Good morning and everyone welcome back to the Breakroom! I know I always talk about looking forward to the weekend but I can say that it has been awhile since I was this anxious to get to the weekend. This has been a very hectic week with all sorts of problems popping up and needing to put extra time and energy to resolve them. All sorts of problems ranging from technical issues, to more problems of people not watching their taxes, to having to help dissect pay issues going back months. I had one such issue where I actually was on the phone for close to an hour, reviewing timecards and payslips going back to last year to track down what sort of backpay is needed. By the end of it all I was very much “over it” and wanted the day to just end, but they came back with multiple emails thanking me for all that time and energy, really going above what most in my spot would have done. Working in Human Resources is not for anyone, and I think many people do not realize how draining it can to give a bit of yourself away with each call and conversation. And most of the time, we either get just a simple thank you or else we might get someone that you can tell is wishing they could just curse because it is a scenario that we cannot offer any sort of magical fix. But it is those times that people truly are grateful that do help remind us that we do make a difference and there are those who actually appreciate the work and effort we put in.
So to shout out to my fellow Human Resources colleagues, hang in there because your work does not go unnoticed! And with that, let us hop into our Breakdown at the office this week!
As many of us suspected would happen, Michael and Holly have began to start dating. It was the first time I saw how dorky Holly was, I knew that Michael Scott had finally met his match and they have gone out a couple times. I think with their most recent date, they actually got physical. Michael was in a weird headspace during that day talking about number of dates and something about probably eating soup because it was light.
Unfortunately, his special night happened at the same time that our office suffered a huge robbery! You heard that right, someone broke into the office and cleared us out of pretty much anything they thought was valuable. It was mostly our desk computers, surge protectors, the blank checks from accounting, and a couple personal items like Oscar’s laptop he left overnight. Naturally, Dwight was on top of the conversation with the police and they even discovered the security tapes were taken. Needless to say, whoever did this has to have been planning it for awhile.
What I was confused by was the fact that Dwight was simply working with law enforcement, when I would assume he’d have formed an entire internal investigation on this matter. You will recall that when Phyllis was flashed, Dwight recruited Andy and they canvased the neighborhood and even posted signs of the alleged flasher. But this time, barely anything. He has seemed out of sorts ever since Andy began handing out the save-the-dates for his and Angela’s wedding so evidently even this crime doesn’t interest him.
Michael and Holly seem particularly shocked by this incident and they are very motivated in trying to help us resolve this issue. Their big idea? C.R.I.M.E-A.I.D. You read that right, it stands for: Crime Reduces Innocence Makes Everyone Angry I Declare. A bit wordy but I think Michael was really scraping the bottom of the barrel to come up with a good acronym. The concept is that people will bid on auction items, and the proceeds will cover the losses. I will point out that Michael is only attempting to seek $3,400 because the purpose of this is to help cover our personal losses and not the items that specifically belong to the company. Obviously, things like company computers would be paid for by the company and covered under their insurance. While this isn’t an impossible amount of money, as Oscars point out it basically means we need to spend our money on other stuff just to cover our lost items. But as this was our only idea, that is what we went with.
Considering they only had a couple of hours, Michael and Holly were able to come put together a pretty good auction. The key was definitely the use Michael’s donation, tickets to see Bruce Springsteen! We even saw people from outside the office (namely the business park) but also David Wallace from corporate. I was pretty surprised he showed up but perhaps he thought it would be good for morale to have someone for corporate. Unfortunately, the auction did not do super well. We didn’t raise a ton of money off the initial items of: yoga lesson with Holly, grabbing a drink with Darryl, Creed (all inclusive), and hiring Kevin to do your taxes. David’s contribution helped generate some nice buzz because he offered up a weekend at his place in Martha’s Vineyard. While I have never been there, I have certainly heard of the Vineyard and it is an exclusive vacation spot for the wealthy, much like the Hamptons. Having access to a house even for a weekend is a pretty good deal because they can get very expensive. The only thing we assumed would do better would be Michael’s tickets to Bruce Springsteen but, sadly, we were in for a rude awakening. Michael states that they must have been stolen but I have a strong hunch that he never had any tickets.
Just when we thought it was over, Phyllis reminded us there was still her hug up for auction, and wouldn’t you know that this gets the room going. David, Bob Vance, and even Dwight were all bidding on this until it got up to $1,000. While Michael dismissed it, this ended up being a very lucrative item and helped us attempt to reach our goal.
Before closing, one thing I found interesting was that Michael couldn’t come up with any statistics on office robberies because “there wasn’t a Wikipedia page.” According to Statista, in 2023 there were 42,508 burglaries which occurred a commercial or office buildings. That is a pretty high number and, according to this grouping of data was the second highest behind Residence/Home. That being said, the Residence/Home was almost 400,000 so it is a pretty big difference1. Much like in our case, offices will have plenty of technology that can be stolen but it can be easy to trace and is often not very desirable outside of the company. Plus few offices will store cash or many valuables so they simply would rarely be seen as worth the risk.
So that is the shocking development of what happened at the office this week. Unfortunately, we may never know who broke in and how they were able to access the space so easily. I am sure Dwight is livid that the company has not taken any of his advise on bolstering security for the office.
We do not talk about security for an office very often, does your office have any sort of added security aside from key locks and security cameras at the entrances of the building? Share some of your tips!
As always, I hope you all have a great weekend, especially as we hopefully welcome some of that springtime weather. And I’ll be sure to see you around the Breakroom.
- (n.d.). Number of burglaries in the United States in 2023, by location. Statista. Retrieved April 10, 2025, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/195200/burglary-in-the-us-by-location-of-felony/#:~:text=In%202023%2C%20around%2042%2C508%20burglaries,took%20place%20on%20military%20bases. ↩︎
