It’s not that he’s incompetent.
It’s not that their new boss, Charles Miner, is an accomplished MBA, and he’s merely a humble paper salesman with a basic Liberal Arts degree...
“If this were my career, I’d have to throw myself in front of train.”
...A lot can change in five years.
Andy and Dwight are now friends. Apparently.
He and Pam are happily engaged.
Kelly has dated Ryan, and then Darryl, and then Ryan again, which brings them to today where she now frequents Jim’s desk every thirty minutes to gaze adoringly at Charles while Angela shoots hostile glares from across the room-- Angela, who had just recently become known as, or as Pam affectionately calls her, the office whore.
Jim glanced up at the reception desk where his fiancé should’ve been, only to find a young and bored brunette typing aggressively at her computer—probably busy making plans for the weekend with her friends over AIM or Facebook or some other social networking site.
He missed her.
It wasn’t like he was unable to do anything constructive without her around, but it certainly felt that way at times. It was just so hard to focus when all he could think about was her, and how she’s spending her day working in a janitor’s closet one floor below in a new vocation that he isn’t a part of anymore.
He had sent her a text message over two hours ago, to ask how her day was going, and she hadn’t replied. He figured it was because she was too busy trying to get Michael to focus with that A.D.D.-riddled attention span of his, or engaged in designing Michael Scott Paper Co. business cards, or trying to create a more levelheaded environment in which she could work alongside Dunder Mifflin’s former Vice-President, Ryan “d-bag” Howard.
It was hard to get used to her lack of presence in the office. Everything just seemed so… off, like some weird twilight zone where she didn’t even exist. It was like Stamford, Connecticut all over again. And he hated Stamford.
Of course, there was one major difference in that he would get to walk out that door, knowing that his fiancé would be meeting him in the parking lot, where they would then drive home together to a house they had spent the past couple of weekends repainting, redecorating and all out refurbishing in order to create a somewhat inhabitable space for another Halpert family-- a second generation that didn’t happen to consist of a couple of baby boomers who met and fell in love in the ‘70s. It was like they were the stars of their own home renovation show on the DIY Network called, “So You Bought Your Parents’ Craphole. Now What?”
At home, he at least had a live-in partner to help make all of those tough decisions-- to help pick out furniture and matching paint colors and dinnerware- and who was surprisingly well-versed in how to remove and replace old plumbing and backboards in the bathroom due to her extensive history of watching HGTV.
Here at work, things were different. He no longer had an ally in the office to help him get through the day or to offer an encouraging smile anytime things got a little too crazy. And he could really use her infinite knowledge and wisdom, or even have her tell an amusing and senseless anecdote on what the hell a fucking 'rundown' is.
It had finally come to this. All this time, his career at Dunder Mifflin was on cruise control. He had managed to reach a point where he was content with the way things were, achieving a comfortable, leveled balance of job satisfaction, security, and advancement potential, had he been so inclined to push himself even further up in this company. And then Charles came along, and suddenly he hit a wall.
For five years, he had merely gotten by in a job that was so habitual it had actually dumbed him down to the point of inadequacy. He hadn’t always lacked the basic competence when it came to doing his job. He liked to think he did his job pretty well, actually, if not 110% better than the majority of the employees he shared an office with– all without even trying. And maybe that was the problem.
Since graduating college well over five years ago, he had simply drifted along, starting out as a young, unmotivated paper salesman and staying on a constant plateau, never once taking the chance to actually do something with his career. Anytime he had actually tried to move forward in this so-called occupation, it had always been an impulsive decision-- a passive aggressive way of removing himself from an uncomfortable situation. A means of getting away, from her.
He no longer had a reason to get away. Just a couple of days ago, he worked ten feet away from his fiancé. The diamond ring on the receptionist’s left hand was now an indication of her plans to marry and start a life with him. And now, she was gone, leaving him on his own to deal with this pain in the ass of a new boss and an office full of the same idiots he had worked together with for five whole years.
She was gone, and other than needing to be the sole-provider for his new family of two, he no longer had a reason to stay. Pam had taken a chance, leaving a soul-crushing yet steady job for a position at a business that, he had to admit, probably wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon, but she at least took the chance in pursuit of something better, in pursuit of a more rewarding career.
Now that he thought about it, ever since they had first started dating, she was always taking chances. The reason they were together was because she had taken a chance. Twice actually. Her confession on the beach, and the note she hid in the files he had prepared for his interview at corporate. After that, she was bursting with ambitious determination and was all about taking chances-- stepping up to create an animated logo for Michael’s commercial, co-founding a Finer Things Club with Toby and Oscar, making the decision to go to art school in New York and ultimately making the decision to drop out when she realized it just wasn’t what she thought it would be, and finally, jumping ship with Michael.
