Michael takes a personal day away from the office, to close on a condo purchase. While he's away, the gang takes a break from their expense reports, to participate in the Office Olympics.
Air date: October 4, 2005
Tropes
- Brilliant, but Lazy: Pam's comment about Jim implies he's talented, but because he works at Dunder Mifflin, he has no real ambition and nothing significant to achieve.Pam: The thing about Jim is when he's excited about something, like the Office Olympics, he gets really into it and he does a really great job. But the problem with Jim is that he works here, so that hardly ever happens.
- Characterization Marches On: Jim asks Stanley if he has any games, to which Stanley curtly responds that his game is "work hard so my kids can go to college". Later seasons will show Stanley giving a much more lax attitude to his work, ironically playing games such as crosswords and Sudoku or napping instead of doing any actual work.
- Cool Shades: Subverted. Dwight dons a pair, and Michael hates them.Michael: I don't understand what you spend your money on.
- Crazy Cat Lady: Angela's first sign that she's a lonely woman obsessed with cats. The only games she plays are the kind where she dangles something in front of her cat.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Dwight mentions the beet farm that he runs with his cousin Mose (played by Michael Schur, who wrote this episode) for the first time in this episode, holding up a picture of the two of them.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The premise of the employees taking advantage of Michael's absence to engage in hijinks feels backwards compared to what would become a reliable future formula for the show: Michael forces them to stop whatever they're doing to engage in some odd distraction that's currently preoccupying him.
- Everyone Can See It: Angela is one of the first to point out Jim's attraction to Pam, saying that she plays "Pam Pong," counting how often he visits her desk during the day.
- Foreshadowing: Dwight predicts the neighbours will fight and smash the plasma TV. Michael and Jan do just this in Season 4.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Dwight is a bit of a buzzkill to bring it up, but he's absolutely correct that it wasn't very wise for a man in his 40s like Michael to be setting up a 30-year mortgage on his condo.
- Mistaken for Gay: Because they go to sign the condo papers together, and have a bit of a Like an Old Married Couple vibe, the head of the condo association makes a point of telling Michael and Dwight that the neighbourhood is very gay-friendly. Dwight only increases the suspicion by immediately saying "Let’s go check out the master bedroom."
- Obfuscating Stupidity: When Michael "gifts" Dwight with renting his third bedroom, Dwight keeps asking dumb questions rather than saying no outright.
- Office Sports: They have Office Olympics, complete with opening and closing ceremonies. Events include "Flonkerton" (box-of-paper snowshoe racing), "who can put the most M&M's in their mouth", "Dunder Ball", "Hate Ball" (called so because of how much Angela hates it), then there's a paper football game, "paper triangle flicking and hitting things" game. And Angela reveals she plays a game "Pam-Pong" (she counts how many times Jim gets up from his desk and goes to reception to talk to Pam). Also, Pam has a game of trying to throw stuff into Dwight's coffee mug.Pam: Okay, we will be competing for gold, silver and bronze yogurt lids. Now, the bronze are really blue and they're also the backside of the gold, so no flipping. Okay, honor system.
