Good morning everyone and welcome back to the Breakroom. It is Friday and this weekend couldn’t have come at a better time. Like many people in the country, we here in Minnesota have had some fun weather this week. It was so sunny and warm that I was actually starting to see grass, then it snowed a few inches and covered it all up and created some slick roads, and then it warmed up again and is quickly melting it all over again. We are pretty lucky because I have seen that the weather is significantly worse around the country. Some locations are reporting greater amounts of snow, others have had wildfires which is often linked to too little water, and I thought there were even mudslides perhaps down south. If the weather wasn’t bad enough, there has also been a great deal of political discord across the board. One of the most recent issues is a series of tariffs being imposed across the board; the United States is imposing them on Canada, Mexico, and China who are planning on returning the favor. I am not sure everyone understands what tariffs are and the impact they have. Simply put, tariffs are a type of tax imposed on goods imported from another country. I think it is important to mention that if a tariff is placed on a good, such as lumber from Canada, the tariff is paid by the business who is importing the lumber from Canada into the United States. Now that a business is paying extra for the lumber, it is not uncommon for that extra tax to be charged to the end goods or services offered to their customers. Tariffs traditionally do not see a lot of benefit in the end, and if anything their goal is to promote businesses and consumers to look at domestic goods rather than international. Our biggest concern should be who will actually “win” the tariff war because more than likely some countries will be feeling the pressure more than others1. If you have been watching the news or social media, Canada in particular has chosen to rise to the challenge of going out of their way to not purchase goods from the United States. We are even seeing them remove such products from the stores, with liquor being removed being one of the most prominent as items like whiskey and wine are important exports to Canada2. I know that not everyone understands how the economy works or the mindset behind such political decisions, but a tariff war is a sign of a leader who does not understand, or care, about such things. For those of you who think that Donald Trump is being smart with putting us at odds with ally countries are very wrong and need to educate yourself on the economy. And not from rightwing, conspiracy blogs but from textbooks and business journals.
With your homework assigned to you, let us get to the business at hand and talk about the conclusion of Toby’s last day.
Picking up, Toby had reached out to Michael to initiate his exit interview and I was very surprised at this. While I have not left too many positions, I have never formally had such an interview. The purpose of an exit interview is to get feedback from the outgoing employee to learn their overall satisfaction and get any insight on how things could be done better going forward. The types of questions you will receive will vary but they are typically tied to your overall time with the company. One might be asking why you are choosing to leave the company and/or position, basically trying to find out if there was a problem with one rather than simply time to move on. Other examples could be what could be done better, what did we do right, do you have feedback for leadership, and so on. It is important to point out the importance of going into the interview calm, collected, and not see this as a chance to “let loose” your opinions. Knowing you are leaving a company makes it very tempting to tell off everyone you had problems with and let them know everything you have been holding in for potentially years. But just because you may have a new job lined up, doesn’t mean you want to instantly leave the company with a grudge. Anytime you leave a company, it is important to be able to call upon them as a future reference, and that is only possible be keeping your reputation in tact. If you have only good memories and things to say, then that is great and the interview would go smoothly. But certainly provide a bit of honest feedback because in many larger companies we do not always get the chance to give our insight into certain aspects of the company3.
Toby’s exit interview was a bit of a whirlwind and interesting in that it wasn’t Toby who trying to get stuff off his chest. It started with Michael and Toby, and Michael was fired up and really motivated. Just as he was getting ready to let off some steam, Holly pops in because normally Human Resources would be there so she needs to start doing her job. Before Michael could argue, Pam also stepped inside assuming that Michael would like her to take notes. Now Michael, as he told me later, had to watch what he said because he was evidently trying to be a good guy in front of Holly. Despite the multitude of possible questions that could be asked, Michael went with:
1. Who do you think you are?
2. What gives you the right?
3. What would you do to improve the company? (Michael quickly backtracked on this one)
Perhaps realizing that Michael was not feeling these questions, it was suggested that Toby open up the going away present Michael had picked out for him. Turns out it was rock that said “Suck on this” to which Michael acts completely unaware. He tried to pass this off on someone else but then, of course, Dwight informs everyone it was Michael’s idea. Quickly pivoting, Michael tries to pass this off as a joke and was not his real present. Seemingly at a loss of what the real gift was, Pam queries if it was his watch, to which he admits it was. Certainly not the sort of exit interview Michael was hoping for, he didn’t get to berate Toby as he’d hoped and he had to give away his watch.
