The Office US / Tropes F to O

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F-G

• Face–Heel Turn: Ryan's transfer to Corporate can be seen as this. While up until then he's portrayed as a relatively sympathetic character, during the fourth season, he becomes arrogant and thoroughly unsympathetic, somewhat playing the role of Big Bad for that season.
• Failed Attempt at Drama:
  • Michael as he walks to his car with Andy in "The Duel"
  • Also Michael's sleeping dummy with the string connecting the door to the arm so that someone entering the office triggers a snoring tape. It's not fooling Stanley, who lampshades how pointless the whole scheme is anyway.
    Stanley: How is you being asleep at your desk better than you not being there?
• Failure Knight: Andy and Dwight.
• Fake Pregnancy: Kelly does this in an effort to get back together with Ryan after he breaks up with her to move to New York at the end of season 3.
• Fallback Marriage Pact:
  Michael: You know what, Pam, if in ten years I haven't had a baby and you haven't had a baby...
  Pam: [firmly] No, Michael.
  Michael: Twenty years.
  Pam: No, Michael.
  Michael: Thirty...
  Pam: ... Sure.
• Final Season Casting: Steve Carell left shortly before the end of Season 7, and while the show not only finished that season but had two full seasons after it, those seasons dragged out a few new main characters to fill the gap. James Spader got added to the title credits at the beginning of Season 8. ^note It was his second episode. The honor of Promotion to Opening Titles had been granted only once before, to Ed Helms after three and a half years of guest-starring. Catherine Tate as Nellie Bertram joined full-time in the middle of the season, and now Season 9 has given us Clark and Pete, and removed BJ Novak from the credits for the first time (after that season's first episode, which showed him quitting to pursue Kelly), as he had left.
• Finger-Snapping Street Gang: In "The Fight", Michael claims to have been involved in a gang as a youth. Jim snaps his fingers and says, "Once you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way." Later, Michael has to confront Dwight about an issue and Jim follows him, snapping his fingers in rhythm.
• Firing Day: In the episode "Halloween", Michael Scott absolutely bungles a firing because he can't decide who to fire. He procrastinates until the end of the month (meaning it happens on Halloween) and he tries to pick the person that will be the least difficult to fire for him. He first decided to fire Creed, but during the firing Creed convinces him to instead fire Devon.
• Flanderization:
  • Meredith and Creed eventually show up every episode just to make either a gross-out joke about sex and/or alcohol and a non sequitur, respectively.
  • Perhaps the most egregious offender is Erin, who started off as a sweet and innocent girl, not the brightest bulb in the world, especially when it comes to older pop culture (such as not knowing who Marlon Brando is), but still competent. Nowadays, she thinks that if your boss asks you out, you have to accept, that disposable cameras are supposed to be thrown away immediately after taking a picture with them, and, when asked to follow Phyllis's lead in a conversation, takes that to mean repeat every word that she says exactly.
  • A perfect example would be Jan. In her last appearance in season 5, she sang an inappropriate song to her daughter in front of the office. Her next appearance in season 7 had her singing every other line.
  • Andy, after becoming regional manager started to come off more like Michael Scott. Then came "The Garden Party" and his actions are more understandable. Also averted since Andy's clueless (as opposed to Michael's childish buffoonery), but is capable and willing to learn. Michael would rarely defend his employees' integrity against an imposing boss as Andy did, would never go through with actually getting that tattoo as Andy did, and would never be able to handle the Darryl/warehouse situation as exceptionally as Andy did.
  • Also very notable is Kevin who started as a normal overweight man with a somewhat funny smile who was relatively competent at his job, (Gambling Addiction aside) to a bumbling stupid Fat Idiot and crazed pervert incapable of basic math and accounting who is thought of as mentally retarded and even talks more ridiculously as the show goes on.
    • Though it has also introduced areas that he is capable in; he is evidently a great cook and a talented musician. "Nepotism" indicates that he has some familiarity with electronics as well.
  • Jim's pranks. Early on, it was fairly mundane things like the stapler in jello or hiding Andy's phone. Fast forward to Season 8 where Andy's brother had a garden party one weekend. Andy then plans his own garden party for the very next weekend at Dwight's farm and insists all the employees go. Assuming Jim found out first thing Monday morning, he then penned an impressively thick book, "How To Throw a Garden Party," had multiple copies professionally produced, and put them up for sale on Amazon, all on the off-chance that Dwight, the party's host, will search online for help, find and buy the book, and make a fool of himself. All in just a couple days.
    • As mentioned in the Headscratchers page, there is an explanation for the Garden Party prank. Dwight had mentioned that he was planning to break into hosting high-scale parties for some time, meaning it was likely that Jim was aware of this (after all, Dwight tends to brag about this kind of thing), and thus prepared for that actually happening with the above prank. This gains some credence after a Cold Opening in Season 9, in which Dwight stumbles across an incredibly elaborate prank that Jim had set up so long ago that he couldn't even remember it at first, indicating that he often sets these pranks up well in advance. Still Flanderization for sure, just not to the point of achieving the impossible just to pull them off.
• Flipping the Bird: Done regularly by various people. Always pixelated out.
• Floorfilling Song and Dance: In the In-Universe film Threat Level Midnight, Michael Scarn starts doing a dance called "The Scarn" and rapping, causing everyone in the bar to join him.
• "Flowers for Algernon" Syndrome: When Dwight bumps his head, he starts being nice to Pam. It doesn't last.
• Force Feeding: In "Ultimatum", Michael forces Kevin to eat a large piece of broccoli after he makes a New Year's resolution to eat more vegetables.
• Foreign Culture Fetish: Gabe is a Japanophile.
• Foreshadowing: In the second to last episode of season 2, Dwight tells Jim there's a sales position open in the Stamford branch that Jim could transfer to when Dwight is trying to get Jim kicked out after one prank too many for Dwight. The next episode Jim chooses to transfer to that position after Pam rejects his love confession.
• For the Funnyz: No matter what the situation, Michael will always try to interject, "That's what she said!"
• Formerly Fat: In "Livin' the Dream: Part 1", Andy mentions he was an overweight child, as he ended up breaking several pool diving boards.
• Four-Philosophy Ensemble: The five main characters:
  • Cynic: Dwight — hostile, critical, lacks compassion
  • Optimist: Michael — disregard for consequences, childish, overconfident
  • Realist: Jim — calm, mediator, humble
  • Apathetic: Ryan — aloof, insensitive, enigmatic
  • Conflicted: Pam — self-doubt, indecisive, empathetic
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Pam is Melancholic, Jim is Phlegmatic, and Michael and Dwight crank up the most dysfunctional aspects of Sanguine and Choleric respectively. Andy begins to fill in the role of Eclectic after his introduction in season 3.
  • Season 8 sees Andy move into the role of Sanguine as he goes through his character arc of becoming a competent, capable manager after Michael’s departure, while Robert California becomes the very dysfunctional eclectic for that season.
• Freak Out: Ryan.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • In "The Seminar", we see the performance rankings of Dunder-Mifflin Scranton's sales team: Jim is first, followed closely by Dwight, then Phyllis and Stanley, followed by three warehouse workers...then finally, Andy. Also counts as Continuity Nod.
  • In "Whistleblower", Dwight presents Jo Bennett with a list of people she should fire. The list appears to contain every employee except him.
  • In "Scott's Tots", Stanley holds up a newspaper article about Michael's promise to several third-grade children to pay their college tuition. Michael Scott is introduced as someone "who likes to wear jeans," and one father is quoted as saying, "Her mother and I have tried to save, but we both really enjoy drinking Italian wine and that takes a huge chunk out of our weekly income."
  • The diploma-looking framed certificate on the wall of Michael's office actually reads "This certifies that Michael Scott is the proud owner of a Quality Seyko timepiece." Not only did he put a certificate of authenticity for a wristwatch on his wall, but the brand name is incorrectly spelled "Seyko" instead of "Seiko", and the word "quality" is wrongly capitalized, implying that his watch is really just a Shoddy Knockoff Product.
• Freudian Slip: In "Women's Appreciation Day", Dwight has one in his quest to catch a flasher.
  Dwight: Pam, you can draw, kind of, why don't you work with Phallus on drawing a picture of the exposer that I can post around the community.
  Pam: "Phallus?"
  Dwight: Phyllis. Sorry, I've got penises on the brain.
• Fun with Acronyms: Kevin realizes in the fourth season premiere that PB&J could stand for Pam Beesly and Jim.
  • Later in s6, Oscar mocks the symbols for DM stock (DMI) by saying they stand for Dummies, Morons, and Idiots.
• The Gambling Addict: Kevin.
• Garage Sale: In the "Garage Sale" episode, Dwight stages one of these in the company warehouse.
• Gary Stu: invokedMichael's Threat Level Midnight features the very blatant "Michael Scarn".
  • In any sort of role-playing exercise, Michael will always give himself the role of "the heroic (something)" or a highly respected historical figure, especially if such roles aren't even required or can be detrimental to the entire exercise.
• Genius Ditz: Michael Scott's knack for sales.
• Genki Girl: Erin.
• Genre Deconstruction: The low key, humanistic approach to the series ends up exploring a lot of consequences to things that are romanticized elsewhere. Big, romantic gestures don't go according to plan. Bad behavior catches up to a person. Good intentions backfire horribly. The employees get away with a lot, but there are occasions where HR or Corporate has to intervene.
  • Once he finds out that Pam kissed Jim during her and Roy's engagement, Roy comes to the office to, in his own words, kill Jim. Dwight pepper sprays him down in a rare victory, but that victory is short-lived when everyone feels the pepper spray's effects. Within seconds, Dwight and others are reduced to tears.
    • As a result of his attack, Roy is fired from the warehouse. Darryl uses the loss of one of his better employees and subsequent increase in workload for himself as leverage when asking for a raise. It turns out that giving him a raise would means he's earning more than Michael, so Michael successfully tries to get a raise as well.
  • After firing some new employees, Michael decides to rally the other members of the office against Vance refrigeration by releasing the air from their car tires and blaming the ex-employees. However, the office immediately figures out it was him because he didn't flatten his own.
  • The Stamford branch of Dunder-Mifflin gets closed down in season three, so some of the employees (Jim, Andy, Karen, Tony, Martin, and Hannah) get moved to the Scranton branch. However, while everyone (i.e., the main cast, Jim included) is used to the chaos of the Scranton office, the Connecticut people aren't. They soon begin to leave, starting with Tony on the very first day, who got upset at Michael's jokes about his weight (who then "fired" him to save face). Then in the next episode, Martin quit after Michael made a big deal about his time in prison and locked him and everyone else, sans Toby, in the conference room when they didn't take his Scare 'Em Straight meeting seriously; Hannah left for undisclosed reasons (heavily implied to be Creed's sexual harassment) and Karen, who barely tolerated Michael's crap and thought of him as an incompetent, left when Jim broke up with her to be with Pam and wasn't able to work with him despite this. The only reason Andy stays on is because, unlike the other Stamford employees, he's just as much as a Cloud Cuckoolander as Michael and Dwight.
