“Reject a woman, and she will never let it go.  One of the many defects of their kind.  Also, weak arms.” — Dwight Schrute

Andy began sailing to Jamaica with his brother.  He Skyped Erin to get in touch with her, planning to maintain his sanity.

It didn’t work.

What followed was a series of unfortunate events: skin so red he might contract skin cancer, his eyes becoming “two flaming meatballs”, wearing drawers on his head, and losing not one but both methods of getting drinking water.  It was pathetic, and with five other coworkers crowding Erin’s desk it just made him look more pathetic.

He bid them all farewell with the image of “A Man and His Boat”... and lost his laptop in the ocean in the process, losing his one real method of communication to the outside world.

It had only been 36 hours.

“Last week, Andy set sail for the Bahamas to sell his family’s boat,” Erin informed the interviewer, “and he took his brother, but not me.  I was kind of sad at first, but then I remembered that Bob Marley song: No, woman.  No cry.”

She didn’t cry in the office but she did in private.  

—————————————————————————————————————————————

“Toby got us all to participate in Movember,” Pete explains to the interviewer in his newly-grown mustache, “It’s a charity for prostate cancer. You pledge money and then you grow a mustache for the month of November.”

Clark is next to him sporting the weakest mustache imaginable, “So, this is how we look now. I hope you like being turned on all the time.”

As the two of them, Darryl and Kevin hang out in the breakroom, in walks Toby, with the best ’stache in the entire office.

“Daaamn!” Darryl compliments, “It just keeps on coming, huh?”

“I have very fertile hair glands,” Toby shares.

Toby could not be happier that he got all the dudes to do Movember.  Pete, Clark, and Toby are bonding more in the annex, just three single guys getting into trouble, going to lunches, picking up babes (and in his case failing at it).

They all continue to bond in the annex, and Pete talks about it to the interviewer, “What Toby doesn’t realize is, he can be a lot of fun if he loosens up and is just himself, not having to try or keep from saying the wrong thing.  He’s super awkward, but hey, aren’t we all awkward to an extent?”

“This is fun, you know?” Toby says aloud, “I mean, this is fun.”

It is fun.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

Jim’s performance has been dipping a bit.  He’s been blowing more sales calls than usual.  Pam thinks he’s just in a bit of a rut, which is true.  But it can’t be the office, it wouldn’t be; maybe he’s just tired?  Having two kids under the age of three will do that to you.  At this point he doesn’t care, his one priority is getting food on the table.  No matter how annoying his job is, he’s gonna sit down and do it.

But Dwight being the most irritating person of God’s green earth doesn’t help matters.  He also notices Jim’s performance is slipping and is taking advantage of it however he can.  It’s been over a decade and he’s still, even now, worried about who’s the better salesman?  I guess the news about the baby hit him harder than Jim realized.

Still, that doesn’t mean he’s gonna put up with Dwight’s bull.

“Dwight Schrute,” he answers.  His face lights up when he finds out who it is, then puts him on speakerphone, “Well, hi there David Wallace.  Why would you ever call me when the manager is out of town?”

Jim’s done already, and it’s not even 9:00.

“Well, I have some very exciting news,” David announces.

“And you didn’t call Jim — that seems significant.”  God, shut up!

“Hey, David,” Jim greets nonchalantly.

“Jim, good!  You should hear this too.”

“No, he shouldn’t,” Dwight insists.

Jim quickly becomes vindictive and smacks Dwight’s hand from getting to the phone, takes the phone over to his desk, and shoves it in a drawer so David will remain on speaker.  The cameras catch Pam’s concern.

The mission is compromised!  “Okay, David,” Dwight says, “I want to take you off speaker but... I don't know where I’d put you.”  Jim wants to say that seeing him like this makes him feel better; it doesn’t.

“Guys, listen, this is big news,” David begins, “The Scranton White Pages just got in contact with my office the day before yesterday.  They’ve apparently just dropped the supplier they’ve been with for the last ten years.”

