Good morning everyone and welcome back to the Breakroom! I hope you have all had a great week, I feel like every week lately seems to be a rollercoaster of emotions. Usually the week starts off productive and passing by quickly, and the second part of the week just drags on and the weekend is just out of reach. Thankfully the weekend is right around the corner so you just need to make it through today! Not a whole lot of updates otherwise, so why don’t we get right to the Breakdown?
The big event of the day was that Dunder Mifflin decided to take part in a local high school job fair. Michael attended along with Oscar, Pam, and Darryl in an effort to get some interns to work at the office over the summer. Now I personally have a major gripe with how internships tend to work, specifically those that are unpaid. Our particular ones have not been approved for any pay, and they are not even eligible to receive college credit which means all it is will be work experience. Now experience sounds great and might be there to pad your resume, but very few people can actually do an unpaid internship without still needing to have additional jobs that allow them to be paid. I personally will voice my belief that unpaid internships should be illegal; you are doing work and deserve to be paid during those hours. As far as I am concerned, if you cannot afford to pay someone for working for you then you cannot be considered a company suitable to host interns and teach them about the business world. Given that these internships would not be paid, I was not truly expecting them to return with anyone willing to accept such position.
Now job fairs are a very real thing and high schools and colleges do try to host them at least once or twice a year. Besides trying to get entry level positions filled, a big part of them is it gets students thinking about their future. They can speak to experts in various fields and they can make some decisions on what sort of majors the should be considering as they plan for their future. But these fairs do happen for more than just students as local communities will routinely have them where businesses in the area can meet with potential candidates looking for jobs. If you are looking for a new job and are not having luck with finding open positions, maybe consider looking to see if there are any job fairs on the calendar in your area. Not even company uses online job boards, especially small businesses, so this might give you the chance to find jobs that were never even posted. Plus, it allows you to speak directly to leaders and recruiters can allow you to ask questions and get a better feel on if they line up with what you are looking for in an employer.
This particular fair is being hosted at Pam’s old high school, so she is really excited to return where she had “fond” memories. Truthfully, I do like that old adage that you know you peaked in high school if you actually miss it because I certainly do not miss it. Besides Pam going because it is her alma mater, Darryl was selected because he is looking for help in the warehouse while Oscar is there for a possible intern for accounting. What is really interesting is the differences in how they are approaching today’s events. Darryl is dressed up more than he normally is as he hopes to give a sense of professionalism. Michael, on the other hand, has dressed down because he is trying to pass along the impression that they are the cool, fun office. I believe Michael’s philosophy is, people will overlook the fact they are not getting paid because they will have so much fun simply being there. This is truly a terrible expectation to give to kids and exactly what is wrong with the United States work ethic. We need to get away from the belief of working off the clock or for free and focus on you should earn your livable wage, and then go home and focus on yourself. I can assure you, the majority of the world focuses on the “work to live” philosophy rather than “work to live.”
Ultimately, the job fair goes exactly as I anticipated it would in that they walk away with no interns. They had one kid interested but Michael scared him away because he didn’t feel he was cool enough to work at Dunder Mifflin. Michael gets so upset with the disrespect he feels the company is getting that he got up in front of the entire gymnasium of companies and students to tell them all why none of them are as good as them. Needless to say, the rest of the team there was pretty mortified to be associated with Michael after all of that.
While that was going on, Jim was off with his own team of Andy and Kevin at the local golf course trying to court a potentially big client. His company is responsible for a great deal of junk mail, so that is a pretty lucrative client for those working in the paper industry. You can tell that Jim is pretty motivated to woo this client given that they are going golfing rather than a simple pitch meeting. I am not fully sure how golf became synonymous with doing business, I did some online searching and found mixed reviews. Some articles talked about because of their relation to country clubs while others talked about how a few major tycoons were into the sport and it simply got popular because of it. Or it may be because there are not a lot of sports that allow people to spend a few hours together, walking and chatting. Personally I think golf is tedious and boring, so you will not catch me out on a golf course trying to network. I think we should normalize large miniature golf courses, because those are actually interesting and fun. Or why not normalize doing business at a zoo or aquarium? You can still walk around but this time you can look at animals while you talk your shoptalk. Someone get a letter out to Forbes on that!
It sounds like this potential client is a big golfer and he was the one who suggested it. Talking to Jim after, I don’t think the client had any intention of signing on and was simply using this as excuse to get out of the office. That is terrible excuse; you own a company, you shouldn’t be at the golf course. Likewise if you are in charge of running a country as the leader, you shouldn’t be allowed to set foot on a golf course until your term is over because you have more important things to do than wasting it on a tedious sport. No offense, but there is reason why golf is often referred to as “a good walk wasted.”
Jim pesters him all day long but to no avail, he continues to talk down his offers because it is simply not a good time. Kevin and Andy are not really any help at the moment. Andy is complaining the entire time because his hands are full of “blisties” from all of his golf practice the night before, and Kevin is focused on their bets they have on the golf game, convinced he can make a profit. But Jim does not relent and in the end, he explains that he will continue to pester him every single day until he gives Jim his business and he agrees. This is huge! Jim was recently put on notice by our old buddy Ryan because he isn’t trying hard enough, so this is the type of sale that can truly make a difference.
With all of these fun outings, you might be wondering about the rest of us at the office. Naturally, with Michael and Jim not there we don’t think we should have to be stuck at work. Dwight doesn’t agree and he is adamant that we need to work the entire day. Stanly just walked right out without heeding him any attention. The rest of us? As soon as Dwight got up to go the bathroom, we booked it an took off for the rest of the day; I knew Michael wouldn’t care, mainly because his focus would’ve been on the job fair. I will admit that not everyone bailed, Angela remained the stickler as always and stayed behind to see her work day out.
And that was our office day. We took part in a job fair, a business deal at the golf course, and partook in a small walkout. Which do you think sounded the most fun? I would love to know if any of you have your own “golf course.” As in, where you you like to do business? Do you like my idea of doing business at the zoo or do you have an even better idea that should replace the golf course?
I hope you all have a great weekend, and as always I’ll be sure to see you around the Breakroom!
