Good morning and welcome back to the Breakroom!
We have certainly had a pretty interesting week in the country, and in the universe, as perhaps the one of the biggest events in the news (and social media) is the all-women spaceflight through Blue Origin. What made this event so controversial is that among the riders were singer Katie Perry, journalist Gale King, and Lauren Sanchez, fiancé of Jeff Bezos (founder of Blue Origin). While the goal of this flight was to encourage getting more women into the sciences, many have been critical of this attempt for a number of reasons. First of all, Blue Origin’s primary focus has been pushing towards the commercialization of space travel. Considering most Americans have not even left North America, the main customer base of this endeavor would be only the ultra wealthy who can afford the multi-million dollar ticket associated. Second, the fact that this “stunt” included individuals (like Perry or Sanchez) who have no connection to the scientific community has raised eyebrows as to how this can truly represent it as step towards inclusion of women in the sciences. And third, the entire process would have been a multi-billion dollar event in time when many people are struggling to simply put food on the table, go to the doctor, or pay their rent. That brings into question, shouldn’t this money have been better off being put towards supporting struggling communities rather than literally blasting it into space. I do believe and support that we need to encourage women in the sciences, but I do not believe this actually did that. What about you? Do you agree with me or do you disagree and believe that it did contribute to that cause? Slap in the face to the patriarchy, or publicity stunt from a business? Feel free to comment and let us know your opinion on this matter!
With that, let us breakdown what happened at the office! Starting off, we have flashback to Halloween at the office! There are many offices and businesses who are okay with dressing up, but it is important to verify if the one you work in is one of them. Dunder Mifflin in Scranton is very pro-costume and they are even encouraged to dress up and be part of the festivities. A key aspect that makes it possible is although meetings and sales calls are sometimes done in person, most of the business is over the phone. Pam, being up in New York studying at Pratt, discovered that the corporate office does not take part in the festivities and she learned this the hard way. She showed up dressed up like Charlie Chaplain, including using grease paint with her hair and to create a mustache. Since it is not so easy to pop back to her place in New York City, she is stuck dressed like this all day. Sure she could take off her hat, though this would result in her looking like Hitler. Do not make this same mistake, please double check before just assuming you can dress up.
Back at Scranton, we came across the next most embarrassing moment with Halloween (assuming that you can dress up) and that is multiple people show up in the same costume. In this case we had Creed, Kevin, and Dwight all dress up like Heath Ledger’s Joker. I don’t have any good recommendations on how to prevent this, because you often do not want to disclose your costume ahead of time to be a surprise. I can say that costumes associated with major cultural phenomenon like new movies are usually pretty likely costumes, so you could always try to deviate from those types of costumes. Charlie Chaplain is recognizable but not a costume you will see very often, which is why Pam’s costume was pretty good in my opinion.
As for what actually happened at the office, surprisingly there wasn’t a lot of actual business going on today. Michael and Holly were both out because Holly is unfortunately being transferred to Nashua. It sounds like David Wallace wasn’t thrilled at this office relationship and insisted that they cannot be at the same branch, so Holly was selected to be relocated. There are businesses out there who do have pretty strict rules regarding relationships between colleagues, in particular to those in roles overseeing each other. Holly might not report to Michael, but being in human resources it is important that she be able to maintain a level of oversight over Michael. Personally, I think the key piece was the fact that after all that happened between Michael and Jan, the company is being stricter on these types of relationships. They seemed optimistic and intended to make it work long distance despite it being seven hours away (they were wrong with this, it is actually only five hours away). So start this journey, Michael wanted to help Holly with the move and they even enlisted Darryl to drive them up (along with all of Holly’s things). I know Darryl thought it was a smart move because he is being kept on the clock, but I seriously doubt how much he thought about being in a vehicle with the two of them for that long.
With Michael gone, this left Jim in charge so he was there to watch the office; or was he? I watched as he walked Michael out and then proceeded to drive away, leaving us at the office. Turns out, he chose to use this opportunity to visit Pam up in New York and he was excited because his two brothers were going to meet Pam for the first time at lunch since the engagement. Meeting siblings is always awkward, especially when you are marrying into the family because they start to become your own siblings. Thankfully my husband and I have lucked out as we all have some great in-laws on both sides, but you always see things on social media of people talking about crazy people marrying into the family (or they marry into) so I am so grateful I’ve never had to experience that.
So with them gone we were left with Andy and Dwight in charge of the office (although I don’t believe they even noticed that Jim was gone). How did that go? Again, they didn’t seem to realize they were at work because they were butting heads all day over Dwight’s reveal that he was applying to Cornell University, Andy’s alma mater. Pretty quick I could tell Dwight was only doing this to egg Andy on with a combination of Dwight saying he was just as good as Andy, and that his college really was not that unique. I feel what really upset Andy was the fact that he is one of those people whose identity is directly linked to their education. He comes from a line of Cornell graduates and sees it as a status symbol. I am just going to let people know that most people really do not care about what college you graduated from. My experience is that the only people who are impressed that you came from a specific college are people who also came from that school and this creates this biased perception towards their success or intelligence. At the end of the day, it is your degree and not the school that really counts so don’t think you have to attend a school just because of the fancy name. The key difference? The fancy name usually comes with a much larger cost associated for essentially the same education.
And that, everyone, is a Breakdown of what happened at the office! Not super lengthy but as I said, work itself was business as usual. And actually, with the usual distractions off doing their own thing, we could focus on just getting our duties down on time.
I hope you all have a great week Friday, great weekend, and as always I hope to see you again around the Breakroom!