  • When Pam goes into labor the first time and Michael drives her and Jim to the hospital, Dwight escorts them. They get caught in traffic, so Dwight places a red flashing light on his car to get the vehicles in front of them to move. He is immediately pulled over and ticketed for impersonating a cop.
  • In season nine, the normally incredibly strong and loving Jim and Pam relationship gets strained when Jim starts double-booking himself with a start-up company in Philadelphia. The stress of raising the kids alone for Pam and dividing his time between Dunder-Mifflin and his new venture for Jim takes a toll on them and their marriage.
• Girl with Psycho Weapon: Erin Hannon and her cake.
• The Glasses Gotta Go: Parodied in a season 7 episode where Dwight attempts to look more refined in order to get back at a store that refused to serve him. When he's trying to get opinions on how to do so, a couple people mention that he should try not wearing the glasses, at which point Dwight immediately rips off his glasses, hurls them to the floor, and stomps on them. Then a couple more people pipe up that they preferred him with the glasses. And now Dwight can't see.
  • This trope was discussed by Michael in episode "Job Fair".
  • Invoked to an excessive degree by Michael when Pam forgets her contacts and has to wear glasses for a day. He completely refuses to listen to her, drowning out her attempts to talk by saying "Blah blah blah - I mean, I can't even hear you. It's just noise coming out of an ugly scientist." Kind of a backhanded compliment in that he implies she's spoiling her usually-attractive appearance.
• The Glomp: Michael does this to Jim after he learns of Jim's engagement.
  • Pam glomps Jim when he returns from Stamford in "The Merger".
• Good Hair, Evil Hair: Ryan grows a Beard of Evil after being promoted. Michael grows one out of adulation (as Dwight does likewise for him).
  • Ryan shaves his off upon realizing this.
• Gone Horribly Right: Darryl's prank on Andy to convince him that Sabre printers really are catching on fire and that the company has a huge cover-up going on to prevent loss of business. When Andy's printer test does confirm that this is in fact exactly what is going on, Darryl realize that he's in over his head.
• Grandfather Paradox : Discussed in "After Hours." Dwight claims that his ancestors were time travelers...or so the legend goes.
• Grand Finale: The series finale, titled "Finale" that aired May 16 2013.
• Gratuitous French: When tagging along to the Winnipeg business trip, Andy brushes up on his French which he practices profusely before leaving. There is virtually no one in Winnipeg who actually speaks French, most of the French-speaking Canadian population being concentrated in the eastern portion of Canada. Also, Andy's French isn't that great.
• Gratuitous Japanese: "Sempai" (先輩) does not mean a person is an assistant (to the) sensei. It is a term of respect used to refer to a superior or person of higher rank. The title is accurate given Dwight's rather high ranking in the dojo, however. When talking to a superior, you don't call yourself sempai, which would explain the implication that Dwight's sensei was utterly confused until Dwight referred to himself by name.
• Groin Attack:
  • Andy manages to do this to himself when he tears his scrotum doing a split in "Niagara, Part 1."
  • Not be outdone, Dwight, shortly thereafter in the episode "Murder," manages to sneak attack himself with a groin punch.
  • When Sabre CEO Jo Bennet comes to Dunder-Mifflin, she brings her enormous Great Danes. They spend the entire episode with their faces jammed in Andy's crotch.
  • "Snip-snap-snip-snap! You have no idea the physical toll that three vasectomies have on a person!"
  • Dwight inflicts massive trauma upon his man-parts so as not to impregnate Angela (it doesn't work).
  • Dwight accidentally cuts his penis while trying to urinate in a soda can.
  • Dwight ends up accidentally doing this to his Sensei after getting too into board-breaking as one of his final tests before obtaining his black belt.
• Gun Twirling: When Dwight is told that he can't wear a gun in a holster in the office, he twirls the gun and it discharges, putting a hole in the floor and temporarily deafening Andy in one ear.

H-I

• Halloween Episode: Six in total. Only seasons 1, 3 and 4 didn't have a Halloween episode ("Diwali" was meant as Season 3's alternative to a Halloween-themed show).
• A Handful for an Eye: During a prank on the Utica branch, Dwight's plan is to blow chalk dust in the guard's eyes if caught.
• Hands Go Down:
  • In Michael's improv class, the other students are happy to take part in a scene... until Michael is chosen to be in it.
  • In the finale, Dwight fires Kevin. Everyone else protests, and Dwight responds by asking them to make a case as to why he should stay. Just as everyone starts doing so, Dwight adds "based on his merits", and everyone immediately shuts up.
• Happily Married: Phyllis and Bob Vance, Vance Refrigeration.
  • Jim and Pam Halpert
  • Karen and Dan
  • Michael and Holly, as confirmed in the Grand Finale.
  • Seems to be likely for Dwight and Angela.
• Happy Ending: Everybody gets what they want or deserve in the finale. Michael has children with Holly and is clearly an enthusiastic father. Pam and Jim sell their home and move to Austin to re-join Darryl at Athleap, and with severance pay on top of that. Dwight and Angela are married with their son, and Dwight is the Regional Manager; he also inherits his Nana's 1600 acre farm and happily runs it with his siblings. Oscar is running for State Senator, and appears to be winning. Kevin owns his own bar. Erin meets her birth parents. Andy gives the commencement speech at Cornell University and talks his way into a job there. Stanley is happily retired in Florida. Phyllis has a new co-worker to fatten up. Ryan and Kelly run off to elope. Nellie ends up with Ryan's baby (that he didn't want anyway). Meredith gets her Ph.D, Creed gets caught for his crimes, but apparently has made peace with it. And even Toby, poor endlessly abused Toby, finally gets to dance with Pam (and it may be implied that he not only gets over his feelings for her, but also gets another job where he's well liked).
• Harsh Talent Show Judge: In the final season, Andy tries out for a talent show whose gimmick is that all three of the judges are "the mean one."
• Has Two Thumbs and...: Jim hates Todd Packer.
• Hate Sink:
  • Charles Miner, despite being a Villainy-Free Villain. From day 1 he's been trying to assert his authority over Michael and the rest of the office, despite not knowing a thing about how they function. He doesn't take the time to get to know his subordinates, causing him to delegate work to the worst of the staff while overlooking the more skilled members. He kisses up to his superiors and he forcibly dismantles anything that would make work fun for the sake of cutting costs, which when combined with his yes-man attitude implies he's protecting corporate's Christmas bonuses at the expense of the wokrer's morale.
  • Frank from "Vandalism." In his sole appearance, he defaces Pam's mural with butts, smugly mocks her "crappy doodles" and inability to do anything about the vandalism while telling her, Toby, and Nellie to go screw themselves and Pam to get the stick out of her ass, attacks Clark and leaves him duct taped to a chair with "Spy You'll Pay 4 This!" scrawled on his chest, and tries to assault Pam when she gets her revenge by defacing his pickup truck with paint (while he admittedly did not know that the paint was water soluble and would simply wash off, it was still an overreaction). Even Roy wasn't as nasty as this guy.
• He Who Must Not Be Seen: The documentary film crew. They've never been seen, although there was a point where, during "Stress Relief", someone knocks down the cameraman during the fire drill.
  • They have occasionally been referenced to and in "Dunder Mifflin Infinity" Michael takes the time to rescue the cameraman from the car. They also actually affect the plot in "E-Mail Surveillance" when they help Pam try and figure out if Dwight and Angela are dating.
  • They are very good at avoiding reflections. Not once have they ever been caught in a mirror, no matter how many times they've followed a character in a bathroom or highly reflective glass.
  • Finally averted in Customer Loyalty when an upset Pam is comforted by Brian, the mic guy. He requests that they turn the camera off, and it faded to black.
• Hidden Supplies: Dwight has weapons stashed all around the office. Knives in the filing cabinet (labeled under A. Knife), sais behind the water cooler, jians in the sub ceiling, blowdart gun out of the toilet tank...
  • Fridge Horror settles in after you think that while the tank of the toilet would probably have the cleanest water of the entire system and thus be safe for Dwight to touch the blowdart gun with his lips, this is the office where Todd Packer has taken a dump in the manager's office (twice with the implied incident Ed Truck recalls), so Todd Packer would probably be the type to consider it hilarious to perform an upper decker...
• Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": Michael's character in his screenplay... and in his improv comedy.
• Hollywood Board Games: In "The Seminar", Brainless Beauty Erin plays a Scrabble phone game with her Abhorrent Admirer Gabe. Seeing that she lacks the vocabulary to win the game, Pam and Oscar attempt to help her.
• Hollywood History: The Ben Franklin impersonator tells the girls about his key-on-a-kitestring experiment.
• Hollywood Law (as well as Hollywood Finance): There is almost no onscreen fallout from Ryan's fraud indictment beyond him simply being fired from Dunder-Mifflin. This should have led to serious consequences for David Wallace (as his supervisor) and virtually all of the cast (who were material witnesses). However, between seasons 4 and 5 the prosecution simply evaporates and is barely mentioned again. This is partially an aversion of Cerebus Syndrome and partially a Rule of Funny, but it's jarring nonetheless.
  • When Ryan returns in season 5, he mentions taking a plea deal that involved a fine and community service (and probably several years' probation, too). Nevertheless, its still a wonder how he got rehired.
  • Michael spanking his nephew, while constituting assault in a legal sense, is brushed off in exchange of a mere 6 hours of counseling which he burns off in a single sitting with Toby (arguably worse than a real court imposed sentence, seeing how this is Michael and he despises Toby)
• Hope Spot: There are a number of scenes in which it seems like Michael is finally being mature for once, only for him to turn it completely around seconds later. For example, his improv class where it briefly looks like he finally abandoned Chandler's Law for a bit, only for him to attempt to hold his acting partner at imaginary gunpoint in secret. Another is when it sounds like he's expressing confidence in Angela's party-planning abilities by asking her "Who else could do this?", only for him to point out in his next breath that it wasn't a rhetorical question.
  • A different example is in the beginning of the "Classy Christmas" two-parter, where Michael goes around making a concerted effort to make sure that no one had any latent issues or emotional baggage to bring to the ensuing Christmas party, with even Stanley being genuinely cheerful for once. It seems like there's going to be a Christmas party without any crazy drama this time... and then Michael finds out that Holly's coming back. He promptly throws out everything for the Christmas party that was about to happen, and sets up a new one that goes to Hell in a hand basket faster than you can say "Scranton Strangler".