Dwight realizes the significance of this.

“The White Pages:” he begins telling the interviewer, “Do you want it?  No.  Do you use it?  No.  Does it inexplicably show up on your doorstep three times a year?  Yes, yes, and yes.  There’s a reason that we in the paper industry call this thing "the White Whale".”

The “White Whale” status is proven when he shows off all that sweet blubber.

“Look, we need our top salesman running point on this and Dwight,” David continues, “that is you.”

And Dwight’s world just became brighter, “I’m gonna need to put you on hold for a second.”  And here it is: “Hah!  Yah!  Woooo!  Eat it, Jim!  Eat it, Phyllis!  Eat... where’s Stanley?”

Erin, ever the loyal receptionist, yells “Eat it, Stanley!” while he’s in the restroom.

“So uh, last I remember Tom Peterman was in charge of that account?” Dwight asks David.

“No, I spoke with the receptionist over there.  It’s someone new but she didn’t catch her name.”

After this statement, one can hear a pin drop.

Dwight says that he’ll do it and they bid each other farewell, much to Phyllis’ fear.

“Dwight, you can’t go,” Phyllis presses, “You have a problem with women.  You can’t sell to them.”

“That is a damnable lie!” Dwight presses back, “I love women.”

“Gina Rogers at Apex Technology said you called her ‘gy-na’ for your entire meeting.”

Nellie can’t help but cringe, “That’s not good.”

“Yeah, she said she corrected him five times.”

“Gy-na said that?” Dwight asks.

Phyllis is describing how big this is and how this will influence the company.  Dwight can’t screw it up.  He cannot screw this up!  Raises!  Bonuses!  Pizza Fridays!

Jim’s looking at Dwight and he thinks… yeah, maybe he should screw this up.  He should be knocked down a peg.  Taught a lesson.  Be humbled.  He’s always had a problem with humbleness, thinking he’s the most amazing thing to ever walk the planet.  Newsflash: just because you own acres of farmland and know how to sell a product doesn’t make you the second coming.  Jim quickly neglects these thoughts, realizing how utterly selfish he sounds.  He wants Dwight to succeed because he agrees that the White Pages will do wonders for the branch, so he’s not gonna stew about it.  He’s not like that.  He’s not Dwight.

“Can you go instead?” Pam asks Jim, knowing he’ll do great.

“I can’t, meeting another client,” he responds.

“I have this sale call today with one of my former clients,” he tells the interviewer, “So hopefully I can get them to come back.  Also, this is the first time I’ve ever been motivated about work.  So, that feels... wrong.”

Jim gets in touch with them, and he made his first mistake… it was supposed to be in-person, not over the phone, and he’s not even remotely prepared for that.  Kevin talking about seasons of all things isn’t helping.  Thankfully, the client is more than willing to do it over the phone instead, so that’s a load off his shoulders.

He moves the conversation to his cell phone and takes it outside, which quickly became mistake number two.  A buzzsaw is being used across the street so loud it makes a megaphone seem quiet; he leans on Meredith’s van which causes the alarm to go off; here comes Hank to go on the defensive against the skateboarder kids; Meredith soon follows with her baseball bat; and all of this crescendos into a myriad of communication problems.

“I apologize profusely for everything that’s happened,” Jim tells them later on.

“It’s quite alright, Mr. Halpert,” they say, “But we’ve decided to go in another direction.”

He manages to maintain his composure, cordially ending the conversation with them and hinted that he would love to work with them again; the client recognizes his sincerity, but not his salesmanship.

After he sets the phones down, he puts his head in his hands.

He sits in front of the interviewer, and with a thousand-yard stare simply says, “I should have called him back.”

—————————————————————————————————————————————

Angela’s realizing that her perfect marriage isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The Senator’s been distant.  He hasn’t been paying attention to her needs… any of them.  He’s gone from the house so many times that she is suspecting the worst.  It’s impossible, of course.  But she needs to be sure.  So she asks someone reliable who can help her.

