Tag: The Office

Good morning everyone and welcome back to the Breakroom! This has been a mostly uneventful week here on my end. Work has been straightforward, haven’t been up to any major adventures, although I will mention I have officially filled up half of my new compost bin so that was a pretty proud achievement! Outside of the home, I believe the biggest topic at hand is what has been going on in California. For those unfamiliar with the evolving events, we are seeing soldiers sent out into the street to quell protests being held against ICE. While the National Guard and even the marines were sent there at the request of the President, but Governor Newsom made no such request and actually stated he did not want them in the state. The fear of this instances is that the Federal government is using miliary personnel to go after anything it feels goes against it, which is very worrisome considering there are similar protests occurring throughout the country. For the record, the President didn’t see fit to call in troops during the January 6 insurrection, but seems to think it is necessary for peaceful protests. For any of my readers out there attending these protests, I hope you are being safe and please be careful out there.

With that safety warning, I think that is a great transition into today’s Breakdown. There was one major event and that was a safety demonstration from our own Dwight Schrute. That sounds pretty straightforward, but let me walk you through what this consisted of. Dwight gave us a safety talk last week on what to do in the event of a file occurring in the office using PowerPoint. While considered an excellent presentation tool, but Dwight believes PowerPoint is too boring and the best teacher is experience. To create the experience he has designed an elaborate fire simulation. He locked the doors to the outside, cut the phone lines, and even used a blowtorch to hit up the doorhandles. He then lit a garbage can on file to generate smoke which would slowly fill the office and waited for us to notice. The moment we noticed the smoke and thought there was a fire, chaos ensued. Kevin decided to break into the vending machines to hoard all of the snacks, this is while Jim and Andy attempt to breakdown doors using the printer. Oscar attempts to find help by climbing through the ceiling, only to end up breaking through. Angela even attempted to save her new cat that has been staying her by throwing him up through the ceiling for Oscar to take with him (crying out “Save Bandit!”). We are all panicking until Dwight finally announces that this was all a test and there is not a real fire so we can relax. And with that, Stanley proceeded to collapse due to a heart attack from the stress. If your safety training doesn’t pose a risk of death or injury, is it really that informative?

To break this down, I do actually like the concept of doing a fire simulation. We are all used to having fire drills in which the alarms go off, you leave the building and then wait out in the cold until you can go back in. But these drills are always assuming the fire is located in convenient locations, and I feel it would be helpful to know what should be done in dangerous situations. The problem with what Dwight did was not telling people this was a drill, and certainly resulted in a great deal of panic and damage to company property. Additionally, during the simulation Dwight really was trying to give instructions on how to proceed with recommendations about touching doorhandles to see if they were warm, don’t worry about grabbing belongings, and remembering your exit points. I have never had a designated safety officer for an office setting before but I do believe each office should have one and I believe it would be a good idea to have plans in place for various types of emergencies. Use this opportunity to design one for fire safety for your office, or even your home. For starters, make sure you have a fire extinguisher that is still valid; it would also be beneficially to be trained on how to properly use one. It would also be wise to be trained in on fire safety protocols, which they do have a number of online and in-person courses that can be followed. You can also go online to find possible outlines of a designated plan for your office to go off of, including through Indeed. Your best bet will likely be through the US Fire Administration which can help educate you on common fire risks in the office setting.

We all thought the fire was going to be the worst part of the day but that relief it was fake did not last long once Stanley had his heart attack. It really brought into question on what should be done as Michael wanted to try to start doing mouth-to-mouth and stuck his wallet in his mouth to keep him from biting/swallowing his tongue. He likely learned that from a movie, as the Mayo Clinic does have slightly different instructions. The key is to contact 911 immediately so an ambulance can be dispatched and arrive in time. From there, the responder will proceed to provide instructions based on the individual’s condition. CPR can actually be used if they are not breathing or do not have a pulse, but it is important to be knowledgeable and trained in CPR to do so, otherwise they advise to focus on the chest compressions¹. Michael did line up a CPR educator to come to the office to teach us so we could be prepared for next time. Evidently he really only wanted the CPR dummy but couldn’t figure out how to get one without an instructor along with it (evidently he didn’t check Amazon). Perhaps the most interesting piece was to do with chest compressions and that it is helpful to use a song tune to help maintain the necessary 100 beats per minute and they recommended Stayin Alive by the Bee Gees which has long been a popular song for this. There are numerous other songs that could also be used which UT Southwestern has compiled which even includes recent hits like Poker Face by Lady Gaga or Pink Pony Club by Chappell Roan. I will be honest in that I am not CPR certified but this does motivate me to want to because you never know when it could come in handy².

