The Office: Season 1, Episode 5 “Basketball”

Welcome back to another workday, and another breakdown here in the breakroom. I think we all know the reason you made sure to be here so promptly, the basketball game! That’s right, starting at noon we have a scrimmage between the upstairs staff with our colleagues down in the warehouse. Evidently this came up after the staff downstairs put up a hoop and Michael started impressing them with his athletic prowess. No idea he plays on the weekends, he really is a man of many talents. I guess Dwight was even allowed to come to one of his games, but he made an incredible fool of himself; strange for someone who is always so confident in his abilities.

While these events are not tied to a Dunder Mifflin-sanctioned team, it does bring up the topic of if company sports teams are a good idea? While I personally have never been on a company team, I have known a number of friends who partook on such teams with softball being a particularly popular choice. Being such a popular trend, there are many benefits that can be earned from having such teams. Beat Schybli shared to LinkedIn that there are three primary benefits: Health and Concentration, Team Spirit, and Interpersonal Relationship Development¹. There are some obvious benefits about promoting getting out of the house more often and being active, but the belief is that there can be benefits back in the office. Employees will get to know each other and therefore be able to work more effectively both on and off the field. And it certainly does a great job at boosting morale and company spirit, especially if the team is part of a league so there is the creation of some healthy competition with competitors. Before you go right ahead and set up a team, you might want to review some tips from Pamela Bapcock and SHRM to ensure you are promoting a liability-free environment. It’s important to ensure that there are designated rules in place considering it is a company outing such as should alcohol be prohibited, as well as what are the worker’s compensation laws for the state.² And it’s important to remember that such events are just not for everyone, so you do not want to create a culture in the office making fun of those who do not partake. Some people are very interested in sports at all or perhaps it is a question of which sport is being done; I personally wouldn’t be interested in basketball or softball, but I find volleyball can be fun, for instance. And then there is a question on matching the competitiveness of the players to the sport; someone very competitive might not have fun with a team that is meant to be laidback or just for fun, and vice versa. At the end of the day, they are pretty popular and can be a great topic to bring up if you feel your office could benefit from some athleticism.

The buzz around the office is certainly who is going to get to play on the office team for the big game, Dwight is very adamant about getting on the team. But Michael has a better idea; the delegator he is, he wants Dwight to be responsible for creating the weekend and holiday schedule. Much like how he saved face in not wanting to take the blame for the health insurance, he is again letting Dwight getting to tell his colleagues they have to work on their days off. “Complain and bitch” as Michael puts it and yet Dwight is all too prepared to wield this authority over everyone.

Meanwhile, Ryan just got his first tour of the warehouse downstairs and got to formally meet the staff down there including Lonny, Roy, and the manager Darryl. He also finally gets to see that Michael is even more outrageous with the staff in the warehouse. Coming off very “macho” with jokes about telling Pam she better be having regular sex with Roy. I did find a theory with Psychology Today in which Leon Seltzer discusses how narcissists often will overcompensate with a false bravado like this³. Apply the theory to Michael, he is so insecure with certain aspects in his life that he will try to portray his success in these areas to the rest of the world. My guess is that Michael doesn’t have many male friends he routinely socializes with, so he tries to come off very masculine with tropes he took from late night comedy films. The fact that he is a white-collar manager means he would feel even more separate from the staff downstairs, so he is just wants to prove that he can be “one of the guys.” Obviously, this is far from a professional opinion as I am not a psychologist; but it is important to think about why people do the things they do since it helps us understand them a bit.

Returning upstairs, it is finally time to put together the starting lineup for the game which is evidently now at 1:00pm instead of noon. We have Michael, Stanley (of course), Jim, Ryan, and Dwight. Please do not feel bad that you were not selected for this all-star draft as I feel Michael seems to have his own opinion on what makes some a good player. Oscar actually had volunteered and evidently, he is only suitable for baseball or boxing. This does bring pause to think maybe when Michael said “of course” to bringing in Stanley, it might have been because he was black. I do not want to jump to conclusions and say Michael is making prejudicial assumptions, but he did shoot Phyllis and Kevin down pretty darn fast despite actually volunteering while Stanley did. If the pressure wasn’t intense before, Michael and Darryl strike up a deal where the losing team has to work that coming weekend. This would definitely motivate people to not lose, although I was sort of baffled by this. I get that corporate wants people on the weekend, but we are talking about office staff versus warehouse. Each team does very different work so if corporate was aware of this, they would have a very different idea of which team they would prefer to come in based on their needs.

The time is officially here to kick off the big basketball game, and tensions couldn’t be higher. We start with Pam initiating the opening tip (since while she works upstairs, her fiancé is downstairs) and the ball is quickly taken by the office and given to Stanley. Unfortunately, this is where Michael quickly realizes that Stanley is not the type of player that he imagined, and he made a huge mistake. The game continues to not go in Michael’s favor as the ball gets taken away at numerous times, to the when Roy is able to score and Michael wants to know who was responsible for covering him (Michael was, he was the one responsible for covering Roy). Turns out a lot of the staff are pretty good with Dwight, Ryan, Phyllis, and Jim all scoring points to keep them in the game. Michael doesn’t really seem to know what he is doing, and I’m pretty surprised he plays like this if he supposedly gets together on the weekends. Even with Michael missing shots, Jim’s competitiveness with Roy certainly seems to keep the score in their favor so ultimately when Michael calls the came when he gets injured, they walk away the victors. Certainly, lucky he decided to end the game when he “didn’t know” they were ahead. Lucky for the warehouse, though, as Michael decides to not force them to come in on the weekend. While this isn’t fair to the competition, I will point out that they would be able to do very little on a weekend since businesses typically only accept deliveries during business hours Monday through Friday. But Michael isn’t making anyone come in so thank you Michael! He is right, would one day really make the difference to downsizing?

So, what did we actually learn today? Team sports in the office is certainly a great means to foster competition and team spirit. Even if you do not want to do a weekly team, finding sometime on a workday to devote to a game like Dunder Mifflin did could certainly also be a benefit for morale. Although, I do feel that if you promise something to be decided at the end of the match you should stick to it as otherwise you come off as a bit of a liar. Most of all, maybe when the boss goes on about how good of a basketball player, they are you should take their word with a grain of salt until you can see them play.

I do not know about you, but I built up quite a sweat just watching them all play. I may not be a basketball player but let us use this as a chance to remind ourselves we should all try to be more active especially when stuck at a desk all day. So that can be our goal for the week, find little ways of being more active especially during the work week. Until next time, I’ll be waiting for you right here in the breakroom.