Author: Nathan Westerberg

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!

Good morning everyone and welcome back to the Breakdown! So what have we had happen this week? Well, we survived the bachelor party last weekend so that was a good start to the week. Also I have a hot tip for people doing a summer party; if you are planning on doing Jello shots, make sure to also do alcohol-free shots as well. Not everyone wants to have alcohol, but very few people will turn down some Jello. I chose to do this and they were pretty popular. I also tried my hand at making some alcohol-free Fireball as part of a drinking game, I will have to include the recipes that I did in the future because they also ended up being pretty dang popular. While I have hosted plenty of times, I haven’t spent much time getting very creative when it came to the drinks so I feel like I got to get out my inner mixologist.

What about some good business advice, I think the piece I want to call out is what to do when you are feeling anxious and stressed at work. We all have those times where we feel overwhelmed, and truth is that a lot of the time it probably has very little to do with work itself. There are certainly times where it actually is nice to have some work to keep you busy and take your mind off things, but it is important to be able to recognize when it is necessary to step away for a mental health break. Step outside for some fresh air, treat yourself to a sweet snack, find funny videos on your phone, do whatever you need to calm your brain down. If you can line it up on your regular breaks, then great! If you cannot, I hope you have a leader as understanding as my own where you can let them know you need to take a personal few minutes and need to step away. If we don’t take the time to acknowledge where our headspace is or if you have the mental bandwidth to deal with the tasks at hand, it could ultimately result in a messier situation. Your work will still be there when you come back so grab that chocolate, turn on some music, and look at the silly memes being sent your way.

With that said, let us get into today’s Breakdown. Picking up from last week, we are officially unveiling the office space of the Michael Scott Paper Company. Michael, Pam, and Ryan all show up fully prepared to take on their first formal day in the space. Ryan simply brought himself and his lunch, Pam showed up giddy to start and brought a plant for the space, and Michael brought in a goldfish and a giant barrel of cheese puffs. But he did more than that as he took the time to update contacts, lined up product distributers, and sent out an evite (electronic invitation) to people for their pancake luncheon later that day. Overall I feel like this was a good setup to a first day in the office, but that doesn’t mean things cannot go down hill from there.

I feel each of them really had their own internal struggles. Ryan simply didn’t seem like he wanted to be there. He is kind of a brat and spent the whole day talking on the phone or putting pictures on the computer. I do believe that deep down, his internal conflict was a combination of he still didn’t believe the company was real and perhaps he is struggling to let himself feel inspired by work again. Or he is simply a punk who thinks he is too cool for this group and just wants to get with friends and hang out “Scranton Style,” whatever that means. Pam was very much trying to remain excited but the day just showed her that the job wasn’t what she had hoped it would be. She was arguing with Ryan the entire day, felt cold in the closet/office, and felt pressured to take on the secretarial duties in the office. At the height of their discord, Michael suggested each person gets to pick a corner of the office and that becomes their private space. Since Michael needs two, Pam gets stuck with the corner with the copier (which coincidentally was the old copier from Dunder Mifflin that was tossed out). In a fit she actually stormed out and came up to the Dunder Mifflin off and essentially begged Charles for a job. There wasn’t anything available, unfortunately, so he had to return back to Michael. Michael also felt a strong sense of gloom today as well. Between seeing Ryan and Pam argue, then suspect Pam was trying to leave, and a very disappointing turnout to the luncheon he felt like he had made a huge mistake.

It was the end of the day and you could have almost bet money that the company was going to give up then, everyone seemed so defeated. But then Pam received a phone call from the one non-Dunder Mifflin person who showed up to their sad little luncheon. He has his own company and, as it turns out, he was in the market for a paper company and chose to place an order. The mood completely shifted after that, you’d swear they never had any doubt. It is true that the world isn’t always fair and that good things do not always happen to good people. But they sometimes do and when they do, it reminds us to not give up on ourselves. Sometimes it is that one win which is all that is needed to propel you forward to keep moving on.

It was a straightforward day at the Michael Scott Paper Company, but what about Dunder Mifflin? Charles hired a new secretary who is coincidentally named Kelly. So our original Kelly has taken it upon herself to rush to Charles and say “yes, you wanted me” each time he would call out for the other Kelly. Her logic is that if he hears this enough, he will actually want her. As silly as this sounds, it can happen because a person will start to associate a feeling or phrase with a person if it happens enough. But new Kelly decides to go by her middle name, Erin, to make it easier. Kelly Kapoor just gets angry because her middle name is Rajnigandha which she absolutely hates. Contrary to what Kevin believes, my research tells me this does come off as a girl’s name.

Andy and Dwight have started to spend a lot of time together and are actually going camping together after work. Despite having been rivals for so long, they found a mutual admiration for one another which seems to happen a lot (according to Dwight). Even when they discover they both have a thing for Erin, they quickly pivot and focus on their friendship. Frankly there isn’t much more to it, they are annoying apart and more annoying together playing music and singing together in the break room.

Finally, perhaps the most annoying part of the day has to do with our very own Jim. Early on in the morning, Jim was asked by Charles to put together a rundown of his client list and to then get it faxed over to the distribution list. And I have an entire series of questions and confusion about this. First, Jim has no idea what a rundown is and he didn’t bother to ask. It is true that a rundown could mean a variety of things, but he should have been able to figure out the gist of what Charles expected from this. But still, it would have been as simple as asking him what specifics does he want to see in this rundown? Charles actually should have clarified this because unless the company routinely has a format referred to as “a rundown” then he is simply asking for a summary but without any parameters. Another issue I have is, there should already be a report or list someplace which is a rundown of Jim’s clients. Charles should be able to look it up or pull from a file and he would have it all; or Jim could’ve done this as well. I do not believe there isn’t a master list of their clients someplace in the office. Finally, why is Charles only asking Jim to do this? I would imagine that Charles should want this from everyone, in which case he would have sent out an email specifying the parameters of what he wants to see in “a rundown.” I will sum this up as Jim is lame for not asking for insight, and Charles for assuming that every company uses the same lingo. Both of them should just get over themselves because they are not being productive. For those reading this, we are actually in a much better place than Jim is. If someone gave me a vague request like that, I very easily could use an AI program to take the information I have and give me a pretty good example of a rundown. But still, I think my key advice with this is if you are tasked with something you are unsure about, take the time to ask. I am very routinely tasked with running certain reports or audits to then provide to leaders or employees. Very often their requests are very vague, likely because they do not realize how many variations I could answer such a request. I take the time to respond to breakdown what I believe they are looking for and will prepare, but to correct me if I need to include a different piece. For example, I am often asked to provide an employee’s worked hours. This might sound simple, but the phrase “worked hours” carries a few different meanings. Are they trying to figure out their placement to their next wage increase? Maybe they need a breakdown of their paid hours to ensure they aren’t short hours. Or perhaps they to provide the hours to renew a license so it must be specifically worked and exclude any sort of paid time off. By taking five minutes at the start, I could save a hour’s worth of extra work later on. So do not be afraid to ask for clarification, a good leader or customer will usually appreciate that extra effort you are making.

I’ve been holding in my frustration of that all day so I just had to get that out.

But that today’s Breakdown! I know I have done longer and was hoping for some brilliant insight but I am afraid I just do not have the bandwidth today. I hope you all have a fantastic weekend, hoping to relax and still be productive so wish me luck! As always, I look forward to seeing you around the Breakroom!