to meet his eyes.
“Not a problem,” He said.
Dwight was standing off to the side waiting to continue his conversation with Jim. Jim forgot about Dwight for a moment as he watched the curly haired girl walk ahead of them. He was quickly brought back to reality as Dwight cleared his voice.
“Sorry, umm... I... I think it’s pretty clear why you need to memorize their rooms.” He waited for Dwight to nod in agreement. “If there’s ever a blackout you would need to be able to successfully enter a room and write them up in case they were drinking.”
“How would one go about doing this?”
“Well I have a photographic memory so I’ve got that covered. It’s really up to each RA though to do what they need to do.”
“Thank you James, you have been a great help. I’ll remember this moment when I am your superior one day and will have to take pity on you.”
Jim had a tight lip grin and nodded. Dwight picked up his pace and entered an open door into a small office where several other people were already sitting on couches and chairs inside. The curly haired girl was standing across from the open door of the office at the front office. Jim entered the front office and walked over to his mail box. He rummaged through some paper to kill some time, eventually not taking anything with him.
He stopped directly in front of her on the other side of the counter. “Did you need something?”
She finally looked up at him and her knees went a little weak as she stared into his piercing green eyes. She searched for words but nothing came. She was able to force out a small shake of her head. He chuckled. A larger woman walked through the door of the front office and put down a big stack of paper down on the counter next to him.
“Hey Phyllis. Work treating you good?” Jim said to her.
“No. One of you used all of my ink from my printer and forgot to call IT to replace it. I had to go down to the offices and print all of these papers off of Jan’s computer then carry them all back upstairs. And I don’t know where my new worker is. She was supposed to be here by now. I swear, the hall would collapse if I wasn’t here.”
Finally the curly haired girl spoke. “I’m actually your new employee. I got here just a minute ago at 10.”
“Well what are you standing around for? Get in here and start separating those papers,” Phyllis said.
Jim watched as the she walked in the room and stood next to him. She took off her sweater and laid it over the back of the chair in between them.
“That’s a cute hat,” she said as she took a seat and began separating the pages.
Phyllis’ demeanor quickly softened. She smiled and picked up the hat from her desk, “I got it last weekend at the outlet shops.” Her voice was now almost a soft whisper.
“It goes nice with your coat.” She pointed at the furry brown coat hanging on the wall next to a plant.
“What did you say your name was again?”
“Pam Beesly.” She gave Phyllis a smile.
Jim still stood in the corner. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. She had just cracked Phyllis in under a minute. He had known Phyllis for a whole year and he didn’t get her to let up on him until mid spring semester of last year. It wasn’t that Phyllis was mean all the time, but she definitely had her moods. And to crack Phyllis while she was in one of her moods was nothing short of a miracle.
“You can call me Phyllis. All of the kids do.”
Pam quickly returned to separating. Dwight emerged from the office across the way. “Jim, we’re about to start. Phyllis, did you get the papers that Michael asked for?”
Phyllis’ face stiffened at the sight of Dwight, “Tell Michael that it is unreasonable to ask for that many copies in the amount of time that he needed them in. He can pick up his papers after the meeting. Tell him that they will be in his box.”
“I hope you know that this is quite unsatisfactory.”
Jim walked out of the office and put a hand on Dwight’s shoulder. “Lay off man. Don’t piss off the beast,” he said in a hushed voice.
Pam looked up at him and gave him a small smile. He smiled back as they entered the other office and sat down. Pam turned back to Phyllis. “What do they do?”
“They’re Resident Advisors. RAs,” she said without looking up from her computer screen, “I’m going to take my 15 minute break. If the phone rings and you don’t know how to answer the question, just send the call to voicemail. Can you do that?” Pam nodded. With that Phyllis turned off her monitor to her computer and grabbed her purse. “You can sit in my seat if that’s more comfortable for you.”
“Thanks.”
