Good morning everyone and welcome back to the Breakroom! This week we are unfortunately falling into the traditional summer pattern where the work days drag on yet the season seems to be passing by. I hope you all were able to enjoy your holiday weekend this last week whether it was grilling, spending time with family, or what have you. As I had mentioned we decided to run off to see Jurassic World: Rebirth which I am going to highly recommend as the dinosaur film of the year. Between all of the fun dinosaur scenes and Jonathan Bailey in his “slutty little glasses” I think there is something for everyone. And I’ve been rocking the new Jurassic Park hat and t-shirt since then to show my appreciation for the franchise. Afterwards we hosted a barbecue and mini bonfire so all-in-all it was a great time. We did skip the fireworks as our dogs do not like them, and honestly they’re nothing super important so I’d rather relaxing after a busy day anyways. The rest of the weekend was brought to us by Costco as during our weekend trip we decided to go through all of the summer products and we decided to get this badminton set that sets up fast, plus a pool for the dogs. I think we had more fun than they did and we finally got our summer sunburn. Nothing of note this week aside from my husband heading out for the weekend back down to Kansas City for his final requirement before he can begin teaching as a Lanza educator. And I’m going force myself to be productive and work on a couple of projects I have going on. So that is my recap, I’d love to hear from my reader(s) of anything fun you did over the holiday weekend when you were not in the office!
And while you think back, let us jump into the continuation of what has been going on in the office. Where we left everyone, Michael and Pam were out on a lecture circuit visiting the other branches while Jim and Dwight were attempting to throw Kelly her (belated) office birthday.
After Pam had a cathartic moment visiting Karen, Michael realized that perhaps this was why he is still so upset over Holly. They left so much out in the open that they need to have some sort of conclusion to that moment in their lives. So they decide to head up to the Nashua branch and include them in their lecture circuit and Michael and get some face time with Holly. Unfortunately, this does not go as expected when they arrive only to discover that she is out of town on a retreat and is unavailable. Not only that, they discover she already had a boyfriend who works in the sales department, AJ. I find it very interesting that after being transferred for dating someone in the office, she is already dating someone again. Yes, AJ is not management like Michael was but it is very odd that she continues to date people she works with. Are we sure that perhaps the reason she had to leave her last job wasn’t because she ended up dating too many coworkers? Guess we will never know, but probably. Pam was still able to talk Michael into putting on the lecture to save face, and maybe be a special story everyone will talk about when Holly returns. And it was sort of working, unlike the other branches Nashua seemed genuinely excited and interested in his performance. Until Michael began to spiral by fixating on AJ, Holly, and just the fact that they are no longer together. Pam attempts to take over the presentation to salvage a bit of self respect but Pam by no means has the same level of showmanship that Michael brought to the lecture.
While Pam was doing this, Michael strolled to the back of the office and was able to find Holly’s desk. In his weird headspace, he decided to cut a sleeve from her sweater to remember her by. I’m just going to say, he could have just taken the whole sweater because losing a sweater is much more plausible than misplacing a full sleeve. That wasn’t even the worse part, though, as Michael noticed Holly’s computer was still on and he copied a document titled “Dear Michael.” Holly is gone for a few days and she just left her computer unlocked? Being in human resources, she will have certain access on her computer that other people do not have and in companies like mine you could get in trouble for leaving a computer unlocked like that. Michael did recognize how inappropriate this was because he admitted it to Pam, seemingly hoping for permission to be able to read it. Pam was adamant about it being a breach of trust and that he could not read it, but she certainly could since she wasn’t in love with Holly. Pam wouldn’t reveal the exact details, but she seemed very confident that Holly was not over Michael and there may still have been a chance. Not exactly a perfect ending to their story, but perhaps it gave Michael a bit of hope in the sense that Holly still wasn’t over him.
Back at the office, you will recall that after everyone forgot Kelly’s birthday (aside from Phyllis who still chose not to say anything) Jim and Dwight need to make up for it with a special party. Despite being such creative individuals with so much passion for things, they are potentially the worst party planners I’ve ever seen. Dwight was doing research to verify Kelly’s age and discovered that she was in juvenile detention when she was a teenager and decides to harass her about it. Turns out she stole a boat that she thought belonged to her boyfriend at the time. Pretty serious but she was just a teen back then and really has no bearing on her current life. Jim tries to make her forget about this by showing off the ice cream cake he got from the store. I do not know why the store sold this, but it was literally just a blank sheet cake with no color, toys, or decorations. It did not represent the theme of the party because Jim and Dwight did not pick a theme. There should always be a theme to a party, and it doesn’t even need to be that complicated. My barbecue last week? It was a 4th of July party with barbecue, drinks, and I made a white chocolate cheese cake and homemade compotes of raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries to be the red, white, and blue. They literally could have made the theme “birthday” and get some flashy colors on the cake of balloons and fireworks and that would have covered it. I am not saying that throwing parties are always easy, but I am saying that there is a difference between putting in little effort compared to Jim and Dwight’s putting in no effort.
