History Headscratchers / TheOfficeUS

** This is partly the joke; Dwight, for all the lionising he tends to get from certain quarters, is basically a KnowNothingKnowItAll idiot with some unshakeable oddball convictions.

** This is an AnthropicPrinciple situation; there wouldn't have been an episode if the characters had taken this kind of level-headed and relentlessly professional approach to the situation. The point of the episode is to watch our obnoxious and unprofessional AttentionWhore protagonist have to cope with entering a situation and world dominated by another equally obnoxious and unprofessional but somewhat more capable AttentionWhore antagonist, and to laugh at the comedy generated by their interactions. If either Michael or Captain Jack were as professional and accomodating as this Headscratcher is critiquing them for not being, they wouldn't be who they are and the episode wouldn't happen.

** Despite appearances, the booze cruise captain is very much ''not'' a professional person. The whole joke and point of his character is that he is basically a Michael Scott who actually has a (kind of) cool job, more charisma and is better at throwing his weight around and dominating the situation and the people in it. A truly professional captain wouldn't spend all his time basically trying to sabotage and one-up a middle manager hosting an (ill-advised) office event on his boat instead of just, well, just getting on with piloting the boat. The fact that he hooks up with passengers is just yet more evidence of his unprofessional conduct.

** In-universe, however, even in the early seasons it's suggested that Ryan isn't quite as clever and superior to the world of Dunder-Mifflin as he makes out. We don't know how well he's performed at any other temping jobs he's had, but it's possible that he sticks with Dunder-Mifflin despite the discomforts because it's all he can get.

** The booze cruise captain is very much ''not'' a professional person. The whole joke and point of his character is that he is basically a Michael Scott who actually has a (kind of) cool job, more charisma and is better at throwing his weight around and dominating the people and situations around him. A truly professional captain wouldn't spend all his time basically trying to sabotage and one up a middle manager hosting an ill-advised office event on his boat instead of just, well, getting on with piloting the boat. The fact that he hooks up with passengers is just yet more evidence of his unprofessional conduct.

** Having just watched the episode, she's not selling them products or trying to sell DM product through them. She's actually getting discounts on 'office supplies', including paper. (The mind still boggles why a paper company doesn't use their own product, but nvm.) Which makes sense, as Meredith is not in Sales -- she's in either office management or procurement. The reason she keeps her job isn't because she's earning the company money, but (because HR is even more messed up than Michael himself) she's saving them money on procurement for their own needs. I work closely with the IT procurement departments myself so I recognised the dilemma DM had. Of course, anyone doing what Meredith was doing would be fired (I even refused to order cabs from a firm who provided an incentive scheme to receptionists due to that conflict of interests) but the logic is clear in the episode that this is a hefty purchasing discount benefiting the whole company's bottom line rather than sales to a client they had yet to snag. It's actually good that they cover issues faced by accounting and procurement as well as the core salesmanship as too often the support staff get overlooked.

** With Roy, depending on the time line involved, there might've been no time between Roy making his declaration and getting to the office, and the second unit filming him to get a hold of the main unit at the office. Or they just wanted to see happens.

*** Novak explained in an interview that he loves the show and wants to continue working with it, but is beginning to lose interest in continually playing "Ryan The Temp", hence his drastically reduced role in later seasons.

* Jim messing with Michael during the game of charades only makes so much sense. He loves a good prank, yes. But he's also a character that's good at reading the room and he was in the middle of a tense space that's about to explode.

* Do you think the captain would have let up a little if Michael would have simply said "hey, my company won't pay for this cruise unless I do some sort of presentation?"

** Dwight doesn't really care as much about the office's fire-preparedness or lack thereof as he's making out. Standard office fire drill procedures under the extreme-worst-case circumstances he set up -- communications cut, fire surrounding the building, all exits blocked and obstructed, etc. -- probably wouldn't have helped much anyway. The whole thing is really because he's steamed (pun intended) that the office didn't pay attention to his -- almost-certainly overly dry, overly rigid, overly bureaucratic, overly eccentric and mostly useless -- presentation on the subject, and the whole "fire drill" is just an excuse to get revenge, humiliate them all, and give him an excuse to smugly strut around crowing about procedure and how he told them so. He even contradicts himself at one point; he mockingly demands why no one is calling 911 at one point despite having himself ''sabotaged the phone lines'', as made clear when Pam initially tried to do just that. As noted above, he deliberately stacks the decks against his co-workers, but not just out of concern for their preparedness (there are better, safer and more effective ways of raising the issue), but because he's an officious, pedantic, short-sighted and resentful idiot lashing out at people he views as beneath him for not taking him as seriously as he thinks he deserves. Causing the panic in the second incident was the whole point.

*** Some documentaries film for years - take Jon Ronson's "Reverend Death", filmed over the course of six years. Wiki/TheOtherWiki has a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_shot_over_three_or_more_years list of films]] shot over many years.

* Why does Robert California, the CEO of Sabre, who now runs this enormous company, spend all of his time still hanging out at the Scranton branch?

*** We see his relationship with his parents in a later episode, and it's terrible. It's not hard to imagine his parents going off in a limo and leaving him with the nanny or the maid. Otherwise, RuleOfFunny applies here.

** Also, worth noting that when Dwight begins to ask them to move, Michael quite pointedly tells Dwight not to bother them. The clear implication is that Michael doesn't actually want Dwight sitting with them, which the couple may have picked up on. Had Michael also demonstrated more desire for Dwight to join them they may have been amenable to moving, but since he didn't they didn't feel it worth pressing the issue if they didn't have to.