She stood there for the next minute separating the pages, alternating the direction of the pages to make stapling go faster. When she was finally done stapling she took a moment to read the title on the page. It read Michael Scott: Senior Resident Advisor, Neighbor, Friend, Student, Anthropologist. She laughed a little and finally took a seat behind Phyllis’ desk and continued reading. Ten minutes and many pages later she finished. ‘Clearly this must be a joke,’ she thought, ‘How could one person write this much and essentially tell you nothing about them self?’
Jim was the first to emerge from the office. He was followed by Dwight and 8 other people. Pam laughed to herself thinking how weird they looked filing out of the room. It was like watching clowns pile out of a clown car. The office at most was a 12 x 12 room. Her laugh was quickly stifled as she realized that they were now walking into the front office.
Jim took a seat in the chair that was next to the counter. The other people in his group took turns looking in their mail boxes. When the last person walked in Jim began to speak. “Hey, Kev, this is the girl I was telling you about.”
He stood in front of the desk and in a low slow voice he said to Pam, “I bow down to you. Please teach me your ways.”
She blushed a little thinking that she had come up in conversation in between two people that she hadn’t yet officially met. “I’m gonna be honest, I’m flattered, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Jim told me how you tamed Phyllis. I’m Kevin Malone,” he stuck his hand out and she shook it, “You are my hero.”
“Pam Beesly.” She nervously straightened the stack of paper in front of her when she realized that a few more of the eyes were now on her.
Jim stood up from the chair and approached the desk. “I never introduced myself. Jim Halpert, fourth floor RA,” he shook her hand and continued, “Kevin is the first floor RA along with Karen Filippelli.” A petit tan brunette raised a hand and gave a little wave as she continued to riffle through the paper in her mail box. “Meredith and Katy are the second floor RAs.” Neither woman looked up so Pam wasn’t sure who was who. “Angela and Andy are the third floor RAs.” The small blonde gave a small smile.
“Andrew Bernard. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” He said with just a little too much enthusiasm. But Pam smiled anyways.
“That is Toby, he’s on the third floor and is the academic version of an RA.” Toby smiled and Jim continued, “Dwight is also on the fourth floor.” Dwight nodded. “And last but certainly not least, our fearless leader, Michael Scott, flying solo on the fifth floor.”
The serious looking man suddenly stepped in front of the desk and said, “You’re so much better to look at than Phyllis. Bleeck. She’s the first face that the students are going to see and think that we all look like that. But you’re good. You’re a solid 7. Not too hot, but definitely not Phyllis.”
“I don’t think that’s appro...” Michael continued to speak oblivious to the fact that Pam was trying to protest.
“It’s like they hire people without thinking. If I hired the people we would all look like Katy.”
“Wow,” she said with wide eyes. She realized that Michael’s autobiography was indeed more truthful than she initially thought.
The people began to filter out of the office in all different directions leaving only Jim and Michael in the office with Pam. “I think these are your’s.” Pam scooted the stack of papers toward Michael.
“Thanks. My welcome letter,” he showed the stack to Jim.
“What did you not put in that?”
“Fear not, I’ve made enough copies for my residents and for all of the new RAs. That means you Jimbo.” Michael took the huge stack of paper and walked over to the elevator. He lifted a knee and tried to balance himself against the wall as he struggled to get a hand free to press the up button.
“It was nice meeting you. I guess I’ll see you around.” He gave her a lopsided smile and walked out of the office and grabbed the stack of papers off of Michael’s leg. She watched as that floppy haired guy with that lopsided smile walked into the elevator and she tried not to smile too big.
The phone rang for the first time in 30 minutes ‘Where the hell is Phyllis,’ she thought before she picked up the phone.
“Dunder Hall this Pam...” she listened as some parent asked if her son needed to bring his own bed.
Story Notes:
I own nothing other than my creepy surreal stories that I gathered while in college. For anyone that has worked in a dorm you know that the people that they hirer are the strangest and most unique people on campus. You have to be to if you choose to eat dorm food for more than one year. Those people truly are a real life Dunder Mifflin.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Hopefully this isn't too confusing. I'm just trying to slowly introduce as many people as possible. There are still more Office folk to come in the next chapters.
Chapter End Notes:
We'll meet Pam's amazing roommate next chapter.
