“Jim, long time no see,” David greeted Jim as he sat down in David’s office.
“Well, presentations can’t give themselves you know,” Jim joked, and David laughed cordially.
“So how did those go?” David asked, leaning in attentively. “Were the branches pretty receptive?”
“For the most part. I had a little trouble in Yonkers…”
“Yeah, I’ve heard some things about their sales team,” David nodded. “They can get a little rowdy.”
“I was definitely heckled a bit,” Jim chuckled.
He wasn’t sure if it was just because Michael had skewed his view on managers so much, but Jim found David to be the best boss he’d ever had. He always seemed so understanding, and always gave Jim a chance to explain himself, and yet at the same time, he knew just how to instruct and correct his mistakes in a firm manner. It reminded Jim of some of his high school sports coaches, who saw his potential and then pushed him toward it using just the right motivational tactics. Jim really enjoyed having that feeling again of being molded into the best he could be, and found that he respected David just as he had his basketball and track coaches from years ago.
“And, I know this might be a little complicated to explain, but…” David paused for a moment to throw up his hands and give a little sigh, “What happened in Scranton?”
Jim scratched his head, trying to think of the most reasonable way to explain, “Well, I gave my presentation, and then Michael got it in his head somehow that what I was doing was a form of ‘ageism.’ And so, he basically tried to make me look like a bad guy by saying my new ideas were terrible, and they weren’t going to help the company…”
“And, how did that lead to a company car in a lake?”
“Well,” Jim sighed, “he had a GPS in the car, and if I interpreted Michael correctly, he was trying to prove that technology doesn’t always know everything.”
“So the GPS system was—”
“Telling him to drive into the lake. Yeah.”
David sat back in his chair and nodded, “Oh boy. Well, Michael has always been somewhat of a thorn in the company’s side. But unless his branch is doing poorly, our hands are tied. And you well know…”
“Their numbers are great,” Jim finished David’s thought. “And I’m really trying to reign him in, but he’s very… resistant to being managed. But, I do think that being invited to our LiveChat Launch Party will break down his defenses a little.”
“Sure,” David agreed. “He wants some special treatment, and he is a branch manager, so he’s entitled to a reward now and then. Makes sense. Oh, speaking of which, tomorrow’s the big day. Have you checked in with the Tech Team?”
“Yep, IT has installed LiveChat on all the computers, um, Nashua is our test branch, so they hopefully have been chatting for a couple hours already, and I am meeting with the Tech Team after lunch for any troubleshooting that may need to be worked out.”
“Great. Sounds like you’re really on top of this.”
Jim smiled, “Well, this project has been most of my work for the past five months or so, so I feel really… invested in it.”
“Well good, I’m glad you are really taking ownership. It’s what the Board really likes to see,” David praised. “I think that’s all I have for you. I’m sure you’ll be busy with all your troubleshooting today and tomorrow, so I’ll talk to you again… at the party.”
“Sounds good,” Jim beamed, getting up from his chair. “Thanks David.”
“Anytime.”
Jim couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of pride as he walked back to his office. This idea was practically his child: he conceptualized it, he outlined the features of the system, he presented the idea to everyone in the company, and now he was finally going to see it go up. He chuckled to himself as he sat down at his desk and skimmed his email, realizing how foreign it felt to have pride in his work, but he decided he’d better get used to it. He was sure he would have a lot of accomplishments to be proud of in the coming years.
But his time on cloud nine came to an abrupt end when Jess knocked frantically on his door. “The interface crashed, they need you in the Tech Department,” she told him, and with that, it was back to reality.
…
The Dunder Mifflin LiveChat Launch Party was well underway by the time Jim arrived. He could hear the music blasting as he walked up the steps and into the lobby of the Metropolitan Pavillion, and all of a sudden became very nervous. Despite what some may have guessed going by his age and charm, Jim didn’t go out to clubs all that often. Bars, sure, but nightclubs really weren’t his scene. He had no idea how to work a room or even how he should dance. The last function he had been to like this was his senior prom, and back then it was totally fine to dance goofy, but now he would have all the higher ups watching his every move.
Maybe I should just stay away from the dance floor, he thought to himself as he checked his coat.
The day before had been insanely stressful for him. The system crashed twice, everyone in Nashua had their contact lists scrambled, and Jim ended up working until almost midnight with the Tech Team to get everything set for Launch Day. But they had somehow pulled it off, and in the morning everything had gone off without a hitch. By noon Jim had successfully made contact with all his branch managers via LiveChat, and everyone seemed to be enjoying the system. Michael of course had his gripes (“You mean I can’t chat with Jan on this thing??”), but that was to be expected.
“Jim,” David called from across the room. He was standing with a couple of the company Officers, their spouses by all their sides, and it made Jim self-conscious that he had come to the party alone. But he wasn’t going to let that deter him from his night, not when things had gone so well with the launch.
“Hi David, Simon, Natalie,” Jim greeted his superiors graciously.
“Jim I believe you remember my wife, Rachel,” David gestured to the brunette next to him, “and this is Simon’s wife, Cecilia, and Natalie’s husband, Don.”