It’s not that he never took chances in his life, or that he wasn’t determined, because he was- just not at work. All of his ambitions lied in his personal life-- proposing to Pam, supporting her as she struggled to find her career identity, buying a house for them to settle into and start a family. With Pam still trying to grow and discover herself, it was almost impossible to take any sort of crazy chances with his career, but it wasn’t her fault. He wanted nothing more than for her to be happy. For too long, he had watched her suffer in an insupportable relationship where her dreams of becoming an artist were constantly made of fun of, or rejected as being impractical. He wasn’t going to become that guy. He promised himself for years that he would never be that guy.
His thoughts were interrupted for a moment when she entered the office, a long-awaited breath of fresh air from the normal, humdrum activities taking place in the office on that typical, boring day.
He greeted her in a way that perhaps sounded a little too excited, but he didn't care because really, he had been dying for this moment to come for hours, where their lives would finally intertwine again.
“Hey!”
”Hey, I’m here to see Charles.”
She brushed straight past him as he replied quickly with an, “Okay,” and watched her disappear into Michael’s office. Because really, he would never see it as being anything but Michael’s office.
He watched Pam discuss something intently with Charles while he reminisced over the long and significant, albeit strange, journey his former boss had traveled this year. Michael had gone from almost being a father to not quite getting there, to falling in love with a woman who was so obviously his soul mate, then succumbing to utter heartbreak, to being at the top of his game in sales and leading a series of lectures to help improve the other branches only to ultimately quit his job as Regional Manager of Dunder Mifflin.
Of all the ways for Michael Scott to go out, Jim had never imagined that it would be on his own terms. And when Pam made the decision to follow Michael, leaving the comfort of her own lily pad behind the reception counter, Jim was fuming on the inside, not able to realize why she would leave a decent, well-paying job in this economic climate when they were both responsible for paying a hefty mortgage on their brand new house.
That was until he got home that evening, holding a box that was crammed with framed photos of a more promising life outside of the office, and sketches on legal pads that revealed a suppressed talent going to waste, and he realized that Pam was finally fed up from all of those years of frustration and lack of respect and being unappreciated at work. That’s when it dawned on him that she, too, could relate and probably saw a little of herself in Michael as he walked out that door.
It was a little sad, really, to watch her go through this change. He remembered observing her at the grocery store later that evening after she and Michael had quit, as they casually walked up and down the aisles, debating what they would pick up for dinner. They had passed by the candy aisle on their way to the frozen foods section (having finally decided on pizza), and her eyes instantly lit up as she walked over to one of the displays and pulled a bag of pastel Easter M&M’s into her hands. He watched as a frown immediately washed over her face, and she carelessly dropped the bag back down on the shelf, suddenly remembering that she just doesn’t do that kind of stuff anymore.
He heard a light commotion come from behind him and he turned in his chair, smiling as Pam stepped out of Michael’s office, her shoulders slumped in defeat.
“Hey,” he said, and his smile grew even wider when she didn’t breeze past him this time.
She twirled around on her toes and leaned back onto his desk, crossing her arms over her chest and staring down at the floor. Her presence alone immediately made Jim despise the fact that Charles had come into their lives, driving Pam out of the office and forcing him to miss out on moments like these, when Pam would find any excuse to stop by his desk and casually lean against it as she distracted him from whatever busywork he didn’t want to be doing anyway.
She let out a long, sad sigh and glanced up, smiling back at him. “Hey,” she finally said.
“What was that all about?” Jim asked, nodding a head towards the office. He noticed Pam noticeably tense up, clenching her arms with her fingers as she bashfully looked away.
“Oh, it was nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “Just… paper stuff.”
She was obviously lying, but he realized it was something she just didn’t want to talk about right now, so he let it go, figuring he would just ask her about it later at home. Away from the cameras, and out of Charles’s hearing range.
“How is your day going?” Pam asked.
“Oh, uh,” Jim stalled, casting a hesitant glance over his shoulder to see if Charles was listening in to their conversation. He wasn’t, but he lowered his voice anyway. “Charles asked me to do a rundown a couple of hours ago, and I have no idea what that is.”
Pam suddenly broke out into a fit of laughter, bringing one hand up to cover her mouth as she tried to stifle the noise.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized.
“No, go ahead. Laugh it up,” Jim said, smiling in spite of himself. She just had that kind of effect on him sometimes. “I’m glad that my little work crisis amuses you.”
Pam’s shoulders bobbed up and down as she struggled to stop laughing and turn serious again. “Did you think to run a search on Google?” she asked. Jim froze and he looked up at her with wide eyes, as if she had just stated the most brilliant idea that he had ever heard—like she had just come up with a strategy that would bring all war to an end and initiate world peace, or something.