• Hopeless Suitor: Basically anyone who shows some attraction to a half of Jim/Pam post-Official Couple status like Toby, Cathy or Brian for example. Even Ryan a bit after they get together tried to ask Pam out and it's obviously fail.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Michael...
  • Averted with one instance of him being an excellent judge of character. When choosing who should get a sales position between Ryan and Pam, Michael wants to give the job to Ryan because Pam doesn't follow through. He eventually gives Pam the job, but sure enough, Pam tricks her way into becoming an office administrator because she can't handle being a saleswoman.
    • On the other hand, Ryan had already proven to be a lousy salesman, so that was kind of a lose-lose decision either way. In addition, Pam's actions could be interpreted as going to the effort of finding an important yet unfilled position that she could do, rather than sticking to a job in which she'll be contributing nothing to the company, something that Ryan never even attempted.
    • Michael keeps insisting on bringing in Ryan back, so it's his own fault for setting that up in the first place.
    • Eventually Michael understands how much of a liability Ryan is and manipulates him into paying all their money back, and joins with Jim and Dwight to 'transfer' Todd Packer once he insulted Holly, even telling her Packer is an ass.
• Hot Librarian: Kevin seems to have a fetish for these, considering how his noted that all of his previous girlfriends had glasses, and when Pam wears glasses to work once, he tries to get her to recite cliche librarian phrases to him.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl:
  • Dwight and Angela (who happen to be the tallest and shortest characters on the show- Rainn Wilson is approximately 6'3 while Angela Kinsey is just 5'1). Also, the Senator and Angela. Anyone and Angela, really.
  • Roy and Pam also count (and also Jim and Pam, but Jim is slightly shorter and skinnier than Roy).
• Hypocrisy Nod: When Nellie shows up in Scranton following the failure of the Sabre retail store, Dwight (who was her Number Two in setting up the store) has this to say about her:
  Dwight: She reeks of failure. The fact that she's even willing to show her face around here is an embarrassment. I should know: I'm in an identical situation.
• Hypocrite:
  • Angela openly mocks the other female employees for being "too whoreish", but she has affairs with Dwight and Andy (at the same time!). In one episode, she implies that this wasn't even the first time she's pulled this. Later in the show, it's implied that she cheated on the senator with Dwight, leading to the conception of their son.
• Dwight is irritated when Jim dresses like Dwight and imitates him mockingly in one episode, he also tells Jim that "Identity theft is not a joke." In a later episode Dwight pretends to be Andy in order to annoy him, similar to what Jim did to him earlier.
  • Dwight tells Meredith's son that he does not have games on his office computer because that would be inappropriate. But in a later episode, he plays Second Life during work. However he himself doesn't consider it a "game." In the same episode, Jim mocks Dwight for playing Second Life but he himself also plays it. (Originally to mess with Dwight but he did put a lot of effort into his character. Pam calls him out on this). Also, Dwight openly plays a computer game with Robert California's son, Bert, in Season 8.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • During "Niagra", Dwight talks with a group of kids about how he believes Jim only got the co-manager position due to "kissing the boss-man's butt". Kind of a dubious argument for Dwight to be making, considering his being a Professional Butt-Kisser to Michael is one of the strongest aspects of his character.
  • In "Paper Airplanes", Andy tells Oscar that he will use his breakup with the Senator as inspiration for sad scenes, which causes Oscar to ask why Andy doesn't use his own breakup with Erin as inspiration. Andy then criticizes Oscar for bringing up such a painful memory.
• I Banged Your Mom: Michael dates Pam's mother for awhile, much to Pam's chagrin.
• Idiot Ball: Jim picks up the idiot ball when he becomes a manager, ultimately culminating with him outing Pam's pregnancy to her overly-traditional grandmother. Whether it's the position itself, or finding that actually trying to manage the cast of characters that make up the office that drives one to idiocy is up for debate.
  • Being a manager or higher-up at DM in general seems to make someone an easier target for having the idiot ball lobbed at them.
    • Even Charles Minor, seemingly the most authoritative and managerial boss to be on the show, shows himself to hold the Ball at all the wrong times.
• Idiot Houdini: Michael has incredibly poor judgment, even considering his skill as a salesman, it's surprising he's as successful as he is.
  • Michael also provides a literal example when he tries the straightjacket escape trick.
  Michael: (in talking heads, still in straightjacket and hair is a mess) On a related topic, if anyone has found a small brass key...
• Idiot Savant: Michael is shown to be an extremely talented salesman, which is odd given his utter lack of social skills in all other situations. His existence as an office manager is a critique of how offices will always promote someone one level above their best level of competency.
  • It's implied that Michael, in his quest for love and adulation, studied all kinds of techniques of making friends and such, so when he is selling he is goal oriented at getting a sale, using what he knows. This is how he relates in The Client, by taking things slow and relating experiences until the client is comfortable and he can slide in his pitch; even Jan was impressed in the end. The idiot to all that savant is, because getting love and adulation isn't so much a goal but a requirement to work with/for him, he doesn't try to do any of that with the people around him; even when he tries to follow simple empathy directions, he ultimately fails because he believes he shouldn't have to genuinely work for his underlings respect.
• If It's You, It's Okay: Michael seems to feel this way about Ryan.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Michael loves this trope, especially when it's inappropriate.
  • Phyllis' wedding to Bob Vance, Vance Refrigeration-
    Michael: If you lay a finger on Phyllis, I'll kill you.
    Bob Vance, Vance Refrigeration: If you lay a finger on Phyllis, I'll kill you.
    Michael: Agreed. No Fingers will be laid on Phyllis
  • After Stanley accepts a job at Karen's Utica branch.
    Michael: "If you so much as harm a hair on Stanley's head, we'll burn Utica to the ground."
  • Michael to Gabe about Erin after the Glee party.
    Michael: If you break that girl's heart I will kill you. ...That's just a figure of speech. But seriously, if you break that girl's heart I will literally kill you and your entire family.
• I Have Boobs, You Must Obey!: Jan played this quite obviously with Michael. Michael was equally obvious about the effect it had on him.
• I Have This Friend:
  • An unusually happy Angela tells Pam about "this friend" Noelle, who forgot to send in important documents, and her friend ("Kurt") drove all the way to New York to hand them in for her. Pam sees right through it, of course, having seen Dwight come back from what looked like a long drive a little earlier (not to mention the fact that the names Angela gave just happen to be her and Dwight's middle names).
  • Dwight tells Nellie about "his cousin Mose" who might need medication for anxiety since he's getting a lot of responsibilities, including taking care of his cousin Mose he immediately clarifies that this last one is a different cousin Mose
• I'm Standing Right Here: In "Michael Scott Paper Company", when Michael's own company isn't running very well, Michael complains about Pam and Ryan on the phone... while they're all sharing the same "office" (it's actually a large closet).
  Michael: They're getting on my nerves, mom. Both of them. R thinks he's too good to be here and P is not as much fun without Jim.
  Pam: Michael, we can hear you.
  Michael: I'm on the phone, please.
  Michael: Mom, I'm gonna have to call you back. P is being a giant B.
• Incompetence, Inc.:
  • The Dunder Mifflin Paper Company is led by a suite of old school businessmen that has no idea how to respond to a world that is becoming more paperless and the increasing competition from big box retailers like Staples. The company's business strategy is so flawed that even a bunch of preteen kids can point out its problems to Michael. Scranton, the most successful branch, is kept from failing mostly through the competence of Jim and Dwight, and when people stop fooling around each time the branch's incompetence comes under scrutiny (the ones who can't shape up usually get fired).
  • The Michael Scott Paper Company does surprisingly well at first, poaching a bunch of clients from Dunder Mifflin, but they're ultimately revealed to have a horrible business plan that seems to guarantee failure.
  • Sabre is a classic example of a huge corporation bogged down by bureaucracy, using gimmicks as a substitute for innovation, and with no quality control.
• The Informant: Andy is this is when it is revealed in "Whistleblower" that he is the one who leaked to the press that the Sabre printers Dunder-Mifflin are selling are prone to catching on fire. He becomes the office pariah afterwards. Which kind of sucks, considering that there were three other whistleblowers in the office as well.
• Informed Ability: Despite Michael being a very poor manager, and the office staff slacking off constantly the Scranton Branch is the most successful branch. Even David Wallace and other leadership is baffled by this.
  • Also Dwight Schrute is hailed as their number one salesman and apparently has the numbers to back it up, early in the show he wins an award. Yet whenever we see him at a meeting or over the phone, his usual abrasive and arrogant nature persists and drive away the sale. This is especially obvious in the episode where he quits and goes to work for Staples. He immediately breaks records by selling two printers in his first day (off screen) but when we see him, he's chasing off a customer by insulting their printer paper choice. In contrast Michael, likewise touted as an excellent salesman, has been repeatedly shown winning over customers on-screen.
    • Ultimately, it probably comes down to the makers of the documentary obeying the Rule of Funny. Dwight's persistence likely gets him plenty of sales, but why waste time showing those? The exception to his lack of sales success is when it becomes especially ridiculous, like when he forces Andy to sell him his car by repeatedly counting down to zero and saying "NOW!" over and over. This likely doesn't work on anyone but Andy. He's often shown talking normally to clients over the phone (usually right before Jim interrupts him with a prank), but when he goes too far, that's when they put it in the episode. As for Staples - at that point in the show, Dunder Mifflin didn't sell printers, but they did sell printer paper. Despite his momentary hatred for Michael, maybe Dwight was still loyal to Dunder Mifflin deep down.
  • The UK show's idiots had to actually be good at their jobs for the transition to a US audience to work; it's a fair bit easier to get fired in America. However, Dwight is just a freak...basically the writers just don't care.
    • Well it may be that Dwight makes up for chasing off customers with an equal amount of scary "I will skin you alive if you don't buy from me" looks he gives other ones.
    • It's also worth noting that in many cases where Dwight is apparently being rude to a customer, he is distressed by something else that is going on.
    • Certain sales prospects actually respond favorably to an aggressive sales pitch; some people apparently need to be bullied into making a decision. Dwight also has some clever tricks, such as calling up the company's biggest competitor and letting the "on hold music" play throughout a sales presentation, to prove that Dunder Mifflin has better customer service.
    • There's also the simple fact that Dwight is ridiculously dedicated.
    • When Jim helps Dwight get over Angela announcing her engagement to Andy, we see regular dedicated Dwight get back on the phone and make a sales call where he is courteous, efficient and clearly this is the Dwight we don't normally see that gets the highest Dunder-Mifflin sales numbers year after year.
• Informed Attribute : Ryan as "hottest in the office." It's mostly Michael and Kelly's crushes on him that inform this, and Ryan himself.
• In-Series Nickname: Michael gives random nicknames to most people in the office: A common one is him calling Stanley: "Stanley the Manly."