“Nice to meet you,” Jim held out his hand to each of them. Cecilia just gave a polite smile in response, but Don was no stranger about shaking Jim’s hand.
“So you’re the boy who this whole party is for,” Don inquired as more of a statement than a question.
Jim gave a small shrug, “Well, it’s really to celebrate the new program—”
“JIM!! JIIIIIMM!!!!”
The entire group turned to see who would so impolitely interrupt in the middle of a conversation, and Jim was not surprised to see the person that he did running up to them.
“There ya are, buddy! Man, this is faaaancy. Hey David!”
“Hi Michael,” David cordially replied. “Glad you could make it.”
“Oh, I would not miss this for the world!” Michael told them as he gave Jim a nudge. “System works great, by the way. Love that I can talk to you whenever I want now.”
Whatever Jim was about to say quickly disintegrated in his mouth. In all his planning, he had not foreseen the obvious detail that Michael would now have access to him at any time of the day via LiveChat, without any buffer or assistant between them. He could almost feel the barrage of YouTube links and inappropriate jokes being hurled at him, and as he stood there slack-jawed for a moment, slowly coming to grips with the consequences of the new system, Michael said something that took his mind off of the issue completely.
“Did I lose Pam somewhere? Hmm… Hey, it’s an open bar, right? She’s probably over there, you know, glug glug glug.”
“W—what?”
“You haven’t noticed? Pam has a thing for drinking at company events. Remember that time she got kicked out of Chili’s during the Dundies? Ohh man, I was ready to take her to rehab that night.”
“Pam’s here?”
“Ooh, is there a DJ controlling this music? Now I wanna hear that song… ‘They tried to make me go to rehab but I said no, no, no,’” Michael sang, completely oblivious to the expression on Jim’s face. “I’m gonna go find the DJ and see if he has that song. Later gators!”
“Bye Michael,” David gave a friendly wave, then turned back to his group. “That’s the one from the Scranton branch. You know, the one who’s dating the woman who’s suing us for wrongful termination…”
But Jim was barely listening to the conversation; he was still trying to wrap his head around what Michael had said.
Pam was here.
He had to go find her.
He quietly and smoothly removed himself from the group and set out on a search through the throngs of partygoers. Unfortunately, at a party that was essentially for his accomplishments, he found it difficult to move through a crowd without having to make small talk with everyone he saw:
“Yes, it is unlike any system the paper industry has ever seen…”
“We’re very happy with the way the launch went today…”
“There are still some bugs to work out, so I think I’ll keep refining it…”
“I’m so glad you’re having a good time.”
Jim had barely made it halfway across the room and felt like he had seen everyone in the place at least twice. Where was she? He was just turning around to head back the other way when he bumped into someone behind him, spilling her drink.
“Oh! I’m so sorry—”
“Oh it’s—Jim! I should’ve guessed,” Karen gave him an incredulous look. “You invite me to your party and then spill my drink all over me.”
“No, I—Let me get you some napkins, or club soda or something for the stain…”
“No, it’s fine, you just got the skirt of the dress,” she told him, dabbing the spill with the napkin in her hand. “And it’s dark, no one will notice. Just be lucky that I know the best dry cleaner in Utica.”
“Well… we’ll reimburse you for the dry cleaning—”
Karen shook her head feverishly, “No, please, stop trying to make things better. I can fix this myself.” They exchanged a glance, both realizing the double meaning of her words, and then Karen gave a sigh. “So, listen, I never got a chance to congratulate you on the launch of the new system, so… congratulations.”
“Thanks Karen,” Jim shook her hand hesitantly. Apparently their relationship was back to icy cold and professional.
“Really, I am impressed that you managed to develop this whole program from the ground up,” she added. “Especially when you were always such a slacker when you were a salesman…”
“Yeah… guess I just like what I’m doing…” Jim tried to weave his way cautiously around the conversation.
Karen was about to say something, but she stopped when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned around and Jim could see her face immediately brighten. She entwined her arm around the tall man who had come up behind her and introduced him, her face beaming, “Jim, this is Dan, my date. Dan, this is my boss, Jim.”
She stepped aside so the two men could shake hands, but silently gave Jim a stern look not to say anything about their prior relations. Jim immediately got the message and kept the conversation light, albeit awkward, “Nice to meet you Dan. How did you meet our… fine employee here?”
Smooth, Karen’s eyes seemed to say. Even silently, Karen still had a knack for being sarcastic.
“Well, we met at a bar in Utica a couple months ago,” Dan explained, “and she told me where she worked, so I called there the next day to see if I could talk to her, and ended up getting a different Karen—”
“Karen Kotselik, one of my sales team—” Karen interjected.
“And I ended up buying a whole bunch of paper from her for my office—”
“He’s a dermatologist,” Karen proudly declared. “But he finally got the right girl on the line once he realized Karen was just trying to sell him paper—”
“And we’ve been dating for… a month?”
“Sounds about right.”
Jim nodded and couldn’t help but smile at the happy couple, “Well great. That is… a very cute story.”
“Isn’t it?” Karen asked rhetorically. “And to think, I was almost offered your position here in New York!”
