The use of his song always bothered me because they must have shot the episode months after his Rihanna assault.
quick sidetrack back to Phyllis potentially cheating on Bob Vance (season 7 when Pam threatens to relocate the office): "i like being in the same building as Bob. I find it keeps me honest." *Phyllis smile* hmm.
Great Andy quote from Season 3, The Traveling Salesman. “In order to take down Dwight, I have to chip away at his ally, which, in this case, is Michael. Here's the good news. Every success I've ever had at my job or with the lady-folk has come from my ability to slowly and painfully wear someone down.”
From Business School: Michael - “A boss is like a teacher. And I am like the cool teacher. Like Mr. Handell. Mr. Handell would hang out with us, and he would tell us awesome jokes. And he actually hooked up with one of the students. Um... and then like twelve other kids came forward. It was in all the papers. ... Really ruined eighth grade for us.”
Nice. My wife and I just finished this episode on our (who knows what number) rewatch. Michael is such an imbecile, but I was just telling my wife that I envy his ability to shut down nerves and anxiety over the prospect of being a guest speaker in Ryan’s class. I’d be dreading that all day but he probably was counting down the days until he got to present.
It also features one of the greatest, genuinely kind Michael moments where he is in absolute reverence with Pam’s art and wants to buy it.
Michael is a doofus with no common sense but it’s made clear (and very believable) time and time again that he is an excellent salesman and manager because he is a real “people person” who truly just understands people, their intricacies, and how they interact with each other.
I contend that he’s a terrible manager but excellent salesman (which is how he got the manager position). I love seeing him go out on sales calls and score clients almost effortlessly. Any success as a manager falls on pure luck or failing upwards.
Michael’s ability to remember super small details about customer’s lives is great too. He remembers names, ages - even allergies (season 4 “where are the turtles?!?!” Where he drives into the lake because of the GPS) - of their kids and stuff. Definitely shows how great and easily he can connect with people.
With that said, seven 7 has two episodes where Michael acts very un-Michael like. “Viewing Party” (just watched) comes to mind. The first few minutes he’s Michael but once the focus of the story gets revealed to be that Michael doesn’t like them at his staff thinks Gabe is the main boss his attitude shifts. And we’ve seen that Michael before, but idk, he never shifts from it again. He just sulks the rest of the episode, usually his character goes through more shifts and feelings. An episode earlier in the season does the same thing where Michael kind of just stagnants at “sulking / quietly pissed” with no variation. Curious to go back and see if those were written by the same person or not. Caught my attention because even when Michael is unhappy he’s still funny or shows other emotions along with it, but these two episodes really just had him doing one emotion for 15+ minutes.
There are a few moments that are too outlandish / stupid - such as telling Pam she’s fired just to see her reaction (after MSPC is bought out). Luckily these happen very rarely.
I absolutely loved his book. It's definitely worth checking out. He has an incredibly interesting childhood.
i thought your post said, "i absolutely loved THIS book" and i was waiting for a link / pic to load for about 5 minutes before realizing i read it wrong.