Good morning everyone, wishing you a Happy Friday from the Breakroom! By far this has been a difficult week to get back into the swing of things coming off of a holiday week, and planning towards the upcoming holidays this month. For those deep into their holiday planning, I wish you the absolute best luck in your planning! It is by no means an easy feat to plan such a large event, especially for those who refuse to give up on tradition. Not for nostalgia, just because they dislike change; tradition is important to a point, but it is possible to adapt while still acknowledging history.
While this is not a Party Planning post, I do have a recommendation. While the idea of physical party invitations brings up romantic visions like we see in Downton Abbey or Bridgerton, the truth is they are terrible! Let us be honest in saying that very few of us have addresses written down for our friends and family, we simply know where we are going. Besides addresses, you then need to get the invitations, envelopes and postage and then send them out at least a month in advance. This is to ensure that they receive it early enough to then send back, and you have it early enough to plan your event. My recommendation is Basic Invite (https://www.basicinvite.com/) which offers the option to create a free website page for your event which allows invitees to RSVP to the event. By doing it as a site, you can share it via email, social media, or text message. For those who love the physical tools, they do also offer the option to have invitations and cards printed, so they can be your one stop shop. For the record, this is not a paid endorsement and I have no affiliation with them, just the happy creator of a page.
Now, you are probably asking what happened at the office this week? First, I need to tell you that Michael was very obsessed with his new film he started watching, The Devil Wears Prada. The likes to watch films at work when things are slow and he took quite a liking to this one. A huge fan of Meryl Streep, he began emulating her character with poor Pam on the receiving end it all. For those unfamiliar, Streep’s character is a pretty demanding boss who routinely is unfair to her assistants. This didn’t seem to dawn on Michael until the very end where he realized she was actually the bad guy in the film. Personally I will always say Anne Hatheway’s boyfriend in the film wasn’t very supportive and the real villain. But that is my personal opinion and definitely a post for another day; but this is an excellent film and I highly recommend.
Aside from his new movie, Michael has had a pretty rough week it seems. As you may recall, Jan moved in with him after she was let go from her job with Dunder Mifflin. It doesn’t appear she has gone back to work and is instead devoting her time to hobbies like yoga or redecorating the condo. They have also made some interesting decisions like condensing their two vehicles down to one. While this sounds practical, I don’t believe a Porsche can be considered a reasonable choice. It does seem like the magic of living together is disappearing, but I worry about their financial situation. Does Jan really have that much money having not worked in months?
While Michael was dealing with his life, there was an interesting interaction between Jim, Pam, and Dwight. Jim and Pam discovered that Dwight has been running a bed and breakfast from his him, Schrute Farms. Evidently the agrotourism industry has been highly profitable. Agrotourism consists of people staying at working farms and ranches to learn more about the running of the site. While these locations exist anywhere, it does appear that Italy and Spain have abnormally thriving industries. Europe makes sense where they have many family-run farms that go back generations and this could give them the chance to offset costs and keep their name alive. And there is a certain romanticism to visit a European farm that has been around hundreds of years. Initially Dwight was not interested in letting them book a room, I think he smelt a Jim Prank, but he changed his tune when he realized that saying no could give him a negative review on TripAdvisor. Getting a good rating on such sites can truly make-or-break a bed and breakfast, especially for such small businesses. For those interested, click here for the Schrute Farms page.
While it started off as a goof, Jim and Pam actually seemed to enjoy themselves. Schrute Farms offered a whole host of activities including table making, beet wine making, spreading manure throughout the fields, and even a bed time story. Their main voice of concern was supposed “crying out” that they heard in the middle of the night, although Dwight didn’t seem to hear anything.
It was this next morning that we learned a lot more about Michael’s situation when he was tasked with running a presentation. Ryan had told him to learn PowerPoint and to educate us all on how to use it so we can use it as a tool for selling to customers. When Michael opened his up and it required him to do a pretty large update, it was evident that he couldn’t even be bothered to open up PowerPoint. I will mention that while we still use this for slide shows today, there was a period where companies couldn’t get enough of them. So commonplace they were that I learned how to craft them in high school. While I don’t get much chance to make them, it was still a good skill to learn because you never know when you need to do a presentation. And in Michael’s defense, I would say a great way to learn PowerPoint is to go through and create a show together.
However, this realization that Michael didn’t do the work that Ryan asked him to do, resulted in him revealing he has had to take on a second job! That’s right, right after work here he goes to a telemarketing company where he works into one in the morning selling products like diet pills. Now this was shocking, but on average about 5% of the United States population has more than one job. While some might do this to have extra income, there are many who need to do this just for their livelihood. I think many of us take for granted how privileged it can be to be able to only work on job and not worry about money. But in this case, Michael is no longer going to be part of that percentage because he went ahead and quit this other job. Ryan threatened to fire him because he could not be trusted to have a second job if it impacts his current one. For the record, it is possible for a company to fire you over more than one job. There would still need to be a reason so they wouldn’t risk you retaliating legally, but if your job performance suffers due to having more than one job, this is one such reason. And let us be honest, I don’t believe Michael can suffer too many dings to his record.
And that is this week’s Breakdown! Please know that Michael’s money problems are not over, especially now that he is down a job, so please watch for next week!
My question for you, have you ever taken on a second job? For those readers who might be interested, do you have good recommendations for second jobs or side hustles?
Let us know, and until next week, I’ll see you around the Breakroom!
