Pam shuffled in, eyes bleary from falling asleep on the couch watching television. She woke herself up; Roy obviously had walked right past her sleeping and went to bed. She eventually woke herself up and drudged to bed. Today the cameras were coming as Michael stated. Part of her was excited, the other part was nervous. She didn’t know how the camera would portray her. Would she be the bitchy receptionist, or the cute girl next door? Hmmm…
She walked in to a blonde woman smiling at her.
“Hi you must be Pam.”
The woman extended her hand and Pam cautiously took it. She scanned the room to see two camera men, a boom and from what she can tell an assistant and a producer. She noted the same look of despair on the assistant’s face. Servitude is a bitch isn’t it?
“Let’s get you a fitted for a mic, and don’t be nervous, I want you to act normal.”
“Am I allowed to look in the camera?” Pam asked as the assistant began taping a mic to her.
“Yeah, sometimes, but I would rather you didn’t make it a habit. I’m still trying to get that across to Michael.”
Pam chuckled and nodded, as she walked back to her desk and noted Jim was in the office with Michael. She paddled around a bit, checking voicemails and jotting down messaged, trying her damnedest not to look at the camera. She felt nude almost, as if the camera could see right through her and she was trying her best to be as normal as possible, which meant boring, which meant the camera wouldn’t find her interesting enough to focus on. Until…Michael emerged from his office and she knew it wasn’t going to be good.
“I've, uh, been at Dunder Mifflin for 12 years, the last four as regional manager. Ah, if you want to come through here,” he stood in his doorway, “We have the entire floor, so this is my kingdom, as far as the eye can see. Ah, this is our receptionist Pam-“Oh god no. She became flustered as the camera whipped around to her.
“PAM.” Michael began beating on her desk. Please stop. “PAM! PAM! Pam Beasley. Ah, Pam has been with us for, um, forever. Right Pam? “
She didn’t know what to say she wasn’t ready for the cameras on her. Damn you Michael.
“Well, I don't know.”
“If you think she's cute now, you should have seen her a couple of years ago…” Michael growled at her and Pam swore that whoever put her desk up that high knew the secretary could jump that high to kill her boss on the other side.
“What?”
Thankfully he changed the subject, leaning on her desk. “Ah, any messages?”
“Um, yeah, just a fax.” She handed him the paper, and her eyes tried to stay on him, even though the camera was probably zooming in on every flaw in her skin right now.
“Oh, okay this is from corporate...” Michael replied his eyes glancing down at the paper.
“I know I...”
“...how many times have I told you that there's a special filing cabinet for things from corporate?” Okay, he was confusing her. What on earth is he talking about?
“You haven't told me...”
“It's called the waste paper basket!” he exclaimed, crumbling the paper in his hands and tossing the ball over Pam’s shoulder. She turned red and glanced nervously at the camera. She was working with a maniac. “Look at that! Gah, ohh, look at that face!”
Pam shook her head slightly; she worked with a circus freak.Michael later retreated back to his cage-oops office, much to the relief of Pam. She glanced up to see what Jim thought of all of this. They could communicate without words sometimes. One look and she knew what Jim thought. But Jim was too busy staring at Dwight being the oddball he was, and she could tell by the way he narrowed his eyes, a plan was in motion. It made her almost jump with anticipation, but then she wondered if they should embarrass him on camera like that.
A few minutes later she walked by the conference room, where Jim was giving what they called a “talking head”, individual interviews to discuss how you feel or what you think. The camera crew was chuckling lightly, obviously Jim had won them over with his humor too and she stopped to listen to him.
“-My job is to speak to clients, um, on the phone about, uh, quantities and uh, type of copier paper. You know, uh, whether we can supply it to them, whether they can, uh, pay for it and, um… I'm boring myself just talking about this.”She covered her mouth from bursting out laughing and walked over to the fact, this was only the beginning of the day and she had so much more to deal with.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jim always came to her desk and she was glad he wasn’t hamming it up for the cameras by being a responsible worker. He leaned his tall frame over the counter as she teased him about attending Angela’s cat party on Sunday.
“Yeah, stop. That is ridiculous. “ He simply stated and Pam could barely hold her giggles and it resulted in her getting the hiccups.
“No really are you? I heard it was going to be yarns of fun!”
“Oh my god, I can not stand here and let you continue this.” He pushed off the counter smiling brightly and Pam nearly choked to death laughing.
She composed herself long enough to deal with the temporary Michael had requested, finding it odd that in the midst of downsizing, he would hire temp.
Regardless, he seemed nice enough and she worried for him as Michael came out and assaulted him with his humour. They asked Pam to come and do a talking head, and she was nervous at first, until they asked her was she afraid of losing her job. After contemplating it, she decided no, it would probably be the best thing ever. Except she wouldn’t see Jim is all, maybe they can still call and email, meet at Dunkin Donuts on the weekend…
“I don't think it would be the worst thing if they let me go. Because then, I might...I just, I don't think its many little girls' dream to be a receptionist. What do I like to do? Um, I like to do illustrations. My favorite? Gosh…Um, mostly watercolor. A few oil pencil, um, Jim thinks they're good. He’s always saying I should do it professionally…”
He did encourage her in that, it was better than her sitting here day after day, dying a little inside, saying “Dunder Mifflin this is Pam.”
Until she wanted to chuck the phone across the room. Michael had ventured back out to her desk requesting messages and then gave an impromptu rendition of the 6 million dollar man. Pam wanted vomit, especially when he got all serious for the camera. A talking head later, Pam was sitting there, smiling as the AD alerted her that Jim mentioned her favorite yogurt snack. She did eat a lot of yogurt and Jim would just look over and make a face. It was so funny.
“Jim said mixed berries? Oh, wow, yeah, he's on to me, um…”
Jim always noticed small things like that. He made a remark that all her shirts were pinstriped and she challenged him, saying she had a variety of shirts. Sure enough when she got home and yanked open her closet door, she was assaulted by pinstripes.
Pam was starting to like the cameras now, it didn’t bother her as much as she thought, and at least they didn’t follow her to the bathroom. She laughed audibly when Dwight pulled out his stapler encased in jell-o and Jim just chuckled, eating a jell-o cup…
“How do you know it was me?” he said nonchalantly and Pam was just mesmerized by the way he could control his hysterics in Dwight’s face. He was so calm and took another bit of jell-o while Pam couldn’t stop laughing, her cheeks almost burned.
Later Roy came in and Pam‘s face lit up slightly. He approached her desk and asked her was she ready to leave; she could tell he was in one of his mood. Jim stood in front of her, and she noticed he became awkward and the tension filled his face that was not there a minute ago. She didn’t think anything of it and asked Roy could they go with Jim and the others. Jim had invited her out with the office people, something she would decline normally, but tonight she felt feisty and with the cameras there, she wanted to tag along. He muttered about needing to leave and Pam decided it was not time to be confrontation, even if she wanted to go. Jim shot her a strained grin and Pam stuttered over her words and went to finish her faxes, because this was her life. Go to work, go home to Roy. No need for change.