Naturally this entire incident has also got people thinking about how important it is to take care of ourselves since our lifestyles really can have an impact on our lives. In particular, Stanley has been advised to find better means of coping with his stress levels. He actually tried to convince Michael that he could work from home for the foreseeable future but he quickly ruled that out. Instead he is trying to make the office as peaceful as possible including leading meditation, relaxing music, and talking through a tranquil scenario. It was about now that we found out Stanley was given a monitor that goes off when Stanley is feeling stressed out. Coincidentally, it starts going off when Michael talks too much or gets to close to him; and towards Oscar when he tested it out as well. This is when it dawns on Michael that he is the source of most of the stress in the office. Most but certainly not all, because Dwight really needs to take responsibility for this one. It will be interesting to see what Michael decided to do to address the stress we feel from him.

You might wondering if Dwight was let go for all of the stress that he caused. I forgot to mention that if the fire scenario wasn’t enough, when we were being taught CPR Dwight decided to cut off the face of the dummy and wear it, to recreate that scene from Texas Chainsaw Massacre to see how realistic it was. All of this resulted in him having to go to corporate twice, and his punishment? Two warnings, must issue a formal apology to us and get our signatures. Frankly, it is astonishing that he has not been let go over this by corporate and the only theory I have is because the company is still struggling financially and they are not willing to fire the top salesman in the company. But obviously, there is only so far the company will put up with him so perhaps it is only a matter of time.

And that was this week’s Breakdown! I hope you were all able to learn a bit about fire safety and CPR. More than anything, I think it is important to develop safety plans for your office and I would encourage developing scenarios to go through them. Just scenarios, do not go to the lengths that Dwight did. And CPR training could be very beneficial to learn, but please go through a licensed professional to teach everyone. Ideally you should not be trying to learn this from Youtube and instead find a local class that you can go through the training.

Is anyone here the safety officer for your office? We would love to know about some of the plans, training, and initiatives you have developed for your office!

I hope you all have a great weekend and until next week, I’ll see you around the Breakroom!

1. (2024, May 9). Heart Attack: First Aid. Mayo Clinic. Retrieved June 12, 2025, from https://www.mayoclinic.org/first-aid/first-aid-heart-attack/basics/art-20056679 ↩︎
2. Uzendu, A., M.D. (2025, February 27). Pushing aside ‘Stayin’ Alive’: New songs to keep the (heart)beat during CPR. UT Southwestern. Retrieved June 12, 2025, from https://utswmed.org/medblog/cpr-songs-hands-only/#:~:text=For%20years%2C%20%E2%80%9CStayin’%20Alive%E2%80%9D%20by%20the%20Bee,which%20is%20between%20100%20to%20120%20BPM. ↩︎

Good morning everyone, and welcome back to the Breakroom. I hope you all have had a great week, here in this household we are still just trying to get rid of this darn cough we cannot seem to kick. It was not lost on me that perhaps getting out in the fresh air might help and this week we have been productive in exercising our green thumbs. As part of a recent Costco run we got some new plants for the garden, as well as an adorable bonsai plant. It was then while we were clearing dead foliage from our garden that I decided we should finally start composting. So I went ahead and found this compost bin which was officially delivered today and have gone ahead and set it up, along with some food scraps. I went with this model because I am supposed to be able to rotate the body to mix it up, rather than needing to do it by hand. I would love to hear from others on if they have some tips about getting into composting. Or simply share some great gardening tips for us who are a bit newer and just trying to have some fun. I know one personal goal I have is to get away from the classic grass lawn and try to develop a lawn of native plants that do not need to be mowed. A big part is because I know they tend to be more environmentally friendly, especially if they can are beneficial for our pollinators.

For those of you who saw our Facebook post will know that it is officially Pride Month. Breakroom Breakdown is created by and ran by the LGBTQ+ community and will always standby my fellow members, not to mention any marginalized group. I firmly believe we need a sense of community more than ever this year and will not be backing. For those of you finding it hard to stay optimistic about our future, please remember that you are not alone and you can always find support out here.

In other news, I think the main story from the business world is coming from multiple sources. I would not have predicted that Donald Trump and Elon Musk would have chosen Pride Month to have public meltdowns but here we are. Like that one toxic couple we have all seen in our lives, I feel we can anticipate some shocking level of escalation the remainder of the month. With that to look forward to, let us know jump into today’s Breakdown!

Naturally we have a classic Jim prank here, one that is both simple and yet brilliant. Jim had found ethernet cable on sale at a local flea market and decided to link it to Dwight’s computer and then run it all through the office. The result is Dwight confused as to the purpose, and he is ripping everything up trying to track down where it leads to. Jim chose to lead it all the way outside and up a telephone pole. Just because Jim was able to do it, I still feel this was a bit unsafe as of course Dwight would go up there. That being said, there are few people in the office that I would trust would be safe in attempting to scale the pole and Dwight is one of the few. Additionally, I feel this is one of the pranks that you could get away with pulling on one of your colleagues and they would actually find it amusing.

