Good morning everyone and welcome back to the Breakroom! Do you ever have those weeks where you look back and it feels like it was busy with a lot going on, but you keep coming up empty on what it was? I think with work there was some big topics coming up between a project I am working on relating to donation deductions and then a union strike that had been in place for a couple of weeks. Altogether these ended up being pretty mentally draining, mainly because I often build certain projects up in my head because I am trying to prepare for the worse case scenario. I took yesterday off and that ended up being a pretty good day. Got to sleep in which I do not get to do very often, ran some errands with my husband as we picked up various items for his salon space that is incredibly close to completion. And now here today I’m going in optimistic that although I have a couple of projects to complete, it will be a good day and I can get into the weekend. Now for my readers who are fellow Dungeons and Dragons players, I think you’ll understand the stress I incurred from our most recent session where my character was killed, brought back as a zombie, killed again before I could act as a zombie, resurrected back as a person, killed before I could do anything, and then brought back once more where I used my actions to simply try to heal to keep from dying all over again. Please know that the Eve of Vecna campaign is pretty serious. I will admit to feeling pretty upset throughout the whole interaction, which I believe most people would be, but am trying to not let it sour my enjoyment of the game.
With that recap out there, let us jump into the official Breakdown.
We started the day with some peak Michael Scott material all tied to him trying to be funny. He was eager to tell Pam a joke, so eager that he was bothering her during a phone call with a client. She was trying to provide contact info to the client in order to fax over some paperwork and Michael starts saying random numbers and talking over everything that Pam was really struggling. She pointed out how that made us look unprofessional but Michael assured her it was fine because they had no reason to know it was him who was doing that. I don’t know who needs to hear this but if someone is on the phone, at work or otherwise, do not bother them unless it is a life-and-death situation. Having a hilarious joke to tell is not a good reason. The breakroom is is on fire, now that would be an appropriate excuse to interrupt them. Michael’s killer joke?
Knock-knock. Who’s there?
Buddha. Buddha who?
Buddha this bread for me. (Michael has a slice of bread and stick of butter in his hands that he then puts on the desk).
Not the joke of century so I would be pretty annoyed and disappointed that the joke wasn’t even that good. To join in the fun, Dwight interjects with his own joke.
Knock-knock. Who’s there?
KGB. KG-?
(Slaps Michael) We will ask the questions!
Now this joke I like, I feel those questions that interrupt the usual structure of the joke are extra funny but in this case you should be careful of who you are slapping. Michael was so annoyed he actually called for an end to all knock-knock jokes, until Jim throws out a ding-dong (like a doorbell) to retell the KGB joke. Neither of them are falling for it but Jim is able to slap Dwight while declaring “The KGB will wait for no one.” Again, this joke is pretty solid but I would argue it is not one that you can do with just anyone.
The big event of the day was surrounding the anticipation of Michael’s most recent initiative called the “Golden Ticket Promotion.” Enthralled that he was the first one to come up with this idea to take the concept from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory he has hidden five golden tickets in random boxes of paper that were shipped out each offering a 10% discount. So eager with anticipation was Michael that he came in dressed as Willy Wonka and was dancing around the office, gloating about how he is the only one trying to offer up ideas on par with the golden ticket.
He attempted to do a brainstorming meeting in which he encouraged other employees to voice their golden ticket idea, but it didn’t go as expected. Jim’s were too wordy (truly good ideas should summed up in one or two words) while Andy was stuck on thinking the ideas needed to use the phrase “golden.” Michael tries to explain what are considered golden ticket ideas including Post-Its and that to get to the moon, NASA had to use use five or six golden ticket ideas. Now running a brainstorming session at work can be a great idea to get unique ideas and viewpoints that you would not have thought of. But there is more to running such a meeting than telling them to give your ideas. Tom Krieglstein goes into detail in an article he wrote on his LinkedIn with some tips including providing a clear goal of what these ideas should work towards, setting the right tone, and even recognizing that you need to address that most groups have a combination of introverts and extroverts. To give my own personal experience, when in a smaller group of perhaps 10 or less people I do find myself pretty vocal with giving ideas and insight into the question at hand and will usually feel pretty confident. Once you get into more people than that, you find yourself competing with (as Tom puts it) extrovert hijacks, the person who can somehow take over the entire meeting. Brainstorming should be a creative collaboration but that doesn’t mean there should be so some rules and boundaries in place, so I would recommend you do some research before throwing your staff into one1.