“Spring cleaning?” Angela asks.

“More like fall cleaning,” Oscar awkwardly chuckles. 

She just needs to be honest, “I think the senator is having an affair,” she whispers. 

With that, Oscar shakily removes his entire desk drawer out of fear.  He’s struggling to put it back together, “This doesn’t... I’m sorry.  Wha... what?” 

“I think the senator is having an affair,” she repeats.

“I literally have nightmares in which what just happened happens,” Oscar admits to the cameras, “I wake up in a sweat.  And then I make Angela’s husband spoon me back to bed.”  He’s gonna miss that.

Angela elaborates that he’s always at ‘Hot Yoga’ with a woman (or man) named Blake, which gets him immediately jealous.  Who the hell is Blake?

“Angela, I’ll go with you,” he agrees.  She has to know.  He has to know, too.

They’re at the mall, sitting in the food court across from the yoga class.

“Which one is the instructor?” she asks, “They’re all fatties.”  Michael was right about her being smaller than a grain of rice.

In the yoga studio, Lipton and ‘Blake’ act cordially, as all yoga partners do.  And she just so happens to have a boyfriend!  Angela has nothing to worry about.

But Oscar does.  He looks on and sees a well-toned young man giving a huge too-long hug to Lipton.  And now they’re doing yoga positions together.  Could he be Blake?  Against his better judgment, he decides to stay, and he makes Angela stay with him. 

But she knows it’s pointless!  The yoga partner is male.  And he’s not a homosexual.  He couldn’t be.  He isn’t.

“Okay, we should go now, let’s go—” she insists.  Oscar just shushes her and watches on.  And then it hits her: her friend is a perv.

“Wait, why are you... Oh,” she shames, “are you getting your jollies right now?  Can’t get enough of the show?  Your jollies are all on fire—”

“Please,” Oscar presses, “It’s Robert who’s enjoying it.”

“What?”

“This could be the affair that you’re scared of,” Oscar explains, “Politicians are wonderful liars.  You never know who they really are.”  He’s not just telling this to Angela, but to himself: is this love even real?  Or just a fling that he can dispose of when he gets bored?  But he reassures her that he’s “probably not gay”.  M-hm, yeah.

“Oscar, what is happening here?” she asks incredulously, “Why would you say you think the Senator might be gay?” 

“I don’t know, Angela,” he tries to formulate an excuse, “I’m dehydrated.  Maybe... You heard me wrong.  We should just go.”  They should have gone.

“Look, look, look.  Here he comes.  Here he comes,” she says as Lipton leaves the studio, phone in hand.  They duck behind the table, curious as to what he’s up to, “What is he doing?”

“He’s making a phone call,” he answers.

They both crouch as he dials and calls the number.  They hear a phone ring and vibrate… it’s Oscar’s.

And with this, Angela’s mind concludes that the worst is happening.

The Senator’s having an affair.

He’s not attracted to her.

He’s not because he’s gay.

And his gay lover… is her deskmate.

The air around them is filled with emotions: doubt, fear, frustration, anger, regret, shame, hurt, disgust…

But at this moment, they’re too stunned to properly express any of them. 

—————————————————————————————————————————————

The women of the office, sans Angela, decide to train Dwight for this.  There is a lingering fear that all this is just hopeless.  But maybe not.

In the first exercise, Erin is the boss that Dwight has to sell to.  She couldn’t get into the role, and Dwight isn’t buying it anyway.

Pam volunteers to be the buyer next.  Dwight’s imposing, threatening presence towards her has Nellie posit three questions: “One, have you ever killed a woman?  Two, how many women have you killed?  Please, sir, will you not kill me?”

Pam lists off all the things you have to do when selling to women… or, more accurately, selling to anyone.  Such things as “Listen”, “Respect physical space”, and “Don’t mention body at all”.  You know, the basics.