  • Jim is called "Big Tuna", "Large Tuna", or just "Tuna" by Andy. This is because on Jim's first day at Stamford, he was eating a tuna fish sandwich.
  • Ryan is called "Temp" or "The Temp" early in the series, he is also often known as "The Fire Guy" ever since "The Fire".
  • Andy calls himself the "Nard Dog".
  • When Clark and Pete are hired, Andy assigns them the names of "Dwight Jr" and "Plop". This actually comes up in a later episode when Andy finds out that Erin is dating someone named Pete and tries to find out who it is. Pete realizes that Andy has been calling him "Plop" for so long that he genuinely forgot his real name.
• Inhuman Resources: Michael thinks that Toby is this. Subverted, as Toby is just a bored and boring man who half-heartedly tries to reign Michael's excesses in, which makes him evil in Michael's eyes. Michael's reaction when Toby is reassigned to the Scranton Branch (over Michael's Love Interest) is an exemplar of this:
  Michael: No, God! No, God please, No! No! No! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO- (gets cut off by the opening theme)
  • Toby seems to attract this attitude with anyone who gets promoted to higher management at the branch, as Jim and Andy both become just as antagonistic towards him when they're respectively promoted.
• Insistent Terminology:
  • Dwight's "Assistant Regional Manager" and Pam and Jim (and even Michael)'s correction of "Assistant to the Regional Manager" which is the correct, if unofficial, title.
  • Dwight's position at his karate dojo:
  Dwight: A Sempai is the assistant Sensei.
  Jim: Assistant to the Sensei.
  • Oscar would like to remind you that Robert Lipton is, in fact, a State Senator.
• Instant Humiliation: Just Add YouTube!
  • Andy. Poor Andy.
  • Dwight in the episode "Customer Loyalty", as the victim of a "Fire in the hole!" prank.
• Instrumental Theme Tune: A now-iconic piece by Jay Ferguson (of The '60s band Spirit and a One-Hit Wonder in 1978 with "Thunder Island"), featuring piano and melodica. Ferguson says "it has this vulnerability, this yearning to it that soon explodes into this overdone optimism which then gets crushed - which is pretty much what the show is about."
• Insult Backfire: Dwight reveals that he's taking martial arts classes (he's the Assistant to the Sensei).
  Michael: [scoffing] I know a ton of 14-year-old girls who could kick his ass.
  Jim: You know a ton of 14-year-old girls?
  • In "Drug Testing" when Dwight is drug testing the office as a volunteer sheriff:
  Michael: *cough* Narc!
  Dwight: If you are attempting to compliment me then you are doing a very good job.
  Michael: I wasn't attempting to compliment you.
  Dwight: Well you have because being a narc is one of the hardest jobs you can have and I'm proud of being a narc.
• Insurance-Motivated Murder: Lampshaded in China. When Michael asks for "Big Ideas" from his co-workers, Erin randomly chimes in about murdering a new employee for the insurance money. However, a delusional Erin tells the audience in a cutaway, that she thinks she is being used in Insurance Murder scheme at work:
  Erin : What if we all get together and help each other and hire a new guy and then we all kill him, but first we take out, like, a $100,000 life insurance policy? I bet you guys like that idea, don't you?
  Erin : [in talking head interview] I think that's what they're doing to me. I can't prove it, but I wanted to see their faces when I said it. I learned nothing.
  Michael: (Confused)...I don't know what the f*** that was.
• Intercourse with You: In "Dinner Party" Jan plays a song by her old assistant which goes "You took me by the hand/Made me a man/That one night, you made everything alright".
• Internal Deconstruction: Later in the shows run the various pranks Jim would play on Dwight is eventually taken to corporate HR, which are taken to review every claim made (one had Jim slowly increased the weight of Dwight's phone with dimes, then removed them all and Dwight hit himself in the head when the phone rang). With all of his pranks laid out in order, Jim came to realize how mean-spirited many of them were as well as how much time he was wasting on this rivalry.
• Intra-Franchise Crossover: David Brent, the hopeless boss from the British version, has made a couple of guest appearances here.
• Invisible Writing: In one episode, Dwight attempts to pass a secret message to the other salespeople by handing them letters with a second message written beneath the main text in invisible ink, hinting to them to expose the letters to heat to make the secret message visible. Of course, none of them bothers to do so. Dwight also cheerfully admits that the "invisible ink" in question is in fact his own urine.
• Invulnerable Knuckles: When Andy punches a hole in the office wall (again), he's seen nursing his hand with an icepack in the next scene.
• Ironic Echo:
  • Judging from a remark during Jim's interview, David Wallace apparently has the same relationship with Corporate's HR officer Kendel that Michael has with Toby.
  • Jim's wedding proposal is done in the rain at a gas station after he and Pam drive to meet each other midway between Scranton and New York. It is soundless. Dwight's wedding proposal is done on a sunny day when he tries to pull Angela over using his volunteer Sheriff's siren and ultimately runs her off the road. He then proposes to her with a bullhorn.
  • In this deleted subplot, Ryan reveals that he once accidentally knocked the mirror off a coworker's car during his Drunk with Power corporate days. It turns out to have been Kevin's, but when Kevin confronts him about it Ryan smarmily refuses to take responsibility and tries to weasel out of it by claiming "he was a different person back then", and is now "Ryan 2.0", so can't be punished for the things he did as Ryan 1.0. In revenge, Kevin steals Ryan's expensive sunglasses and microwaves them; when Ryan discovers this and confronts Kevin, Kevin takes great pleasure in throwing Ryan's exact words right back in his face.
• It's Not Porn, It's Art: Ryan's photography.
  • A photo of a topless Kelly:
  Explicit? Indecent? Erotic? Or commentary about the way in which women are treated in the workplace? Here's a woman, hard at work, pulled herself up by the bootstraps despite her ethnic heritage, but all you see is that she's topless. It's sad, but the saddest part is that the woman was willing to pose for this photograph without a single question as to the artist's intent. What happened to integrity?
  • Also comes up in one of the deleted scenes from the episode "Goodbye Michael" when Michael catches one of his employees with some erotic drawings:
  Stanley: It's called hentai... and it's art.
• It Will Never Catch On: Many people at Dunder Mifflin, especially Michael and Dwight, treat the Internet as a passing fad, showing just how out of touch they are for a changing marketplace. While addressing Ryan's business class, Michael dismisses computers as things for "playing games and forwarding funny emails," telling them to write that down...which they do on their laptops.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Averted with Ryan: "Maybe we weren't right together, but...it's weird. I'd rather she(Kelly) be alone than with somebody. Is that love?"
  • Jim really tries to be happy for Pam and Roy, but seeing how Roy treats Pam (with disinterest, mostly) isn't making it easy for him. Still, aside from a few times when he almost tells Pam what he really thinks of Roy, he does his best to be happy for her.
  • Reversed in season 3, in which Pam even gives advice to Jim that helps him and Karen get over their first big fight. It isn't easy for her, but she's simply too much of a friend to give Jim bad advice and undermine his relationship with Karen, no matter how much she wants to.
  • After Erin proves incapable of breaking up with Andy, Pete has this reaction, which is what gives her the courage to go through with the break up and choose him instead.
• I Was Beaten by a Girl: Andy, by a little girl no less in "Test The Store". He attempts to obscure the detail about his black eye...until the mother comes by forcing her daughter to apologize. He later gets another black eye after Kelly accidentally punches him. Toby is sympathetic, heavily implying he was abused by his ex wife.
• Indestructibility Montage: Played for Laughs when Dwight performs his own series of intense tests on Jan's expensive stroller, reasoning that if it's going to cost over a thousand dollars, it had better be near indestructible. It is.
• Ivy League for Everyone: Andy won't shut up about having gone to Cornell, though it's eventually clear that it was because his dad is filthy rich and made a donation to the university. A number of cast and crew members on the show have prestigious college backgrounds.
• I Was Told There Would Be Cake: Jim's plan to celebrate all the office birthdays on one day.

J-K

• Jerkass:
  • Dwight, Angela, Ryan (season 4 onwards) and, less consistently, Michael, all have their moments in the main cast.
  • Todd Packer does not have a single redeeming characteristic.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • Dwight's fire drill. While extremely dangerous and causes Stanley to have a heart attack, it does show the office is terrifyingly unprepared for a fire. To start, everyone panics for several minutes when they believed the building was on fire and not once does anyone think to phone for help (Pam does pick up the office phone right away, only to discover that it was dead, but no one thinks to use their cell phones) or even activate the fire alarm.
    • Though the reason they started panicking was that Dwight had purposely locked them in the office and blocked quickest means of escape.
  • Dwight again in Doomsday. Although his device was overboard, the branch did hit five mistakes incredibly quickly.
  • Ryan in Job Fair. He covers up his real motives (jealously over Jim's relationship with David Wallis) for giving Jim a verbal warning with what are accurate grievances — Jim spends too much of his time at reception with Pam or pranking Dwight. Jim is spooked enough by the warning to go out and land a huge client on the same day.
  • In the final season, Dwight becomes manager and fires Kevin. Through layoffs and multiple changes in management, it took ten years and Dwight to finally fire a man who is grossly incompetent, socially inept, unhygienic, prone to sexual harassment, and implied to lack the basic certifications required to do his job, which the office apparently doesn't even need a third person doing anyway. Although everyone objects at first, they immediately admit they can't think of a reason he should keep his job (based on merit).
  • Michael had every right to be upset with Jim and Pam in "Gossip" when he tells them they should have told him about the pregnancy. He is their employer and as both are salesmen at that point, their likely (and eventual) time off will impact the office greatly, especially given at that point in the series Dunder Mufflin was facing severe problems.
    • However, this one is more arguable than the other examples. Michael was clearly annoyed for personal reasons as he (inaccurately) considers himself to be a co-equal third in Jim and Pam's relationship. Additionally, it is noted to be early in the pregnancy (the couple only having told their own parents the previous day), long before it is going to affect productivity and when parents-to-be are often warned by doctors not to tell many people in case of miscarriage.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Andy, who was initially introduced as an overconfident sycophant with rage issues has evolved into one of these. He's still largely clueless but seems like a nice enough guy.
  • Jim as well. Most of his pranks on Dwight are genuinely mean-spirited, but most would agree he's a nice guy. Lampshaded in one episode where several of his pranks are mentioned in quick succession; Jim himself notes that they don't sound nearly as funny that way.
    • While Jim is pretty horrible to Dwight in a lot of small, petty ways, he does seem to have a sense (more so in later seasons) for when he's going too far, and is probably the most likely person (apart from Pam) to actively try to cheer Dwight up when he's truly upset. In fact (and here's a depressing thought), it seems like he and Pam are probably the closest things Dwight has to friends in the office (not counting Michael, who is just as likely to stab Dwight in the back as try to help him).