“Why didn’t I think of that?” he asked out loud, and Pam started laughing all over again. “Shut up,” he muttered. She just shook her head and watched as he turned towards his computer and clicked on the mouse to open up his internet browser.
Pam reached out and punched him lightly on the arm. “You’re cute, you know that?”
“And you’re a nuisance, you know that?” Jim asked, tapping at his keyboard as he typed “rundown” into the Google search bar.
“Whatever. You know you love me.”
Jim leaned back in his chair and he glanced up at Pam as she squinted at his computer monitor, reading over the list of results as they appeared on the screen. Her long, golden curls cascaded over the shoulders of her black blazer, and he remembered watching her emerge from the bedroom earlier that morning wearing her fancy new work clothes, clothes that she had purchased when she took a job in the Dunder Mifflin offices at New York and had since pushed to the back of her closet once she returned to her job as a receptionist in Scranton.
She looked so assured and confident and almost happier, having exchanged her bright, colorful cardigans for muted colors and casually-formal business wear because she was no longer a receptionist. She was a saleswoman now, and that meant that she got to dress the part, and he thinks that if she could get away with wearing a suit and tie to fit in with the two, goofy salesmen she worked with that she would because she was just that excited, to be doing a completely different type of work for a change.
“Well, there you go,” Pam said and he turned his head to look back at the computer screen. “The Rundown. A movie starring Dwayne Johnson and Sean William-Scott. And look there’s a description.”
Jim glanced back over at her and smiled as she read from the screen.
“A tough aspiring chef is hired to bring home a mobster’s son from the Amazon, but becomes involved in the fight against an oppressive town operator and the search for legendary treasure,” she read, making a face and nodding in approval. “Interesting. Maybe Charles wants you to find his long-lost son and bring him home to safety, all while fighting off the perils of angry mob bosses and radicals in the greater Wilkes-Barre area.”
Jim smiled at his fiancé’s silliness. She was too adorable for words. “Yeah, that sounds like that’s exactly what he wants me to do,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ll get right on that.”
“You should ask Dwight to join you in your endeavors. I hear he hides a wide array of weaponry all throughout the office,” Pam said, nodding her head like this was the most fantastic idea ever. “Oh, and bring Andy, too,” she whispered. “His fluency in a second language can come in handy should you encounter any French terrorist groups, like the Les Assassins de butter croissants.”
Jim inadvertently let out a loud snort as he fell into an uncontrolled burst of laughter, bringing a closed fist up to his mouth to quiet himself.
“I hate to interrupt all of the work that’s clearly getting done, but, uh, visiting hours are over.”
The laughter immediately died out as Jim and Pam glanced up to find Charles standing in the doorway of Michael’s office.
“Oh yeah, I was just leaving,” Pam stammered as she stood up from Jim’s desk. She ran a nervous hand over her skirt, smoothing out invisible wrinkles. Charles continued to stare daggers at the two of them before he finally shifted his gaze, shuffling the stack of paperwork in his hands, and turned back into his office.
“I should go,” Pam whispered after Charles had settled back behind his desk.
“Oh yeah, I’ll walk you out,” Jim volunteered, starting to rise up from his chair, but Pam shook her head.
“That’s probably not a good idea with Charles watching your every move and all,” she said.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Jim agreed with a sad smile, and he lowered himself back down. “I guess I'll be seeing you after work?”
”Yeah,” Pam breathed out in a heavy sigh, obviously not all too thrilled about the reality of having to return to those two knuckleheads downstairs. She glanced into Michael’s office to make sure Charles wasn’t watching and she bent down, kissing Jim quickly on the cheek.
“See you later,” she whispered and she turned on her heel, walking past reception and towards the door. He watched as she stopped and turned back around, pointing a finger at Charles in the office and then pointing two fingers at her eyes and back at Jim in an “I’m watching you” motion, and he laughed to himself, giving her a tiny wave goodbye. And then she was gone.
He turned back towards his computer, letting out a long, deep exhale, and he thought to himself that one floor down was a zillion times better than New York, and if putting up with Charles and staying at this job for a few more days, weeks or months meant that he would still have a house to go home to at the end of the day with the one person who brightened his entire life every time she walked into a room, then he could be more than okay with that for now.
Story Notes:
A long, sleepless night and writer's block led to a brief departure from Illinoise and resulted in this. I hope that you will enjoy it.
Title is taken from The Boy Least Likely To song, which I could not find a link to, but you can find the lyrics here. *
Title is taken from The Boy Least Likely To song, which I could not find a link to, but you can find the lyrics here. *
Chapter End Notes:
Thank you so much for reading. Reviews are always welcome, and very much appreciated. Happy Tax Deadline Day! Oy.
:)
:)
Nightswept is the author of 12 other stories.
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