Now for the meat of the day, it started when David Wallace contacted Michael to assist with a project. They have yet to hire the regional supervisor position and are asking Michael to assist with some of the tasks they would normally assign them. This was the job that Michael had interviewed for way back when, I feel they should just give him a chance at the position because right now they simply have no one doing it. But this particular task is that they would sometimes investigate local competitors to see if there is a way to get an edge over them. This makes sense, if you have a bakery you would want to keep a pulse on what your competitors are doing so you can remain in competition with them. Unlike large brands like Staples, this is a small mom-and-pop shop that they cannot get a proper read on. I will be honest that it is when big companies come from these small entities that I get annoyed. Why are you spending time trying to mess with a family business, when you should be focusing on competitors who are as back as yourself. Staples and Office Max, those are the ones who you should be focusing on. But Michael agrees to do this, and enlists Dwight to assist.

Now in my opinion, Dwight and Michael choose to partage in what is known as corporate espionage. We normally think of espionage as sexy spies taking government secrets from foreign nationals, but it exists in the corporate world as well. The business world can get very competitive, so some companies will lie, cheat, and steal to get their hands on trade secrets, top personnel, and client lists. And corporate espionage is very illegal and, depending on what is involved, can result in prison time and/or heavy fines. Maybe this just me being a business nerd, but I personally love a good corporate espionage story because I truly get the thrill out of it as if it were about a spy in the Swiss alps trying to seduce an ambassador. There was recent incident (which is still unfolding) in which it was discovered that the company Deel sent in a spy to infiltrate their competitor Rippling. Over the course of months, this employee stole price points, package plans, and client information so that Deel could making competing products and underscore them. This even resulted in the said employee flushing their phone down the toilet just to hide evidence, and then the CEO of Deel being so unavailable he could not be properly served¹. As more information comes out, I feel like that story alone might deserve its own Breakdown to cover all that happens. And for the record, there is a difference between corporate espionage and simply doing your homework. Really any information you can ascertain from online searches or even from the company without any falsification of your identity can be considered you doing your own due process. Honestly, even if you were to go on Reddit and find that a disgruntled employee chose to release private information, you had no hand in initiating it so you are simply accessing readily available information. It is when you might pose as a customer or get hired to take the information, then that is where you need to evaluate the laws you are breaking. Yes there can be a grey area in that if the company was really trying to remain private they should also do their due diligence to be more secure of their secrets. But most companies would like to think that people have the decency to not try to steal from them, wouldn’t you think?

Michael and Dwight start with staking out the company to see what they can learn from the outside. The name of this poor company, Prince Paper. Dwight seems to know what he is looking for more than Michael. Michael is worried about the rain, Dwight notices that no lunch meetings seem to be going on so perhaps they are not attempting to expand more than they already are. Michael does offer a brilliant explanation of business though, and that is:

“In nature, there is something called a food chain; it’s where the shark eats a little shark. And the little shark eats a littler shark. And so on and so on. Until you get down to the single cell shark. So now replace sharks with paper companies and that is all you need to know about business.”

I get what Michael is trying to say and that is a pretty decent explanation of the food chain, although I am not a fan of comparing that to business. If all of the businesses slowly get eaten by one big shark, you are left with a monopoly and that is by no means a good thing. Also, there is no such thing as a one cell shark as one cell organisms are not sharks.

Before long, Michael heads in under his alias Michael Scarn and tells them he works at a law firm and is looking to get to know them as a possible supplier. I will mention that I have heard (likely from a television show) that supposedly if you are using an alias, it helps to use one which has the same initials as your real name. It is meant to make it easier to remember because you are able to form a connection with it. Again, I’m sure it was Leverage or Burn Notice but it sounds like something real so I’ll throw that factoid out to those who may need an alias some day. In this case, Michael’s plan starts to work and this warm, welcoming family starts to share all of their information. Dwight then comes in and uses his own identity but claims he is hoping to leave his current company to come here. Besides getting all of their questions answered, Michael is given a list of their top clients as a parting gift. That way he can call them to hear how satisfied they all are with Prince Paper. Of course, on their way out Michael accidentally drove over a parking divider and damaged. And true to their good nature, the Prince family comes out and helps get Michael’s vehicle all patched up to hit the road.