    • A talking head in "Nepotism" indicates that Jim and Pam's pranks are at least in part to keep Dwight's ego from going out of control, so there is that.
  • Dwight fits this now as well. Though his compassion isn't seen by any characters (just the audience), its effects are obvious.
    • When Pam is at the hospital giving birth, Dwight comes by her house to look for Pam's iPod at her request. He notices mold under the kitchen sink and spends the next few days rebuilding the entire kitchen of his own initiative.
    • When Pam starts bluffing about moving the office to a different building to get him to undo the awful changes he's made to the building, Dwight finds out and counterattacks, in the end he lets her win after (Unbenknownst to her) he listens to her breaking down to Jim about being a failure.
    • In the series finale, when Dwight learns that Jim and Pam intend to leave Dunder-Mifflin, he fires them—entitling them to receive generous severance packages.
      Dwight: No, don't say it—you're fired. You're both fired!
      Jim: Dwight, c'mon, don't end on a bad note...
      Dwight: Don't be an idiot, it's for the severance. The best that I can do is one month for every year you've been here. That's the max.
  • Michael goes back and forth between this and regular ol' Jerkass depending on the episode or the season. Much more likely to be a complete Jerkass in earlier episodes. He does have a heart of gold however.
  • Roy was a Jerk Jock for the first two seasons but showed a softer side throughout season three when he tries to get back with Pam and even apologizes for trying to beat up Jim when he learned he kissed her.
• Karma Houdini: It's the only possible explanation for why Michael has never been fired (or arrested); although he is known to be an extremely good salesman (and in one episode, it's alluded to that he was in fact one of the most successful salesmen in the company's history), his management skills are... inferior.
  • Nearly averted (sort of): One early-season episode specified Scranton as bottom of the heap in sales for the branches that Jan oversaw. The Scranton branch was going to get closed and Michael was going to get laid off ("Branch Closing"). It was only after Josh, the Stamford manager, took a job at Staples that Scranton absorbed Stamford. And after all that went down Scranton had absorbed Stamford's clients while keeping only two employees (Karen and Andy).
    • After Karen takes a manager job in another branch, this leaves only Andy as the extra salary, trading for Devin's QA job (fired in the first Halloween episode) to re balance the exact payroll of the first season staff while having the client base of two branches. Maybe David Wallace should have just looked at those numbers rather than ask Michael to New York to explain how he does it.
    • However, when David Wallace is meeting with Michael about his high sales numbers, he takes a moment to specifically congratulate Michael on not losing any clients over the course of the two mergers. Wallace has not been portrayed as an idiot, so one would think that if it was just that simple, he would've connected those two dots himself.
  • Justified by the fifth season, when it's revealed that the Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin is, in fact, the most successful regional branch in the company much to the utter confusion of corporate.
  • Michael sexually and verbally harasses his employees (and refuses to stop, usually targeting Ryan, Pam, Oscar, Karen, Phyllis, Angela, and Stanley via the photo of his daughter) and put them in physical danger, and almost never actually works. Hitting Meredith with his car should have resulted in a charge of criminal negligence, if nothing else. During a game of "Who'd You Do?", he stated that "I would have sex with Ryan" because he was so good at business. He had sex with Holly (and, earlier, with Jan) on company property after work hours and forgot to lock the doors, allowing thieves to steal most of everyone's work property. He has kidnapped a pizza delivery boy, knocked a ladder out from under another employee, causing him serious injury, forced a kiss on a gay employee when trying to convince the rest of the office to be accepting, he emailed a sexually explicit photo of his superior to everyone in the local branch (albeit accidentally, he meant only to send it to his buddy, Todd), and attempted to get Toby sent to prison. He seems to wreck Stanley's car numerous times for unknown reasons. And all that was BEFORE he lost new business leads that Sabre (which is a much more serious and successful company than Dunder Mifflin) spent $50,000 on in a failed attempt to get his sales staff to stop acting up, with no later reference to it from corporate. Is a complete douchebag to everyone in the office (except Erin), especially Toby.
    • Michael and Dwight both did things which absolutely would have gotten them terminated immediately during "Stress Relief" - legitimately threatening Stanley's life. David Wallace mentions that they're "not going to just let this one slide" - and then requires Dwight to 'formally apologize,' and the whole thing is promptly forgotten.
  • Dwight has, among other things: caused another employee to have a heart attack with his "fire drill" (using arson as a learning tool), had a duel with another employee during work hours, cut the face off of a CPR dummy (which had to be replaced by the company, costing them thousands), repeatedly abandoned fellow employees at remote locations under false pretenses, and fired a gun in the office injuring Andy (burst ear drum). He keeps all kinds of other weapons in the office (which turned out to be useful, when he stopped Roy from attacking Jim). He looked at gay porn on his computer for "research". He made Holly think that Kevin was mentally disabled, and made Erin think that the office was haunted by the ghost of a 19th Century prostitute. He talked to Toby's 5-year old daughter about Nazi's. He brought a porcupine into the office in an attempt to set Jim up to get fired. He shot Jim repeatedly with paintballs, and slammed Jim so hard with snowballs that Jim's nose bled, otherwise known as assault. He locked Meredith in a closet with a rabid bat. He locked Ryan in a barn, with nobody but himself and Mose. He frequently has sex with Angela in the office. He tried to ban women from wearing pants in the office. He takes pride in verbally abusing his coworkers. He would definitely be fired if he wasn't the top salesman at the company.
  • Jim and Pam spend the vast majority of their work day flirting or pranking Dwight (often in extremely disruptive ways). Jim, along with Dwight, created a fake salesman in order to get around Sabre's commission cap. He also faked being called to jury duty for a entire week. And broke the window trying throw a snowball at Dwight.
    • Although they probably only do this in the first place because they know their workplace isn't exactly a "professional" one and doing well in a place like that isn't exactly going to get them anywhere career-wise. They probably just do it for kicks since it's all they've really got, and if they were working in a more normal work environment, they'd be much more professional and serious about it.
    • Some of the pranks however, go straight into the realm of bad taste at times and are generally not the kinds of things most decent people would do for a laugh, such as planning a prank that results in Dwight destroying his cell phone on Christmas, having him seal himself in a box planning to leave him there for who knows how long, and stealing his personal possessions to put them in a vending machine for his co-workers to buy.
    • Jim could be brought up on criminal charges for sexual assault after kissing Pam in the office after she clearly rejected his advances in "Casino Night". Obviously it ends up differently because it's Hollywood, but in real life that's clearly way over the line.
    • Pam lied her way into a Office Administrator job (and tried to claim back pay) because she wasn't a good salesman. She allowed another employee to blackmail her into giving that same employee more vacation days. She also brought lice into the office (albeit by accident) and put the blame on another coworker.
  • Kelly at one point faked negative customer reviews (which affect the bonuses of other employees) as revenge against Jim and Dwight for not attending one of her parties. She also spends all her time fighting with Ryan and fooling around with him, which would get normal people fired. Physically assaulting her boss, as she does in the second episode, would also get her fired, despite it being sorely provoked.
  • Stanley has repeatedly and openly chewed out his own boss (though at times fairly reasonably), does crosswords on company time, and destroys parts of Michael's car with a crowbar. He also naps at his desk daily.
  • Toby makes little to no attempt to actually control the constant disruptions in the office.
    • Actually, "Conflict Resolution" makes it clear that the conflicts in the office would be far worse if it weren't for Toby. Obviously he has to pick his battles to some extent, and a disruption in the office that is quickly dealt with by HR wouldn't exactly make for an exciting episode, would it?
  • Creed makes no attempt to do his job at all, to the point of needing to frame another employee when an obscene watermark makes it through his quality control responsibilities. In fact, half the time he can't even remember what his job title is. Subverted in the series finale, where he's arrested on numerous charges, then played straight when he escapes from police custody.
  • Meredith is frequently drunk at the office. She sexually harasses Michael and others in the office on a frequent basis. In addition, her casual Friday outfit gave a new meaning to the word nasty (an undersized tube top and shoes, nothing else). Her behavior only comes under scrutiny in season 5, when she reveals she's sleeping with a client for a discount. Corporate doesn't seem to care(as the company is months away from going under, they turn out to have to allow it because they need every client and sale the can get).
  • Ryan has never made a sale and rarely seems to work. (And that was after he nearly burned the building down and before he defrauded Dunder-Mifflin.) He also sexually harasses Karen, Pam, and Erin. In the finale, he abandons his child to run off with Kelly.
  • Andy is a terrible salesman who hit Dwight with his car and punched a hole in the building's wall. (Though he did go to anger management for punching the wall, and has made several efforts to improve his sales abilities, even succeeding on a few occasions.) He also destroyed his work computer in order to get a better one.
  • Angela has shown a pattern of extremely disrespectful behavior to the other women in the office, calling them 'hussies' and 'whores,' and has had sex on office property during work hours. Also a total homophobe, ironic as her husband is a closeted homosexual.
  • Phyllis has blackmailed Angela. She also has frequent two-hour lunches (coming back drunk) because Michael is afraid of Bob Vance, and is shown (covertly) masturbating at her desk while listening to Fifty Shades of Grey.
  • Gabe's treatment of both Erin and Andy during their love triangle (assaulting Andy and attempting to deny him a promotion for being interested in Erin, making harassing phone calls to Erin) qualifies him as a sexual harasser.
  • Kevin isn't as bad as the rest but it's been suggested he's really not that great an accountant. Also, he makes sexual remarks to/about his co-workers even after attending a seminar on sexual harassment. It also doesn't help that he looks at porn during work hours on office computers. And commits insider trading (and somehow never gets caught). He applied for a warehouse position, but Michael "saw potential" in him, and put him in accounting. Averted in the finale where he gets fired for his incompetence
  • Oscar, while normally a very good employee, destroyed the window of someone's car (in order to free a dog) and casually walked away. He and Angela bring baby Phillip to the office and spend the day caring for him rather than doing any work.
  • Darryl pretended an injury was work-related when in fact the warehouse staff were using the mechanical lift as an elevator against company safety procedures.
    • Also steals Michael's payslip, photographs it without his consent and shares it with a number of people. Michael would have been well within his rights to both fire on the spot and later sue Darryl for such as egregious breach of privacy and potential identity theft.
  • Averted by Roy, who, after assaulting Jim on company property, is immediately fired and removed from the building.
  • That leaves Erin as the only Dunder Mifflin employee who would conceivably be employed in the real world. Or maybe not, since throwing a cake at Andy qualifies as assault.
  • The Scranton branch itself is under the effects of Karma Houdini. For some fun reading, here's a blog, written by a professional lawyer, describing how much hot water Dunder-Mifflin would be in if they were a real company.
