Good morning everyone and welcome back to the Breakroom! Hope you are all doing well this week, especially given that it does feel like fall this week. While I have not officially started decorating for Halloween (although parts of my house already have this aesthetic) I did make some chicken noodle soup with a leftover rotisserie chicken so I can officially say I’ve gone into soup and stew season.
What I want to talk about this week, which has been a bit of a pattern it seems, is about motivation. What do we do to keep ourselves motivated for our personal goals and ambitions. This week my husband and I have not actually made it to the gym since Saturday. We have been busy with things around the house, work has been busy, and just in general some personal things have left us without the motivation. This is certainly one of the reasons we stopped working out before, and it is quite common with anyone trying to stay active. But what happens is you get out of the routine and you start to think of yourself as a failure and before you know it you are spiraling. And the old me certainly used to be like that and even as I write this, I am reminding myself that I have not failed. Life happens and despite what we do, it is impossible to control every aspect of our lives and sometimes it means we have to make compromises. But I am planning on going to the gym after this so that is my new goal and I intend on following through. Another example of motivation? I had interviewed for a job a couple of weeks ago and yesterday I got a phone call back on it and was told that they were going with another candidate. Evidently I surprised the recruiter with how calm I was over it, explaining that because I knew the interviewing manager, if they went with someone else I trust that it was someone who was a better fit for the position. I admitted that of course I was disappointed, but given that I had no negative feedback on my interview and I believe I did the best I could there wasn’t much use putting myself down. So what did I do? I went ahead and found another position or two and applied for them, trying to stay confident and motivated that I will achieve my professional goals. I know I sound incredibly confident and optimistic like (like the vast majority of LinkedIn “influencers”) but truth is I am also scared and struggle with remaining so confident in my skills. I tell you all to remain motivated and confident because that is what most of have. We have the world making us feel like we are not good enough, so we have support each other and come back with a reaffirming “yes we are.” To reaffirm my confidence I full intend to spend a good half hour of cardio listening to some inspiring music (thinking TX2 and Arrows in Action) and then track down a couple other jobs I meant to apply to before the weekend.
So, to my readers, how do you inspire yourself to stay confident and motivated when you feel like giving up?
I have either inspired you or thoroughly made you depressed, hopefully the former because here at the Breakroom the only ones allowed to be depressed are those working for Dunder Mifflin. Speaking of which let us jump into what recently happened in Scranton!
In an interesting twist when I went to stop by the Michael Scott Paper Company, I came across the three of them (Michael, Pam, and Ryan) throwing cheese balls at each other to catch in their mouths. As Pam explains it, while there is a limit to how much cold calling you can do in a day there is no limit to the amount of cheese balls you can throw at a face. This ties in a well to what I posted above with motivation. Sometimes the key to remaining motivated is by not thinking of the task at hand and stepping away to clear your mind. This is also a great example of bonding for the team, which being such a small company it is important that have a strong relationship. Reminder that work doesn’t necessarily mean working every second you are on the clock.
Today was a pretty odd day around Dunder Mifflin, namely with Andy. You will recall that upon finding out Dwight and Angela had been sleeping together, he called off the wedding. Because he put down so many non-refundable deposits, he is attempting to pawn off anything he can to recoup some money. In a big swing, he tries to convince Jim and Pam to pay $9,000 for Andy’s Acapella band he had booked. As in the one he was in during college and would be himself and his friends from college. In a shocking twist Pam gave a hard no to this, for which Andy was quick to judge her. Obviously still scorn by Angela, he starts trying to explain to Jim that Pam is not good for him and he should (essentially) call off the wedding. He even spent the entire day trying to console and take care of Jim so he could find the strength to move on from Pam. Naturally this is just a Jim prank, pretending to be an emotional wreck only to turn it around on Andy as a lesson that he cannot let what happened with Angela control him. Andy seemed touched after it all, and I suppose it allowed Jim to really get his attention. Still seemed like a waste of day to me.
First things first, Charles has implemented a new dress code at Dunder Mifflin, namely requiring Dwight to wear a long sleeve, white shirt instead of his usual short sleeve yellows. He describes it as cutting off his attack readiness and is not thrilled. Obviously a dress code is nothing new, many companies require some form of code to ensure employees meet the minimum level of professionalism in the workplace. In recent years I have seen more of a push to focus on gender neutral guidelines which I find incredibly refreshing as there was a time that almost every company had separate rules for men versus women. It is hard to give major recommendations since each company is different but I can recommend starting at with this article, Guide To Business Attire (With Examples)
by Hanne Keiling, where they breakdown the different types of business attire to evaluate what is best for your company. But typically a button down shirt, some slacks, nice shoes, maybe a cardigan or jacket, and then well kept hair and jewelry will be accepted most offices.1
Because of his disdain with these changes, Dwight has been dabbling in some corporate espionage and passing information to Michael about suitable clients to target. I was surprised by this given that Dwight should be more loyal to Dunder Mifflin than Michael. This changes once he gets called into a meeting with Charles who raves about his work ethic and even suggests they go out for a drink sometime to discuss his future. This is more than Michael ever did for him and in an instant, he is prepared to take down the Michael Scott Paper Company. Even revealing to Charles the next time Michael tries to meet and they ambush him, letting him know he is cut off from further information. Michael decides to get his revenge on Dwight by going after his biggest client, to which Dwight was actually nervous. Michael is able to get a last minute meeting using his Rolodex. I did have one in a previous position and they are not terrible, but what I think the key piece to remember is that Michael uses his for more than just contact information. He has personally written down information like family members, dislikes, and hobbies to ensure he can maintain that personal touch and show he knows them. I think everyone should do this, especially if they work in sales and every sale is important. If you wanted one for myself you could write “Nathan: gay, three dogs, loves to cook, don’t call Nate.” That’s what such notes should be in that it gives a couple of things to talk about and clarifies to not call me by a nickname.
Dwight tries to call a truce over this and insists on meeting the team for lunch so they can come to an agreement, but in typical Dwight fashion this was all a ruse. With the Company out of the office, he sneaks in to steal Michael’s Rolodex in an effort to defeat him. But it would take more than that to bring down Michael, and he proves that by taking the meeting with Dwight’s client. Best of all, he calls Dwight from his cell and lets him listen in as he talks with him. And he actually does an amazing job at spinning why Michael is the better option and that Dwight simply doesn’t meet what he needs anymore. Dwight tries to stop him and actually shows up to the meeting (getting past the secretary with a “spin move”) but a big part ultimately comes down to price and that was what they are looking at. As a publishing company they do use a lot of paper, and it really doesn’t feel like many of these companies care about this paper war that is going on behind the scenes.
And that everyone, was this week’s Breakdown!. We leave this week seeing Michael Scott Paper Company slowly taking over the region and siphoning off some of Bunder Mifflin’s top clients. Will they keep this up or will Dwight be able to get his revenge. Stop by next week to find out! And in the meantime, I hope to have a nice podcast update for you very soon, I have absolutely not stopped thinking about it and have been working away at getting this frontier ready to go.
I hope you all have a great weekend, stay motivated, and I’ll look for you around the Breakroom!