She gets him to demonstrate and pushes him in the right direction with a smile and nod technique.  As Nellie describes her conversations with Pam on the mural, he essentially becomes a smiling bobblehead.  She can’t tolerate his face anymore, describing it as him “laboring over a stool having just eaten human flesh”.

In one last-ditch effort to get through to Dwight, Phyllis gets him to play the woman and her the salesperson.

“Ms. Thomas,” she demonstrates, “so good to see you.”

“Hello,” he responds with the voice of a creepy doll.

“Oh, are those your kids?  They’re so cute!  They could be models.”

“Thank you.  I’m so proud of them.  I carried each one of them for nine months inside of my torso and then pushed them out of my vagina.”

The women agree, it truly is hopeless… except for one.

“Ten years ago,” Pam tells the interviewer, “I didn’t care if Dwight got married or died a beet-farming bachelor.  But having kids makes you so soft.  I used to watch Pulp Fiction and laugh, and now I’m like, ‘That poor g*mp is somebody’s child!’”

She joins Dwight, knowing that this could work.  “You know,” she tells him on the way there, “I think there could be a lot of benefits if you could learn to get along with women.”

“Look, I have no problem with women,” Dwight admits, “It’s businesswomen and their, their power suits and their shoulder pads.  Don’t lie about your shoulders!”

“Dwight, listen to me.  Businesswomen are just normal, nice, reasonable people.  Who is a nice, reasonable person in your experience?”

He thinks back to a nice, reasonable person, “I had a barber once who used to comb my hair gently.”

It’s working!  “Okay, so, when you’re selling to this woman, just imagine that she’s that nice, reasonable barber.”

He’s suddenly motivated, “Okay, I can do that.”

“M-hm, Good,” Pam motivates, “Baby steps.”  He then mentions the barber used to fight dogs; she doesn’t get a concrete answer as to what that means and concludes she doesn’t want one.

As they enter her office, the secretary tells her she’ll be right in.

“Oh, great,” Pam responds and asks, “Oh, I’m sorry.  Do you mind telling me her name?  I realized we don’t have it.”

The secretary knows what’s about to happen.  She fears for them, but in this building, it’s every person for themselves.  “...She’ll be right in.”  It’s all she can manage to respond.

As Dwight is combing his hair for preparation, Pam looks around the office for clues.  She sees a giant poster of a woman skydiving; she’s seen that face before, but can’t quite place it.  She then sees some candles, with the label Serenity.  The last time she saw candles like those was… oh no.  She slowly turns, and the giant Andy Warhol style painting hanging across the room confirms her greatest fear.

“Oh my God!” she exclaims, “It’s Jan.”

The only words Dwight can muster are “Oh dear God in Heaven.”  They then turn to the door.

Enter Janet Levinson, the mythic bitch.

As Dwight slowly arises from his chair, Pam smartly turns to him and simply whispers “Forget everything we taught you.”

Jan was one of the best Vice Presidents of Northeastern Sales Dunder Mifflin has ever had.  She was professional, kept her cool, and did her job immaculately.  She maintained this illusion of the perfect businesswoman: smart, confident, savvy.  But it was shattered by more demands, the divorce, and — of course — Michael Geary Scott.  Michael not only managed to see through her despite his obliviousness but also managed to weevil his way into her heart (and eventually her chest).  The true Jan was slowly revealed to both Scranton and corporate: an irrational, erratic, terrifying woman who lusts after younger men and uses company time to buy shoes.  The moment she met Holly, Michael’s eventual wife, she advised him to not see her because, in her mind, if she can’t be happy then neither can he.  If Michael’s life in Colorado is any indication, he made the right decision that day.

She’s still, to this very day, pissed at David Wallace, not only for firing her but also managing to see through her as Michael did.  So the moment she dropped her former paper supplier, she knew just the company to call and just the man she wanted to humiliate.

And she is out.  For.  Blood.