• Kavorka Man: Dwight, who manages a one night stand with one of Pam's friends at her and Jim's wedding and handles it with a level of expertise that suggests experience in the field and when Pam's friend approaches Dwight at the wedding, he's doing well while chatting with another girl. He also appears on the verge of picking up at least one girl in a club in NYC, but he abruptly runs off to help Michael without a second thought. He also brings a woman to Michael's dinner party, when Jim learns that she was his babysitter, Dwight cuts them off with:
  Dwight: "It's purely carnal, and that's all you need to know."
  • And this is despite having to have Toby explain female anatomy to him in the "Sexual Harrassment" episode.
    • Then again, it was only after that episode that he started dating Angela and becoming more successful so perhaps Toby's lecture helped him out more than we realize.
  • Todd Packer. However, since all the information we have about his conquests come from Michael or himself, it might be an Informed Ability.
    • Or possibly he just made it all up. There is no evidence to support any of it, and his seduction technique when shown onscreen is less than stellar.
  • Stanley, as well. Despite being a middle-aged, significantly overweight, grumpy sales guy, Stanley has a wife and at least two girlfriends who are younger and and cuter than you'd expect.
• Kick the Dog: Jim's getting a few of late, like trying to give bonuses to the sales department without considering that it looks like a transparent attempt to reward his wife, or moving specifically to allow Michael to fall into a fish pond.
  • In "Casual Friday" the Dunder Mifflin salespeople are presented as the victims with right on their side and the opposing Michael Scott Paper Company employees are presented as the ones in the wrong, which is exactly the case. Then Michael, Pam and Ryan took Dwight, Andy, Phyllis and Stanley's lunches out of the fridge and ate them in front of them...in revenge for nothing more than saying very true things about them in a secret meeting in the warehouse.
    • And then lying to him about it.
  • In the pilot, Michael fires Pam as a practical joke, making her cry.
    • Michael really needs to stop fake-firing people.
  • Pam's getting in on these now: Mocking how the senator proposed to Angela; Manipulating Dwight, claiming they've been great friends when she knows that's not true, so that he can take care of her daughter for a night, so she (Pam) could sleep; Lying her way into a nonexistent job where she created her own higher salary because she couldn't cut it as a salesman.
  • Andy in "The Garden Party." He threw the aforementioned party to get a So Proud of You from his father, and is instead belittled by him and just about everybody else.
  • Angela has a lot of these moments. From victims gaming Phyllis who is devastated after being flashed, to being cruel towards Andy while dating him for no reason at all, to being very snide and homophobic towards Oscar, and generally preaching her religious beliefs down others' throats in general.
• Kubrick Stare: Dwight in episode "E-mail Surveillance". Michael, though between the blinds in his office, when Ryan sits in Pam's desk while she's on vacation in Season 2.
  Jim has been looking at me, kind of a lot. I would be creeped out by it, but it's nothing like the way Michael looks at me.

L-M

• Lady Drunk: Meredith, who not only drinks a lot but is frequently implied to come hungover to work.
• Lampshaded Double Entendre: Aside from a majority of Michael's dialogue, at the "Charity" Auction, where employees offer up a particular skill, the card with Creed's contribution just says... Creed.
  Creed: That's all inclusive.
• Lampshade Hanging / Medium Awareness: Well, of course, given that this is supposed to be a documentary. But, apart from the omnipresent "character talking head" moments, we occasionally get subtler instances of this. One of the more notable examples: Prior to getting on the plane in his last episode, Michael asks the unseen videographers, "Hey, will you guys let me know if this ever airs?"
  (removing a microphone pack from under his jacket) "It's gonna feel so good getting this thing off my chest." (inaudibly mouthing to the camera) "That's What She Said."
  • Earlier in the "Goodbye, Michael" episode, a jealous Gabe confronts Andy in the restroom and threatens to make him regret it if he goes near Erin. After Gabe leaves, Jim exits one of the stalls, having apparently heard everything. Cut to a talking head segment with Jim where we expect to hear his opinion on the Gabe/Andy thing. Instead, Jim asks if they're really filming people in the bathroom now.
• Large Ham Title: "Bob Vance, Vance Refrigeration" (who even has the second part used at his wedding).
• Last Episode, New Character: Robert California and Nellie Bertram were introduced in the Season 7 finale.
• Last-Name Basis: In something of an inversion of the usual trope, Jim and Pam use each others' last name when flirting. Even after the wedding, Jim sometimes calls her "Beesly".
• "Last Supper" Steal: Jim tricks Dwight into doing a live Tableau during a picnic, so Dwight of course picks The Last Supper to imitate so he can take the role of Jesus.
• Lawful Stupid: Dwight would make an excellent Paladin given his anal adherence to rules.
• Leitmotif: Discussed in "The Play", where Darryl tells Michael to shut up during the overture to Sweeney Todd, or else they "won't recognize the musical themes when they come back later".
• Lighter and Softer: It's generally lighter than the UK version—everyone is somewhat jaded, but to a reasonable degree, and there's comedy outside of the uncomfortable kind, which is a big contrast to the UK version and its sense of gnawing despair and complete lack of warmth between the employees. This isn't to say the US version is all sunshine and rainbows, however. Season 4's "Dinner Party" and its depiction of Michael and Jan's broken and emotionally abusive relationship was notoriously dark for US network TV, and Seasons 4 all the the way to 7 become more darker, serious, and emotional.
  • Seasons 8 and 9 become this to Seasons 4 to 7. It returns to the more lighter, comedic and peppy vibe the first three seasons had after the more serious fourth, fifth, sixth seventh seasons.
• Like Goes with Like: In "Angry Andy", after Kelly and Ryan break up, this is successfully attempted by Jim and Pam (nearly lampshaded by the former, falsely denied by the latter) when they set Ravi-their kids' pediatrician-up with Kelly.
• Limited Wardrobe: Most characters have a certain style and color they wear to the office.
  • It's rare to find Dwight wearing something other than a mustard-hue short-sleeve button down under his cheap brownish suits. Lampshaded in "Customer Survey" when Pam asks Jim over the phone, "Describe him exactly. What color mustard is his shirt?" Also partially justified in Shareholder Meeting when Dwight wishes he could swing by the Garment District and pick up a few crates of his shirts. He's got a shirt guy.
    • He may also have an UNDERWEAR guy- in all but two of the scenes in which he drops his trousers (and there are PLENTY), he is revealed to be wearing forest green boxer briefs.
  • Jim has a loose fitting tie and his sleeves rolled up.
  • Andy typically wears a blue blazer and tan pants with a sweater-vest.
  • Kelly prefers wearing pastel colors. She also adores how she looks in white, even at a wedding where that goes against tradition.
  • Oscar wears purple and orange dress shirts.
• Literal Metaphor: "Gay Witch Hunt".
  Toby: Oscar's really gay.
  Michael: Exactly.
  Toby: I mean for real.
  Michael: Yeah, I know.
  Toby: No, he's attracted to other men.
  Michael: Okay, little too far, crossed the line.
  Toby: Okay, I am telling you Oscar is an actual homosexual.
• Living Prop: A number of the minor characters in the early episodes, especially the pilot, before they were really fleshed out. Most of the background cast from the different branches and the warehouse still qualify.
  • Some characters kept appearing in the background until well into season 3. Luanne (first by the fans believed to be the Marjorie mentioned in season's 2 "The Fire") is such an example. Word of God says it was to add realism to the series, by having employees that the audience knew nothing about, but it became harder to explain their presence as the series progressed and thus they were eventually written out completely.
• Local Hangout: Poor Richard's Pub (a Real Life Scranton establishment) turns up in a few episodes.
• Logic Bomb
  Dwight: Jim is my enemy. But it turns out that Jim is also His Own Worst Enemy. And the enemy of my enemy is my friend. So Jim...is actually my friend. ... But... because he is His Own Worst Enemy, the enemy of my friend is my enemy, so actually Jim is my enemy. ... But...
• Logical Fallacies/Insane Troll Logic: After Meredith is hospitalized (Michael hit her with his car), Angela's cat dies (Dwight murdered it because it was "weak"), and Pam's computer crashes (she was downloading porn), Michael comes to the honest conclusion that Toby is Satan, and has placed a curse upon The Office.
  • It's pretty safe to say that 90-99% of Michael's thought process falls under this trope.
  Jim: I've been studying Michael for years and I've condensed what I've learned into this chart. (holds up pie chart) "How Michael Spends His Time." You can see we have "procrastinating," and "distracting others," and this tiny sliver here, (points to a pencil thick line) is "critical thinking." I made it bigger. So that you could see it.
  • Michael's favorite hare-brained schemes involve visiting people unannounced and at bad times. He usually explains his absurd reasons why.
• The Loins Sleep Tonight: Offscreen, Andy has... bedroom trouble with Erin when Nellie steals his job.
• Lonely at the Top: Jim felt it during his stint as manager.
  • We got hints that Darryl got a bit of this after being moved from the warehouse to the office.
  • This was also Jan's problem early on, leading her to finally settle for Michael.
  • Michael seems to suffer from this a bit, making him even more desperate to be friends with his employees.
  • Ed Truck tells Michael that this is to be expected, because he will always be seen as a manager first by his employees. Michael could have prevented a lot of suffering to himself and the office if he'd listened.
• Longing Look:
  • Jim and Pam's main mode of communication during the first few seasons, especially season 3. It gets to the point where they subconsciously do this even when the other isn't around, which Ryan gets to experience from both sides due to borrowing Pam and Jim's desks at different points.
  • Andy and Erin do the same in season 6.
• Lord Error-Prone: If corporate executives are modern aristocrats, then Michael fits this one to a T.
• Loud of War: Jim steals Karen's desk chair because his squeaks. So Karen (not realizing who she's dealing with) tries to get back at him by squeaking the chair. He sings the chorus for "Lovefool" by The Cardigans repeatedly to get it stuck in her head. She's begging him to stop in seconds.
• Love Triangle: Oh boy...Jim/Pam/Roy, Pam/Jim/Katy, Pam/Jim/Karen, Dwight/Angela/Andy, Jan/Michael/Carol, Jan/Michael/Holly, Michael/Holly/AJ, Ryan/Kelly/Darryl, Toby/Pam/Jim, Dwight/Erin/Andy (for one episode), Andy/Erin/Gabe, Angela/Dwight/Isabel, Dwight/Angela/Robert, Angela/Robert/Oscar, Erin/Andy/Jessica, Gabe/Val/Darryl, Darryl/Val/Val's boyfriend, Cathy/Jim/Pam, Andy/Erin/Pete, Jim/Pam/Brian, the documentary crew's sound guy, and then finally Angela/Dwight/Esther
  • Taken to an extreme in "The Duel":
  Angela: My worst breakup was actually two breakups. Two different men. I was in love with both of them and when things went bad they had a duel over me.
  Oscar: Yeah, Dwight and Andy. We were here.