The rest of the interview was forgotten because at that precise moment, we all were alerted to the fact that our own Ryan Howard was seen being arrested in a video online. It seems that because Ryan was banking his entire job on the expensive website he designed, he was nervous when it wasn’t producing the amount of sales he needed. This was when he started having people, including us, take any sale made by a salesman and then add it into the website as well. This is also known as misleading the shareholders, better known as fraud. I am amazed this wasn’t caught sooner because that entire business was suspicious and I’ve been voicing my concerns over it. Now, if you ask Oscar he will say he thinks the true crime was Ryan’s beard; personally I didn’t mind it so much, although it did add a touch of villainy to his appearance. Most of us really were not to brokenhearted over this news. Jim and Pam were laughing over it, especially since Ryan was very obviously trying to get Jim fired. Kelly was excited to be able to stop by and visit Ryan in prison to show off what he gave up. But it was Michael who actually was broken up over the situation and was incredibly worried about him. Cut to Holly dropping everything to make sure he was okay and offer him some support, which certainly seemed to cheer him up.
Michael wasn’t down for long because Phyllis let us know that Toby’s party was officially ready, and we should come out to the parking lot. I do not know how she got it all arranged, but she converted the entire parking lot to this mini carnival. There was a Ferris wheel, food trucks with things like corn dogs and funnel cakes, a bouncy house, barbecue, dance floor, and Darryl was there with his band. As Michael explained, this was potentially the best party we had every had (much to Angela’s chagrin). He really got into it the festivities with his parody song, Goodbye Toby (from Goodbye Stranger). Honestly, the only rough part of the party was when Michael caught Dwight, Meredith, and Mose (Dwight’s cousin) loading a raccoon into Holly’s car. They try to explain this was some friendly hazing, to which Michael explains there is no such thing as friendly hazing and that Holly was the greatest thing to happen to the company since World War 2. As I said last week, hazing is not fun or funny and I am adamantly opposed to any form of hazing. It isn’t funny when a fraternity does it in college, and even less so when adults try to do it in the workplace so just don’t even try it.
Michael was deep in conversation with Holly, with some major flirting going on, when he got a call from Kevin who had ran to the grocery store for more barbecue sauce. Michael didn’t show up until the end of the party and didn’t say much, but Kevin had been all too eager to share the dirt. He ran into Jan at the store and immediately called Michael to swing by because he wanted him to see that she was very pregnant. By “very” I mean she obviously had to have gotten pregnant while she was still with Michael. Given that he never told us about this, the assumption was that Michael had no idea and that the two of them had some things they needed to talk about.
The party came to a close with a big firework display that was a perfect ending to the festivities. At least it was, until our own Andy Bernard decided to use this as the opportunity to formally propose to Angela in front of us all. Well, us all plus his parents who had appeared out of no where (likely at Andy’s invitation). After a slightly awkward silence, Angela gave a resounding “okay.” They really haven’t been going out very long and honestly, I cannot imagine that their relationship is that intense that they are there yet. But they are both odd and honestly, cannot imagine they have many other options out there so good for them.
And that was the wrap up of Toby’s final day at the office, and his going away party! Does anyone have any going away parties that can compare to all of that? How about any business owners who are facing struggles with the recent tariffs and how is your company responding to them? Or if you’d rather answer a fun one, if you could have any one thing at a going away party for yourself, what would it be?
Until next time, have a great weekend and I’ll see you around the Breakroom.
- Buchwald, E. (2025, March 5). What is a tariff and who pays it? CNN. Retrieved March 6, 2025, from https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/05/business/what-is-tariff-who-pays-imports/index.html ↩︎
- Boak, J. (2025, March 6). Trump’s trade war draws swift retaliation with new tariffs from Mexico, Canada and China. Associated Press. Retrieved March 6, 2025, from https://apnews.com/article/trump-tariffs-canada-mexico-china-643086a6dc7ff716d876b3c83e3255b0 ↩︎
- Herrity, J. (2025, March 3). 12 Exit Interview Questions To Expect and How To Prepare. Indeed. Retrieved March 6, 2025, from https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/starting-new-job/exit-interview-questions ↩︎
