Good morning everyone and welcome back to the Breakroom! I am afraid that I do not have much to report in the personal department aside from the fact that I seem to have not properly taken care of myself over the weekend because I have had a cough that continues to persist and is driving me mildly insane. Aside from that the persistent coughing, work has been slightly crazy with a lot going on, my husband’s new job has also been busy but still exciting, and we just officially celebrated our 9 year wedding anniversary so that was certainly the highlight of the week. In addition, we have finally started watching the Halloween movies to get into the autumnal spirit. And as I’m looking out the window as we speak, I can see the leaves finally started changing which is also contributing to the mood. Since we are now in the true fall season, what are some of your favorite things to do this year that scream autumn?
While you think about your favorite things, let us jump into today’s Breakdown.
The morning began with a surprise twist in that Erin, at reception, announced to the office she just won an art contest. It was interesting given that Pam, who used to be there, has always been our resident artist. Just as she is looking baffled, Dwight gets up and passes some cash to Erin as he cackles away. Turns out, we have the seldom seen Dwight Prank in that he paid Erin to say that in order to prank Pam. Jim out to take note because I think Dwight just proved that not all pranks need to be drawn out and complicated.
Aside from that, we really were simply trying to have a simple day working but Michael had other ideas. Although the Michael Scott Paper Company closed, he chose to keep the lease to that room. And what did he decide to do with it? He uses it to come down and pump up some music, dance away, and fire up the espresso machine. He got so used to be able to do anything he wanted when he was his own boss and spending time with Pam and Ryan, that he really wanted to continue that trend despite coming back to Dunder Mifflin.
He really started to notice that difference given that there is an unofficial “no lunch with the boss” rule at Dunder Mifflin. And it is true, everyone typically has lunch with each other, but not with him. So this does pose the question on how often people might spend their lunch breaks with their bosses. Now I have actually seen this happen, in a prior position our boss would routinely have lunch with a couple of my colleagues. It had been like that since I started with them and I will admit that it did sort of indicate a slight sense of favoritism that they had things in common and would hang over lunch all of the time. That was certainly more of an oddity in my personal experience and in most roles I’ve had we are not routinely taking lunch our leaders. I will say I certainly think it is okay to be friendly with your leader, as long as you both understand there are still boundaries between being friends and being leader/employee. But I believe lunch breaks might represent different things to different people, as there are those who enjoy chatting with colleagues on their break. Given that my job involves a great deal of talking to people, I enjoy having a break that allows me to have some silence, or if there is sound it because I am watching a video or listening to music. If I am being honest about Michael, I firmly believe that people at the office would be okay with having lunch with him. The problem is that he takes things very seriously and over-the-top when if he could just be casual about it, he very well could have lunch with other people at times.
When this doesn’t go according to plan, Michael decides he must up the energy by forcing the magic of Cafe Disco on them. What is Cafe Disco? That is what we are calling the room formerly known as the Michael Scott Paper Company which is a day time disco which happens to have coffee. Michael pumps up the music and forces it up to the office, where it surprisingly urges Phyllis to come on down and dance with Michael. Just his luck, she hurts herself dancing and requires Michael and Dwight to evacuate her immediately which ends the mood pretty quickly. Defeated, Michael tosses the keys to Erin and tell her to shut it all down and let it die.
Again, Michael very easily could have set something up great to spend time with the office but he always becomes very intense and demanding about it. So first of all, for those leaders out there trying to arrange get togethers with employees, unless you do them during work hours you cannot make them mandatory. I know everyone likes to think the whole office will get together for an outing, but not everyone has the same interests. Further, plenty of people can be very introverted and would rather not go out or perhaps they want to have boundaries on interacting with coworkers outside of work. So it is important to respect that some might not want to go out and if you want to make it mandatory, be prepared for the company to fit the bill, ideally have it during work hours and have some sort of team building aspect to it. Not mention, try to get a feeling from people to find an activity that will be liked by everyone. If you want some cool ideas, check out this Indeed article by Jennifer Herrity. One of the ideas I have done was the escape room, it was a team building night out with my husband’s old company. Significant others were invited so we had two rooms, one for the company and then us spouses/others took a room. It was actually a lot of fun and the rooms get pretty intense and are interesting at measuring how people problem solve. Another one on the list that I got to do was ax throwing; this is more dependent on if your city has a place which hosts it but it can be surprisingly fun. And one I have been wanting to do is a trivia night, which is also pretty dependent on finding a place which hosts it. If you have any other good ideas, share for the team!1
So Erin took Kelly down to the Cafe Disco to unplug everything, and they did the exact opposite. The started with turning on some music to dance to, which drew the attention of some guys from Vance Refrigeration, which slowly drew in more people from the building and most of the office. And just like that, Michael’s dream of turning Cafe Disco into an event had succeeded and everyone was joining in the fun and dancing away (through the work day). Like I pointed out, sometimes you just need to let people make their own decisions and join in if they want to partake. Stanley was certainly content napping in the office, and Angela was fine scowling from the corner.
And that, everyone, was a short but sweet Breakdown! Being slightly sick, I’m afraid I don’t have a ton of stamina so I hope you still enjoyed this one! And certainly follow up on some of my questions! As always, have a great weekend and I’ll see you around the Breakroom!
- Herrity, J. (2025, July 24). 40 Fun Work Outings for Team Building. Indeed. Retrieved October 2, 2025, from https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/fun-work-outings ↩︎