  Angela: No, this was years ago when I was living in Ohio. John Mark and John David.
  Oscar: Angela, you had two sets of different men actually duel over you?
• Lower-Deck Episode: The Webisodes focus on the supporting cast.
• The Magic Poker Equation: "Casino Night."
• The Maiden Name Debate: Pam indicates that she would have taken Roy's name if they had gotten married, but wouldn't have been terribly happy about it.
  Pam: That's as close as I ever want to get to being Pamela Anderson.
  • But when marrying Jim, she's more than happy to change it, and Squees with delight when Kevin hands her a check made out to "Mrs. Pam Halpert".
• Man Versus Machine: In "Launch Party" Dwight tries to outsell the Dunder Mifflin website. He does.
• Manchild: Michael most often comes across as this.
  • Kevin perhaps more so. Holly mistook him for a mentally handicapped person after Dwight told her that Kevin was hired under from a work program for the mentally challenged.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": In "Promos" when some of the workers realize that the documentary will include private intimate moments that they weren't aware were being filmed, and they all turn to the camera.
• Matchmaker Failure: After Jim and Pam have their baby, an emotional Michael becomes convinced the two got together thanks to him and is inspired to matchmake the other employees in the office. He tries it with Kevin and Erin, and while Kevin is enthusiastic, Erin already likes Andy, so it doesn't work out.
• Meaningful Echo: Michael gets fired from Dunder-Mifflin for trying to found the Michael Scott Paper Company under their nose. When he tries to give one last speech, Charles cuts him off with "No, no. You're done." When Michael forces Dunder-Mifflin's hand to get re-hired, Charles tries to give one last speech and Michael cuts him off with the same phrase.
• Meaningful Gift: In "Christmas Party", Jim has Pam as his recipient for Secret Santa. He buys her a teapot that she wants and fills it with mementos representing their inside jokes, as well as a note (presumably declaring his love for her). Things go horribly awry when Michael abruptly changes Secret Santa into Yankee Swap and everyone's presents are switched. Pam winds up with her teapot in the end, but Jim removes the note at the last minute.
• Meet Cute: Invoked (and namecalled) by Kelly with Deangelo, dropping a folder and "letting" him pick it up for her. And then walking off without the folder.
• Men Are Uncultured: Played straight by the ones who like sports, Jim (his short-lived Finer Things membership), Roy (his comments at the art gallery, though he did try), and Kevin (he takes the life-size picture of Jan because he "[does]n't have a lot of art.") Subverted by Toby and Oscar in the Finer Things club, and Oscar and Gil at Pam's art exhibit. Andy also subverts it (knowledgeably critiquing an opera among other instances), presumably because of his upbringing. Gabe appears to be something of a Movie Buff, albeit with a decided preference for horror flicks.
  Oscar: Besides having sex with men, I would say that the Finer Things Club is the gayest thing about me.
• Metaphorgotten: Michael does this all the time. For example: "What happens to a company if somebody takes a boss away? It's like what happens to a chicken when you take its head away. It dies... unless you find a new head. I need to see which one of these people have the skills to be a chicken head."
  • "Business is like a jungle. And I am like a tiger, and Dwight is like a monkey that stabs the tiger in the back with a stick. Does the tiger fire the monkey? Does the tiger transfer the monkey to another branch? ...Pun! There is no way of knowing what goes on inside the tiger's head. We don't have the technology."
  • "So Ryan got promoted to corporate, where he is a little fish in a big pond. Whereas back here in Scranton, I am still top dog in a fairly large pond. So who is the real boss? The dog or a fish?"
  • "At first, we were talking about introducing a line of toilet paper. And what part of the human body does one use toilet paper upon? So you draw a line from there to the other planets, and I think by the end, we learned a little bit about how small we are."
• Mexican Standoff: With fingerguns/fingercrossbows at the end of "Murder." Naturally, it ends in a Blast Out.
• Mistaken for Disease: In one episode, Michael believes he has herpes and goes around telling all the women he's had sex with that they may have it too. But at the end, it's implied (and later confirmed in a future episode) that it was just an ingrown hair.
• Mockumentary: Unlike many of the mockumentary-type shows that appeared following this series, the shaky cam isn't just a stylistic theme, and the talking heads segments aren't just a convenient storytelling device. The logistics don't really hold up to scrutiny,^note For example, where are they getting the budget for this sheer volume of camera time? Who would actually care about the contents of this documentary? Why is everyone so willing to let their secret conversations be filmed? but there is an in-universe camera crew. The crew never appears or makes a sound until near the end of the series, but there is occasional interaction between the crew and employees (e.g. in one episode the cameraman silently points out to Pam evidence of Dwight and Angela's relationship), and the employees can turn off their microphones if they wish, for example.
• Money Dumb: Michael was mentioned to be in debt before, but in Season 4's "Money", he is shown to be having to take a second job to pay for his debts, not helped by his live-in girlfriend Jan wasting their money (which is basically HIS money, seeing as how she doesn't have a job at this point) and having no idea of the debt issue. When Oscar analyzes his spending, he realizes that Michael's issues come from unnecessary purchases.
• The Movie Buff: Gabe is a horror fan.
• Munchkin: Dwight applies this philosophy to everything including Secret Santa.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: (From Michael's final episode)
  Michael: The Dream Team! ...And Meredith.
  • In Paper Airplane
  Nellie: We are now down to an Elite Eight. Well... Seven. And Toby.
• My Own Private "I Do": Jim and Pam, of the 'Plan First, Then Elope' variety, coupled with a Married at Sea. A more spur-of-the-moment elopement was subverted earlier on when they decided to stay for an impromptu office party instead.
• Mythology Gag: In "Whistleblower", we learn that Dunder Mifflin's address is 1725 Slough Avenue. The fictional Scranton street is a nod to the UK show's setting of Slough, England.
  • Ricky Gervais' cameos as David Brent in "The Seminar" and "Search Committee".
  • In "Dwight K. Schrute, Acting Manager," Dwight begins wearing a six-shooter in a hip holster. Phyllis suggests that he carry his cell phone in it instead. Dwight's spiritual predecessor, Gareth, carried his cell phone in a shoulder holster.
  • An ad for the in-universe documentary reveals that it's titled The Office: An American Workplace. The full title is what the series is called in the United Kingdom to avoid confusion with the original show.
  • In "Michael's Last Dundees," Michael describes the Dundees as like "the Golden Globes, only not as mean." Ricky Gervais had hosted the Golden Globes that year and was criticized for some jokes at some of the nominees' expense.
  • Stanley Hudson's counterpart in the UK version is Malcolm. In "Finale," after Stanley retires, he is replaced by a man named Malcolm.
  • Michael's dance in "Booze Cruise" looks an awful lot like David Brent's dance in "Charity".
  • Todd Packer's middle name, Finch, is a tip of the hat to his UK counterpart Chris Finch.
  • Maybe not intentional, but when Tony Gardner (who got fired in "The Merger") makes a brief The Bus Came Back cameo in "Threat Level Midnight", he'd added a goatee to his mustache and looked a lot like Keith Bishop from the UK show.

N-O

• Naughty Nurse Outfit: Angela, of all people, during "Costume Contest."
• Nazi Grandpa: Dwight alludes to this more than once.
  Dwight: My grandpa Manheim is 103, and still puttering around in Argentina. I tried to go visit him once, but my travel visa was protested by the Shoah Foundation.
  Dwight: My maternal grandfather was the toughest guy I ever knew. World War Two veteran, killed twenty men and spent the rest of the war in an Allied prison camp.
• Nepotism: In the episode of the same name (season seven premiere), the new office assistant is shown to be too apathetic to do any work right, and it turns out he was hired because he was Michael's nephew whom he was trying to reconnect with. But the rest of the office can't stand him, which eventually leads to Michael reaching his breaking point and abruptly disciplining him, at which point he leaves.
• Nerds Speak Klingon: In "Andy's Ancestry", When Erin starts learning a language to impress Andy's family, Dwight convinces her to stop learning French and start learning Dothraki under his tutelage. She doesn't realize that it is a Conlang and is dejected when Andy tells her that she was doing something he considers so nerdy. Pete gives her a Dothraki farewell at the end, another hint of his crush on her.
  Erin: I'm learning how to speak Dothraki! Color you impressed?
  Andy: That you're learning a made-up language from HBO's Game of Thrones? I have a lot going on today...but this was a great nerd-out!
  Erin: Dwight, you didn't tell me you were teaching me a fake language.
  Dwight: People laughed at Klingon at first, and now you can major in it.
• New Year's Resolution: "Ultimatum"
• Nice, Mean, and In-Between: Out of the main characters, we have:
  • Nice: Jim, in relative terms. He's not a saint but, despite his pranks on Dwight, he's the most pleasant and level-headed of the three.
  • Mean: Dwight, who is hostile and unfriendly most of the time, and often a malevolent Evil Genius towards his co-workers.
  • In-Between: Michael, who tries to be friendly but is perpetually selfish, obnoxious, and Innocently Insensitive, other than being an outright jerk to Toby.
• No Accounting for Taste: Andy and Angela
• No Bisexuals:
  • The instant the members of the office find evidence that Angela's senator boyfriend is attracted to men, they conclude that he's purely gay and his relationship with Angela is a sham. The possibility of bisexuality is never even mentioned.
  • In another episode, Andy starts to question his sexuality after Michael starts a (deliberately false) rumor that he's gay. Despite Andy's clearly-depicted interest in women throughout the previous seasons (and the fact that the only "evidence" he provides for his possible homosexuality is a pretty mild fantasy about kissing Brad Pitt), the possibility that he might be bi rather than gay apparently never occurs to him. At one point he even asks Oscar for advice, only for Oscar to dismiss the matter with a remark about "insecure straight guys."
• Non Sequitur: Basically anything Creed says or does.
• Noob:
  • Jim, at Call of Duty. It makes Josh and Andy crazy.
    You don't snipe on Carentan!
  • Done intentionally in the "Ethics" episode. After Dwight boasts that he does not waste any time at work, Jim carries around a stopwatch to keep track of any time not spent on work related activity. It culminates with him discussing The Remake of Battlestar Galactica, and deliberately gushing about things like "Klingons" and "Wookies", and tells Andy that it's "practically a shot-for-shot remake" of the original. Dwight is struggling with every fiber of his being to focus on his work.
    Jim: It's about this guy named Dumbledore Calrissian who has to return a ring to Mordor.
    Andy: That doesn't sound right.
• Noodle Incident:
  • In one of the Christmas episodes, Jim intends to give Pam a teapot filled with several mementos linked to inside jokes the two of them share. After explaining the stories for a couple of the items, Jim pulls out an unsharpened pencil, and simply states that "'it would take too long to explain." This, of all things, gets explained eight seasons later in the penultimate episode "A.A.R.M." It was apparently the exact same pencil that she had thrown at Jim during a minigolf outing years earlier.