“Hey, Jan!” Pam greets her, trying to mask her fear, “It’s so great to see you!”

“Where’s Wallace?” Jan curtly asks.

“What?”

“I was under the impression that David Wallace would be coming,” she interrogated, “He bought back Dunder Mifflin, correct?”

While Dwight tries to use his best techniques to compliment a photo of Astrid, Pam clarifies that David is in Vermont and he sent Dwight instead.

Jan is not pleased, “Molly!”  The secretary returns, looking like she’s living through the events of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.  “David Wallace is in Vermont,” she chastises.

“Oh, my God,” Molly rambles, “Um, I talked to his assistant.  And I guess it did get a little confusing ’cause you said not to tell anyone your name.  And then also, those Bluetooths are very hard to hear with.  I know you love the way they look, but Tom never had us use them—”

“Molly,” Jan interrupts, “I am not Tom, I am Jan.”  Molly runs off, crying through her apology.

Jan does everything she can to contain her anger (while telling Dwight to stop smiling and nodding) as she sits them down in front of her desk.

Pam knows what this is about, “So this was all just a trick.  You don’t really have any business to give?”

“No, I do,” Jan answers.

“But not to us.”

Jan’s almost impressed, “Insightful, Pam.”

Dwight looks defeated, so Pam does everything she can to console him, “You did good, Dwight.  It’s okay.  I mean, seriously, Jan’s not normal.  Let’s just go.  She’s not going to sell to us.”

As Dwight gets up, he realizes something: this is not a businesswoman, this is Jan.  And he may not know businesswomen, but he knows Jan.  This is a challenge… a challenge that only a Schrute can handle.

“Yes, she is,” he tells her, “Now, I may not have any instincts with women, but I have an instinct for sales.  You keep her occupied.  I’ll be right back.”

Pam manages to keep Jan busy before Dwight gets back.  It was the longest 20 minutes of her life.

Dwight manages to find his Ace of Spades: Clark Green.  He knows what makes her tick, and there are four things that she loves: Astrid, scented candles, her ever-growing lust for power… and younger men.

Clark had grown tired of being just a temp and not a real salesman.  So when Dwight tells him he’s going to help him be a Dunder Mifflin liaison?  For the White Pages?  He jumped at the opportunity, not knowing what it would entail.

But Pam does, “Oh, my God.”

“Jan, may I introduce to you your own personal Dunder Mifflin liaison,” Dwight introduces Clark, “devoted to servicing this account with total client satisfaction,” he presses, trying to intimidate her, “I sensed that Molly wasn’t quite meeting your needs — nothing like, uh, your old assistant... Hunter.  Was that his name?”

Jan is confused but agrees.  “I don’t recall,” she lies, “And yes, Molly is crap.”

Pam, fearing that Clark will become the sacrificial lamb, tries to talk him out of it, “Okay, you do not have to do this.”

“Do what?” he asks optimistically, “Get into sales?  That’s what I want.”  You poor sweet summer child…

After Jan asks Clark to turn around, she tells Dwight that she’ll be in touch with him in a week.  She then struts over to Clark, him slowly realizing what this is about.  “Do you have a valid passport?” she asks him.

 “Y-yes ma’am,” he answers.  He never knew this was part of the paper-selling business, but he is not complaining.

Pam and Dwight meet Molly, telling her that she should just quit, ignorant of the exchange that happened earlier.  She gives them thanks, but Dwight has something else to add.

“I know it can’t be easy working for Jan.  Good luck with your feelings.”

Molly smiles, seeing something in him, and walks off.

“Dwight!” Pam says proudly, “That was really nice.  You should ask for her number.”

He tells her that if he has “curried favor” with Molly, he’ll let her know.

“Why me?” she asks.

“Because you are my friend and you are a woman,” he says happily, and then adds, “... And women love gossip.  It’s like air to you people.  Ugh, God.”

She smiles as he retches out of the building.  It wasn’t hopeless after all.