The Office: Season 2, Episode 6 “The Fight”

Good morning and welcome back to the breakroom! I have been out of the commission the last two weeks so I am excited to be back at the office, and breaking down everything that is happening amongst our dedicated colleagues. What I have thought about during these last couple of weeks can be summed up in two philosophies: prioritize your life to recognize what you need to focus on, and when you recognize the goals you should find that willingness to fight to achieve them. I look forward to coming back to this work with true dedication so that I can achieve what I want and look forward the future in what I can accomplish. I hope someone out there can walk away feeling inspired, but to also feel entertained so with that let us jump into today’s happenings!

Today started off truly as routine as any other day in that Dwight discovers Jim pulled yet another prank on him. His entire desk has disappeared with no sign of where it went; Jim is reluctant to allow this prank to end so quickly until he threatens to go to Michael. At this, Jim plays a rousing game of “hotter-colder” until Dwight finally locates his desk relocated in the men’s bathroom. Jim might find a lot of his jokes to be funny but with this I really have to side with Dwight’s declaration that it is “totally unprofessional.” Those first moments of the day are often the most calming of the work day as you mentally prepare yourself to tackle that day’s challenges, and now he has to spend his morning moving his entire desk back to his spot. I’m sorry Jim, but I think you really need to start to rethink your pranks and how they really can just ruin someone’s entire day.

But this doesn’t get Dwight and he continues on with his day as usual, although he does make an unusual phone call to his sensei, referring to himself as sempai. For some clarification, a sensei is used to represent a teacher of various fields with those of us here in the United States most commonly associating that with martial arts. A sempai is an honorific meant to designate an individual with great experience, such as a martial arts student who has trained for numerous years. I think Dwight doesn’t seem to understand this since I would not consider that an a “assistant sensei.” Although, perhaps Dwight’s ego was still bruised from the desk incident and wanted to just shove this recognition in Jim’s face. I think this was my first time hearing that Dwight was a practitioner of Goju-Ryu karate in Scranton.

Goju-Ryu is a specific branch of the field of karate and is perhaps one we are most aware of here out West. While one might be thinking Dwight is odd for being interested in martial arts, the industry has continued to grow over the years per some statistics from GymDesk. From 2012 to 2021 the number of martial arts business has grown at an average of 18.7%, with an estimated 2.34 million people having participated in martial arts for fitness in 2021. In terms of profitability, the six most profitable disciplines moving down are: MMA, boxing, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, karate, taekwondo, and kung fu. While the largest age group participating in martial arts is 7-12 year olds (accounting for 26% of memberships) the second largest is 25-34 year olds (accounting for 21%). Based on these statistics I think it is fair to say that while Dwight is unfortunate enough to be close to a gym with adult classes, he would not be considered odd for being so interested in the martial arts¹.

Now the real news is that unfortunately today marks what Pam has affectionately called, “the perfect storm.” Michael is responsible to sign timecards each Friday, purchase orders must be done at the end of each month, and then expense reports must be done at the end of each quarter. Unfortunately, once a year these all fall on the same day and Michael will go to extreme lengths to procrastinate these (literally it is just signatures and initials) which means we’re usually stuck late since these must be done.

Procrastination in the work place is nothing new; we all either know someone who routinely procrastinates or we are that person. So what is the story behind procrastination, does it mean we are simply lazy? There are a number of reason behind people might procrastinate doing specific tasks. One of the most common is the sure fact that an individual does not believe they will enjoy the task and will simply put it off as long as possible due to not wanting to feel that level of unhappiness. There are also those who are considered such perfectionists, that they will put off tasks out of the fact they are afraid of not being able to complete the task the way they would want to; this goes with the mindset that you cannot fail what you do not do. Per a study in Psychological Science, this leads to the believe that procrastination is “the quintessential breakdown of self-control.” This study tries to breakdown the psychology behind procrastination and while I feel there are many good points in the study, I believe it simply brings up the point that procrastinators vary behind their rationale². For instance, I am absolutely a procrastinator and I can say I do a combination of some tasks are simply unenjoyable and I put them off; other times I want to complete a task so perfectly I am hesitant to begin in. I can attest that through college I would routinely be writing my papers all in one day, the day before they are formally do. I do question if perhaps I subconsciously was choosing to do this because I enjoyed that rush of adrenaline in attempting to finish a task right up until the moment it is due. While I have been able to find a means to thrive off procrastination, I think we can all agree that learning to manage our tasks in a more timely manner would result in far less nights working until midnight on a project we have known about for awhile. As for Michael, I feel pretty confident that Michael simply finds no thrill in having to sign so many documents and this is why he simply puts it off until the very end.

Michael truly goes above and beyond in an attempt to not have to sign any of these, even sending out Ryan on a “secret mission” to update emergency contact. I am glad he did not ask me because I am not quite sure why this is a priority, or truly anything that needs to be done. Traditionally, employees would be responsible to provide their emergency contact information at hire and would then need to update this information (either with Human Resources or their self-service portal). Because of how absurd it is that someone is being tasked to do this, I suspect this is simply a means for Michael to avoid finishing his work. All he needs to do is sign the forms, and he was even caught avoiding work by practicing his signature a piece of scratch paper. Then he heard all about Dwight’s accomplishment and jumped at the opportunity for another distraction, though he claims it is part of being a manager to exert his dominance., According to him, “The problem with being a boss, when you are tough they resent you, when you are cool they walk all over you. Catch 22.” Essentially, it is very important to be able to remind your staff that you can beat them up given the opportunity. And we are getting that opportunity because after some prodding from Jim and Pam, Michael and Dwight are going to be battling for supremacy Dwight’s dojo. The Albany branch is actually working straight through lunch to ensure there is no downsizing, yet we are getting an extra long lunch so we can all go see this fight. There truly is nothing like Scranton.

Needless to say, the fight between Dwight and Michael went about as expected. Dwight started off strong because he understood the rules in the skirmish, and then Michael disregarded these rules and completely humiliated him. At least, I would consider being pinned down and spit upon as humiliated but perhaps I am alone in that opinion. And this really didn’t seem to resolve anything because Dwight and Michael were even worse off than before the fight; goes to show you that fighting truly doesn’t solve anything.

Well we all got sick of waiting for Michael to sign the paperwork so a bunch of simply got together and signed the forms ourselves, in total disregard of the legality behind it. Honestly, we should just start doing this going forward because it would save a whole lot of time in the long run. I’m all for procrastination, but I at least pick my battles since I would never want to stay hours late simply because I didn’t feel like doing work earlier. And with that our day was over and Michael and Dwight were left to lick their wounds in separate corners; or so we thought. I went back and overheard them talking and I guess they were able to mend their relationship, with a promotion no less! That’s right, I am the only one who now knows that Dwight is officially the Assistant Manager. It comes with no pay raise or office, title change only, which will be left off the books as part of a three month probationary period. Not what I would accept but it seems Dwight was more than okay accepting this offer.

This day is late but at least it’s officially over! So what did we learn from this day in the office? Martial arts is a broad term overseeing several disciplines and only continues to grow in popularity; so I would recommend it if you are looking for a new fitness routine, and you just might run into Dwight. We also learned a bit about procrastination; we all do it but perhaps we should focus less on simply breaking the cycle, and start with asking ourselves why we procrastinate on things we do. Personally, I am going to try to be more proactive with my duties this next week. Until then, I look forward to seeing you all around the breakroom!

Anyone have some tips on how they cope with their own procrastination? Why not include it down in the comments sections to help your breakroom colleagues out so we can all do a bit better!