Perhaps the most annoying aspect of this was how smug Michael was and how he feels he invented the golden ticket concept (basically just a coupon). He was, at least, until he first call came in from a recipient of the coupon. It was one of Jim’s clients and Michael was stoked until he found it was Blue Cross of Pennsylvania. Being one our of biggest clients, losing 10% is a pretty big deal. That is until it is revealed they received all five coupons which means we are losing a staggering 50% in their order. To make matters worse, Jim reports this all to corporate to explain to them why they will see a sudden drop in his sales following this incident. Typical Michael fashion, what started off with him in a good mood has now left him spiraling on how to handle this. Also true Michael fashion, he handles this spiraling very poorly.
He attempts to do some damage control and how he does this is by backpedaling his involvement with the golden ticket idea. This is pretty difficult to do while dressed up like Willy Wonka so he went ahead and changed out of the costume, even tossing it in the dumpster like it was never there. He then holds another meeting where he explains that he tends to take in all of our ideas so this golden ticket idea was really our idea and he wasn’t involved. It was then that Michael had to face the music and take a call from David Wallace at corporate who was expecting an explanation on how this happened. And Michael chose to throw Dwight under the bus as being responsible for the idea. This then motivates Michael to take Dwight away on a friendly stroll. He uses this entire time to convince Dwight to take the fall as it would be good because he could focus more on the farm and bed and breakfast, but Michael only has this job. That and the idea for a men’s shoe store (Shoe La La) where one could buy shoes for every moment in a man’s life. I did like learning more about Michael’s idea for his own store, I think it is very telling of people to ask what they would do if they could open their own business. I personally would love my own bookstore which would could also host classes and readings, along with coffee and baked goods. Simple and while it is not something I am working towards, if I was suddenly given a blank check to go out and open up my own storefront that is likely what I would do.
I have to hand it to Michael with this whole Wonka situation. As disgusting as he is in how he has completely flipped to hide that it was his idea, I would argue this is a true masterclass in how to do so. There are not many people who can show up dressed in a Wonka Costume, spend all morning bragging about how it was their idea, and then can instantly turn around and say they had no involvement. With that level of denial and deceit, I think he should consider running for president.
He will come to regret his decisions when David Wallace shows because just as Dwight seems ready to accept responsibility, David reveals the golden ticket idea ended up being a success! Blue Cross was so excited over the discount, they are committing Dunder Mifflin to also be their vendor on office supplies. Knowing how much office supplies can go for, and how quickly offices can consume them, this could be a big deal in the long-term. And Dwight is all too eager to take the praise for this idea, and Jim and Pam quickly rally behind him and insist Dwight deserves all of the credit. Yet again we see Michael spiral because now that it is praise, he really wants the recognition that he came up with the concept. Not only that, but David takes Dwight into a phone call with the Dunder Mifflin marketing team to brainstorm additional ideas. Well that has to be Michael’s dream to be asked for his ideas. He keeps assuming Dwight will reveal that it wasn’t his idea and when he doesn’t, Michael has to suddenly just let it slip out. Proceed to Dwight and Michael arguing in front of David to the point that he no longer cares and quickly leaves Scranton and just wants to forget about this whole incident.
While I might be in awe at how Michael was able to backtrack his way out of being tied to the golden tickets, one of the most important aspects of being out in the business world is to learn to accept responsibility for your actions. Too often we hear about those in leadership positions who attempt to find a “fall guy” for a situation so they do not have take the blame. I’m afraid that in my opinion, that just happens to be part of being in such a high position. You are overpaid because you need to take on responsibility for when something goes wrong, especially when it is your fault. But the same goes for us who are not in such positions as I have certainly made mistakes or made decisions that didn’t pan out right. The best thing to do is own up to the error so you can begin formulating a means of correcting the issue. No one wants to be in trouble, but I feel that your merit as an employee comes not just from your accomplishments but also from how you handle your failures.
And that is this week’s Breakdown, I hope you all found it incredibly exciting. I do want to call out that Excalibur Con 2025 is quickly coming up this next month. You can get all of the information, including purchasing your tickets in advance at https://mnswca.org/excalibur-con-2025 and I look forward to seeing you there!
As always, I’ll see you around the Breakroom.
- Krieglstein, T. (2024, January 23). How to Run an Effective Brainstorming Session. LinkedIn. Retrieved July 24, 2025, from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-run-effective-brainstorming-session-tom-krieglstein-gpxge/ ↩︎