  • Dwight mentions his cousin Mose "has been having nightmares since the storm."
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Pam is constantly on the receiving end of this. On many occasions, she makes an attempt to do something nice or otherwise helpful for the office, only for it to be either ignored, taken as an opportunity to mock her, or thrown back in her face. Every time she takes pity on Michael and reaches out to him as a friend he invariably repays her by doing or saying something characteristically inappropriate, and sometimes getting the both of them into trouble.
• No Party Like a Donner Party:
  • Dwight claims his family had a policy that if they ran out of food in the winter, they would eat the weakest member. The camera, filming a still black-and-white photo of Dwight's family, zooms in on a baby. Dwight then laughs and says he's joking; things never got that bad.
  • Discussed in "WUPHF.com" when the power goes out:
    Dwight: Everyone, follow me to the shelter! We've got enough food for fourteen days. After that... we have a difficult conversation.
• No Such Thing as H.R.: Technically there is in the form of Toby and Holly, but in keeping with the theme of the show, they're pretty useless at resolving the office hijinks. It's suggested in one episode that Toby is actually good at keeping the internal office conflicts to a dull roar. Unfortunately when Michael finds this out he decides they need to be fixed HIS way, which ends up making many of them worse.
• No Social Skills: A large part of the humor comes from this; pretty much all of the main office ensemble except Jim, Pam, Oscar, and Darryl have deplorable social skills. Michael is rude and obnoxious (among many other things), Dwight is rude and generally weird, Ryan is self-absorbed, Stanley is grumpy, Andy is obnoxious and clueless, Angela is extremely rude and argumentative, Kevin is slow witted and inappropriate, Meredith is often inappropriate (and drunk), Creed is up in the clouds, Kelly is a Motor Mouth and often rude, Phyllis is sneakily rude, and Toby is awkward and quiet. Put em all together and it's no wonder they can't go a day without wackiness ensuing.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Jim realizes this after Phyllis accidentally called him Michael. Whenever Jim is in charge of the office, he tries to do the opposite of what Michael does in order to make the office more enjoyable even though it doesn't go well at all. Improving the work environment was what Michael has been trying to do ever since he was manager.
  Michael: So, what'd I miss?
  Jim: Well, I tried to put all the birthdays together at once. Terrible idea.
  Michael: (*nods in understanding*) Yeah, okay, I did that. Rookie mistake.
  Jim: You did do it?
  Michael: Uh-huh, yeah. Just wait. Ten years—you'll figure it out.
  Jim: Well, I don't think I'll be here in ten years, but...
  Michael: That's what I said.
• Not That There's Anything Wrong with That: Roy when he talks with Pam after his outburst. He says that he thought Pam and Jim were Just Friends and that Jim might be gay or something. He then remembers that he's on camera and quickly adds "Not that that's wrong..."
• Obliquely Obfuscated Occupation:
  • Creed works in Quality Assurance. Everyone knows this except Creed.
  • Ryan's job is extremely unclear once the Michael Scott Paper Company is absorbed by Dunder Mifflin. He is hired as a salesman but is demoted in favor of Pam.
• Oblivious to His Own Description: One of the workers is flashed by a pervert. Pam is asked to draw up a description of the man in order to make wanted posters. Pam ends up drawing Dwight with a moustache and asks him to put the posters up. Dwight does so, even mentioning happily that he wants the "pervert" to be caught.
• Oblivious to Love: Subverted. Although it was never explicitly stated until Jim and Pam's other relationships ended and they had to deal with the situation, Pam gave very subtle indications that she was aware of Jim's feelings, but didn't want to deal with the situation.
  • It's not clear if she's on to Toby, but given his weirdness and one instance of sexual assault, its likely that if she were any more bothered by that
  • Erin and Andy might count as this. They clearly know that there's an attraction between the two, but are both terrified that the feelings are one way, so neither one of them is willing to make a move.
    • Erin is also completely oblivious to her foster brother.
• Odd Friendship: While in no way blind to his faults Pam has a definite soft spot for Michael that seems to go beyond the pity Jim feels for him (though pity is clearly a part of it). She followed him into the Michael Scott Paper Company and tried to set him up with a friend on two different occasions. They had a huge falling out when he began seeing her mother but Pam seems to have forgiven him.
  • Andy and Darryl. One is a Cloud Cuckoo Lander WASP with little upbringing in the real world, the other a common sense black guy with little time or tolerance for Cloudcuckoolanders. They get along very well in later seasons.
• Office Sports: A whole Olympics in fact.
• Offstage Villainy: When Michael is shown pursuing and stealing DM clients, it is from Dwight and a reaction to Dwight not only betraying him (which Michael is willing to forgive), but then breaking his own truce he deceptively brokered with Michael. But in Broke and Casual Friday in particular, we find out that Michael had been stealing clients off camera from all the sales people, despite how far Dwight to go and the It's Personal nature before on-camera Michael started taking his clients.
• Oh, Crap!: Jim has some good ones, given his tendency to look into the camera frequently. Probably his best ones are when his pranks cause Andy to lose his temper.
  • Also when Jim is wearing the tuxedo and hears that Charles is visiting that day.
  • Kevin gets a moment when he talks with the identity theft department for Jim's credit card, while Jim's on his honeymoon.
    • And on Take Your Daughter to Work Day, where he talks to the camera about how he has to make sure none of the young girls see the porn on his computer, then realizes they could be doing that right now.
  • Vikram realizing that joining the Michael Scott Paper Company was probably a mistake.
    Vikram: What kind of name is Nana?
    Pam: It means grandmother.
    Vikram: Oh sweet Jesus.
  • You can see the tiniest glimmer of Oh, Crap! in Stanley's eyes in Did I Stutter when Michael orders everyone but him out of the office (before Michael bursts into tears).
  • Jim realizing that he had to resolve the conflict between Dwight and Andy after they challenged each other to a duel over Angela.
    Jim: (to the camera) I have two choices. I could get more involved. Or I could just take the afternoon off. Leaving Dwight in charge. Oh god.
  • At the end of "Goodbye, Michael" there was a rare moment where Jim & Dwight share this reaction, as Deangelo starts screaming at a cake.
    Dwight: Uh-oh.
    [Jim mournfully nods in agreement]
  • After Michael leaves, Jim turns down an offer at being Acting Manager. A minute later, Dwight's phone rings and Dwight accepts the offer. Jim is speechless that he did not see that coming while Pam is much more vocal.
    Pam: What have you done?!
  • During one of Pam's interviews when she realizes a concussion has made Dwight her friend.
  • At the end of "Valentine's Day", Michael has saved Jan's and his own job by defusing a situation that he started in the first place. Jan is nonetheless grateful and because it's Valentine's Day, she kisses Michael in what seems to be one moment of weakness. Michael stares at her, then looks at the camera crew. Jan follows his stare and turns around to face the camera with an absolutely horrified stare.
  • In a deleted scene from "Weight Loss," Ryan experiences a memorable one when he's the secretary & David Wallace calls, is shocked to learn Ryan returned to Scranton, & tears him a new one before talking to Michael about it.
• Old Shame: In-Universe there is "Threat Level Midnight," Michael's microbudget movie filmed with most of the staff, was finished and screened in the 7th season. Most of the characters have qualms with their parts in the film, Jan and Karen were annoyed at being tracked down by the documentary crew for their brief parts they played years ago. Jim played the Politically Incorrect Villain "Goldenface" just to impress Pam, meaning he gave it a good shot but was not "in love with the character."
• One-Episode Wonder: The pilot for proposed Dwight Schrute spinoff The Farm, rejected by NBC, was re-worked into a 9th season episode of The Office appropriately titled "The Farm".
• One Head Taller: Jim with Pam (and also Roy with Pam). Dwight is more like two heads taller than Angela.
• One-Scene Wonder: A whole bunch of In-Universe examples in the Threat Level Midnight movie, but most memorably Karen saying "Ever banged an entire bachelorette party, baby?", followed by a clumsy attempt at flirty facial expressions. She seems pissed off that the documentary crew tracked her down years later for that one bad line of dialogue.
• One-Steve Limit: Occasionally played with for comedy:
  • Erin's actual first name is Kelly, but when the original Kelly has a crush on Charles, she hangs out near his office in the hopes that he will call for Kelly the receptionist, allowing her to run in and say, "Charles, you wanted me?" After this joke has run its course, the show completely forgets that Erin's real first name is Kelly.
  • Pam and Angela end up both naming their newborn sons Phillip, which sets Angela off as she had named him after one of her cats. Phillip Halpert meanwhile is named after Pam's grandfather (which Angela still refuses to settle with).
  • Robert California, Robert Lipton the state senator, and Robert "Bob" Vance are a simple aversion, and the show never makes anything out of their shared names.
• Only Sane Man: Jim usually plays this role as the person who comments the loudest about the insane things going on in the office, particularly in early seasons. As the show goes on, however, more characters trade the role back and forth depending on the circumstances. Darryl probably has the highest percentage of his screen time playing this role over the course of the series.
• On the Rebound: Invoked and lampshaded. After breaking up with Carol, Micheal hooks up with a young waitress from a Japanese restaurant and brings her to the Christmas party, only for her to leave an hour later. Jim explained to Michael that he was having a rebound and should not feel disappointed. Michael realizes that was what he was doing and even admits he couldn't tell his date apart from the other Asian waitress that had attended the party.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Jim and Pam realize that Dwight's suffered a serious head injury when he starts acting nice to Pam.
  • Michael has this when he visits David Wallace for advice after Wallace has been fired, and finds him unshaven and aimless and drinking beer in his hot tub in the afternoon.
    Michael: That is not David Wallace. That is some weird creature who lives in David Wallace’s house.
• Orphan's Ordeal: When Erin learned that Andy was once engaged to Angela, she gets upset and frustratingly covers her face with her hair.
  Erin: In the foster home, my hair was my room.
  • Also in Paper Airplane:
  Erin: Growing up in an orphanage, you have to fight other kids for everything. Snacks, pillows, parents... I once ripped Greedy Susan's pigtail right off her head, just for a handful of Crispix.
• Out of Focus: Ryan begins the show as one of the most important characters, as his character has a direct analog to the original British series. As the season goes on, however, he retains his opening sequence credit, but his actual importance to the show fades considerably.
• Overly Narrow Superlative: In Season 2 Episode 17, Jim describes Dwight being voted Salesman of the Year as "literally the highest possible honor that a north-eastern Pennsylvania based mid-size paper company regional salesman can obtain."
• Overtook the Manga: The American version has 201 episodes, while the original series only has 15 (12 standard episodes, two Christmas specials, and a Reunion Show) along with a spin-off film.

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