“Then I would’ve been the one meeting Dan in a bar,” Jim chuckled, to which he received confused looks from the pair. He then remembered that he and Karen never really did share the same sense of humor.
Karen tugged on Dan’s arm, “Come on honey, let’s go dance. See ya later Jim. Congrats again!”
“Nice to meet you,” Dan added as he was pulled toward the dance floor.
Jim gave a small wave as he watched the two of them walking away and then let out a chuckle. She certainly has a type, he thought to himself as he shoved his hands in his pockets and headed toward an empty table.
And that’s when he spotted her sitting at another table nearby, sipping a drink and watching the dance floor intently.
Pam.
It took all the will he had not to just run over to her, but to instead approach coolly and not like he had been desperately searching for her all night. Of course, he had been desperately searching all night, but there was no reason she needed to know that. And as soon as he came into her line of vision, she was so excited to see him that she jumped up and threw her arms around him.
“Hiii!! It’ssso good to see you!” she slurred. The thought crossed his mind that maybe Michael was right about her habit of drinking at company events, but as soon as he was close enough, the smell of her hair completely distracted him. For a brief moment he was lost in a sea of floral scent, but when she quickly pulled away, he became alarmed. “I’m sorry,” she said, brushing the hair out of her face, “that probly wasn’t appropriate.”
“No, it was fine,” Jim assured her with a smile. “It’s a party. Speaking of which…” he gestured to her drink, “already been putting a few back?”
“Ugh, two an’a half hours in a car with Michael and yootoo would be drinking this way,” she justified her tipsy behavior to him, to which he could only shrug in response.
“You got me there,” he conceded, gesturing for them to sit down. “So… how did you end up coming with Michael anyway?”
Pam sat down carefully, obviously finding it hard to balance, and answered his question with a detectable tone of apprehension, “Well… youno Jan is suing the company, so oviously she didn’ wantto go. And then Michael offered me annextra week of paid vacation in exchange for bein’ his… date, so… But really, how could I turn this down!”
“It’s win-win—”
“Win!”
“Exactly,” Jim laughed, not wanting to tell her that Michael couldn’t bribe her like that without authorization from him first. He figured he’d handle the necessary paperwork whenever it came in. She deserved it, after all. “Well I’m glad you came,” he told her. “I felt like a fish out of water here.”
“Jus call me your fishbowl,” Pam replied jokingly, blissfully unaware of all the levels that analogy spoke to. Jim cringed momentarily before managing to submerge his feelings underneath his expression, and then laughed along with her. “So… I tried to add you to my contacts thingy today,” she quickly changed the subject.
“Oh, I bet you weren’t able to.”
“I wasn’t!” she confirmed. “Why is that?”
Jim danced around the explanation with erms and uhs until he finally told her, “Corporate people are basically unlisted in the directory. It’s a security measure, so we don’t get contacted by random people in the branches to complain about their boss or something. For that kind of thing you’re supposed to get in touch with your corporate contact.”
“So… I’m some random employee inna branch?” Pam asked, looking a little hurt by the explanation.
“No! Of course not,” he denied. “Just, by company standards… Um, you know what though? I can add you, and then contact you and then you’ll be able to add me that way.”
He could see a hint of a smile form on her face when he said that, and it elated him that she could be so swayed by what he thought of her. It meant she still cared. “Okay,” she responded, now suddenly acting coy, which in turn made him feel a little bashful as well.
As he stared at her, looking so beautiful and blushing more than he had ever seen, he had to ask himself, what are we, eighth graders?
He was so overcome by this realization that they were just acting stupid that he began to open his mouth to say something. Anything. ‘Let’s ditch this party.’ ‘We can go for a drink somewhere more quiet if you want.’ ‘You don’t have to go home with Michael, stay with me tonight.’ But for some reason, he just couldn’t bring himself to say any of those things. He had never had that relationship with her, and was scared shitless at the thought of offending her and ruining whatever it was they were doing now, that he was silenced by it. No, he just couldn’t hit on her, and with that fully recognized in his mind, he gave a large sigh and tried to focus on other things.
Like Michael making a fool of himself on the dance floor.
“So why aren’t you out there with your date?” he asked, a large smirk on his face. “I know you’re a pretty dorky dancer, but you can’t possibly be as bad as him.”
“Oh you’d be surprised,” she smiled back. And as she drunkenly jabbered on and on, Jim began to wonder where the heck this renewed relationship was going to go. They obviously still had some spark left between them, but he was still too scared to take that leap out of the friend zone. And worse yet, he knew she’d never make a move either. And so Jim concluded that they were stuck for the moment, playing the waiting game and seeing how much their relationship could grow now that there was nothing standing in their way… besides their own lack of action, that is.
But no sooner had he come to this conclusion than Fancy New—and drunk—Beesly surprised him again.
“So get this, Dwight’s turning his beet farm into a bed and breakfast! We have to go check it out sometime.”
“Uh, sure.” …What?!
Author's Chapter Notes:
Thanks so much for all the wonderful reviews!! I'm glad people are intrigued by this story; it definitely motivates me to keep writing this thang! Now, enjoy this chapter, will you?
Chapter End Notes:
Next up, Jim trades the city for the country, and spends the night on a beet farm.
