The Office running thread

Quite different from being on a power trip, though.

 

I think it could go hand-in-hand. Someone on a power trip could certainly be a dick. I look at it like this: He doesn't get respect. He wants respect. He thinks the way to get respect is to exercise his power as co-manager.

 

Can't let the inmates run the asylum. When he's basically told by everyone in that office he's a figurehead...you can't let that go on.

Doesn't make it a power trip. Means he's doing his job.

 

Jim has been in positions of power in certain situations before, but last night was the first time he really got his first full dose of authority as a manager. So I thought that did move the plot along ever so slightly because we got our first real glimpse of him as a manager without Micheal around to lean on for help. It was kind of a sneak preview as to what the place might be like if Jim was the #1 and there was no Michael.

 

I'm with IJAG, I don't think Jim acted stuck up one bit. He's a boss, and one of his employees sent out an e-mail saying Jim had no real power. When Jim went to his desk, Ryan's playing Tetris and basically telling Jim I'm not going to do what you ask, leave, let me be. Jim had to do something.

 

Bingo.

So many people these days (in general) hate -- HATE -- to be told what to do by a boss that no matter the situation, they think it's the boss going on a power trip.

 

"What a bunch of boobs!"

"This may be news to you Oscar, but some people like boobs."

 

Maybe it's just different views of the term "power trip."

What I meant was how tight his sphincter seems to get whenever he's in charge, compared to the rascal who pulled all the practical jokes and otherwise tormented Dwight on company time. Wonder how co-manager Jim would have enjoyed supervising jokester/salesman Jim.

I thought Jim was the guy who never wanted to spend his life at a paper company (though maybe I'm mixing that up with Tim from the British series). He's traveled a long way to actually giving a shit about company bottom line and employee productivity, which doesn't seem to have meant much to the bottom line anyway.

 

Yeah there's an earlier episode where he says something to the effect of "If I'm still working here in 10 years then please kill me" or something like that. And the turning point for him came when Pam was sending Dwight stuff pretending to be the CIA and she was going to let Jim pick Dwights secret mission for Jim's Christmas present and he turned it down, telling her he was up for the promotion and wanted to discontinue that kind of stuff.

 

Having a wife and a kid on the way can change the way you act.

 

Jim, pre-Pam, was a guy with a job. Clock in, work, clock out. The guy with a wife and a kid on the way is focused on his career.

The AV Club made a great point earlier this season: Jim's story is very much Michael's story. By all accounts, Michael was a spectacular salesman and yet we are left wondering how this buffoon rose to power. My guess is that if the film crew had been there when Michael worked for Ed Truck, they would have been a guy who was the star of the place and seemed destined for greatness and who probably didn't see himself working for DM for the rest of his life. Michael's fight is to be loved and Jim's is to be respected. And I imagine there will be plenty of plots revolving around Jim either doing stupid things or overreacting in order to get that respect. By the end of the series, Jim could be the nice, affable pussy-whipped boss who is always trying to get people to listen to him. And someone new to the office (or The Office) would wonder how he ever came into having power.

 

Yeah I wonder if Jim will become the next Michael because the stress of being in a managerial position will drive him to do the same crazy shit that Michael does -- which might be why he's the way he is. In other words, when Michael was a salesman, he might've been quite normal and a lot like Jim. But so many years of being in a leadership position has turned him into the nutcase that he is today.