But they cannot comprehend how simple a theme can be and start breaking down what they would want to see in a party. Dwight doesn’t celebrate parties in his family so he pitches ideas like “horse hunt” because he doesn’t see the appeal. I loved Jim’s favorite birthday memory when his father took him to the Natural History Museum in New York and then bought him a triceratops toy which was always one of my favorite dinosaurs. Unfortunately, Kelly doesn’t seem like the type who would be wowed by a dinosaur party as much as I would be. In a surprise twist, they are ultimately able to put together an idea for Kelly. Using a rectangular piece of gum on her cake, it represents either a pillow to take a nap for an hour, or a television to watch for an hour at work. After some debate, she settles on taking a nap (I pry would’ve taken television). Not my idea of an office party but Kelly seemed to love it so they did succeed at this endeavor.
There was still one big event at the office which would explain why Angela wasn’t passing off judgement on Jim and Dwight, and that was Angela got a new cat! She decided to get a new cat related to the cat from Meet the Parents and is a third generation show cat named Princess Lady; all for the small price of $7,000. Where did she get this? She decided to sell Andy’s engagement ring because “he wouldn’t have wanted it returned.” There seems to be some debate online over what would normally be done in the situation. You would think that the ring should go back to Andy since the wedding didn’t occur, but there are those who see the ring as a gift and should belong to Angela. When it comes to engagement rings, particularly valuable ones, I have my own personal opinion on how it should be worked out. I believe the fate of the ring should come down to the circumstances of the breakup. Typically, whomever is the one who chooses to call off the wedding should give up ownership of the ring. However, if the person calling off the wedding is doing so not because they have changed their mind but because the other person committed a betrayal serious enough for a breakup, they should be entitled to it as compensation. To walk through their scenario, Andy was the one who formally broke up with Angela so he called off the wedding. But he did this because Angela was cheating on him and because she betrayed their relationship, I believe she ring should have been retuned to Andy because she betrayed what the engagement ring represented. Do you all agree with me or do you have a different opinion? I would love to hear from a lawyer on if there is some sort of precedent when it comes to the fate of a valuable engagement ring after a broken engagement.
Semantics aside, Angela is thrilled to have a new cat at home, and is devastated that she has used all her personal time and that “pet maternity” is not currently a thing. I did look it up, and there is a trend of “Pawternity” where the company allows employees time to take off for a pet. Glancing at the examples provided, they were predominately pet-related companies like veterinary companies or pet insurance. I would love to see this as the wave of the future; I may never have human children but I’ll certainly have fur babies needing my attention. Unable to take time off, Angela has resorted to the use of a pet cam so she could watch them all day. That sounds cute but obviously the purpose is to watch for ay problems, and that is what happened. While Princess Lady is a sweet feline, some of her other cats couldn’t resist the chance to climb all over her. This prompted Angela to rush home to get them sorted out and in their respective corners. Unfortunately, she forgot to turn off the camera so she didn’t realize that a few of us were able to see her on camera taking care of her cats. This wouldn’t be weird, except she was actually licking Princess Lady to clean her. Evidently this is a thing, but it is usually done with young kittens who do not have a mom to take care of them. They even have fake tongues to use so people do not need to lick them directly, but it is meant to help show them affection. If Princess Lady was a young kitten it might not be as weird, but it makes me question how much licking is actually going on. None of us said anything but she better watch herself in the future to not get on our bad side.
And that, everyone, was the conclusion to this Breakdown! Michael didn’t really get his ideal conclusion with Holly, but he is walking away with a sense of hope. Jim and Dwight were somehow able to pull off the party, but I still agree they are two of the last people who should ever be in charge of planning a party. And Angela has a brand new cat at home, which I always adore a happy ending involving pets. I hope you all have a fantastic weekend and can get away from work, not thinking about your job, and just enjoy the summer vibes. Until next time, I’ll see you around the Breakroom.