It was now that Michael was starting to have major reservations because the Prince family had been so generous and now they were going essentially destroy them. He was so close to destroying all the information they collected but Dwight is able to talk him down and explain that at the end of the day this is business. And if Dunder Mifflin doesn’t do this to Prince Paper, someone else is going to so they might as well do it. I’m just going to reiterate my earlier statement that not every business wants to be the biggest one on the block. Mom-and-pop shops are there to provide income for a family, not to take over the world and be an international household name. These large businesses need to stop trying to take out small businesses and focus on their larger competition. That or they can simply accept that they are as big as they need to be for awhile and that profits can remain steady rather than always increase. The financial struggles are tied to the fact that they continue to give themselves larger bonuses at the top, and heaven forbid they give those up. So Michael gives up the details to David Wallace who is pretty proud of Michael, and go a major win in his book.

You might be wondering what else was going on today in the office, maybe everyone was working hard with Michael gone? No, in fact none of us were actually working today all because of a dispute between Phyllis and Stanley. They could not agree on if Hillary Swank, the actress, was “hot.” This question split the office down the middle and actually resulted in some serious debates going on. Stanly, for example, felt that the hotness of Hillary gave him a reason to keep on living. Oscar, on the other hand, used koinophilia to prove that Hillary does not meet the requirements given that her face does not have perfect symmetry (which is often considered subconsciously attractive). But I feel that it is Kevin who describes it best in that it is a gut thing, because it really is. To describe someone as “hot” is difficult because each person has their own definition of what makes someone attractive, sexy, hot, handsome, etc… Now, a quick poll of myself, husband, and brother-in-law found that Hillary Swank wasn’t hot. But Angela compared her as a “female Boris Becker” which I found interesting as a young Becker just might the criteria of “hot”, although I’ve always been more of an Andre Agassi type of guy.

At the end of the day I think we can all agree that the definition of “hot” varies between each person and at the end of the day that is all that matters.

What I do know is hot is the weather because we are certainly starting to get close to summer. I hope you all get a chance to get outside to enjoy the green and maybe garden. And with it being Pride Month, how about we all support our community and maybe aggravate some bigots while we are at it. Until next time, I’ll see you around the Breakroom.

1. Jones, R. (2025, June 4). The Rippling and Deel spy saga takes a turn with new allegations. Semafor. Retrieved June 5, 2025, from https://www.semafor.com/article/06/04/2025/deel-fires-back-at-competitor-rippling-with-new-spying-allegations ↩︎

Good morning everyone and welcome back to the Breakroom! We meet again with illness still plaguing this household as the belief is now that I have walking pneumonia. I am just getting ready to start my antibiotics and I have been warned that I am going to be in for a fun time early on so I better get this Breakdown going while I still can!

This week started off with a surprise from the city in the form of a radar gun situated right outside our office building. This is one of those readers where it measures and shows how fast a vehicle is moving so they can see they are speeding. Turns out Angela was very upset there was so much speeding happening that she placed numerous 911 calls to complain, and this was how the city chose to address the issue. I suppose it is some sort of change, and I suspect they really wanted to keep Angela from calling in. I am not an expert when it comes to the 911 switchboard, but I do not believe speeding is considered an emergency.

You would think this was the end of the story but because of the proximity to our building, people have taken to running past the sign to see how fast they can get going and see who is the quickest. At first Michael was ecstatic that he was in the lead with 12 mph, until Dwight had to one up him. Quick to establish his dominance, Michael took another sprint the same time that an actual car was driving by, resulting in him getting 31 mph. Oscar tried to explain to him this wasn’t real because there was a car but Michael wouldn’t hear it and refused to listen to Oscar’s pleading of “it is humanly impossible.” I would side with Oscar that it was the car and that 31 mph is not possible. The current world record for running speed by a human was established in 2009 by Usain Bolt, his top speed being 27.78 mph. So either Michael Scott is the fastest human alive, or it was actually measuring the speed of the car that came long.

If you can believe it, that was probably the happiest moment of the week. The day kicked off with a rough start when Andy came in and asked the entire office why no one had RSVP’d to his and Angela’s wedding yet. You will recall that last week Phyllis revealed to us all that Angela had been sleeping with Dwight for months, but Andy still has no idea. Naturally none of us assumed the wedding was going to proceed so we did not RSVP since Angela should have found the time to break things off with Andy. We keep our lips shut but get together for an impromptu meeting over it when Michael almost spills the beans. We all agree that it should be Angela who should reveal this to Andy, it is her secret and it would be the decent thing to do in finally being honest. Of course, Angela doesn’t think that the time is right or that there is really any need to do it. Of all the times Angela doesn’t want to get involved with drama it is when it actually affects her.

We were all pretty content with just leaving it as is and trusting Angela would make the right decision. Everyone, that is, except for Michael. As he was heading out to head to corporate to meet with David Wallace, he asked for Andy to escort him out. We could see through the windows that Michael was having an awkward conversation but we could tell that Michael did disclose to him that Dwight and Angela were having an affair. Certainly an awkward moment, but I know there was been dispute on whether or not Michael made the right decision here. What do you think? I do agree that it should have been up to Angela to to come clean to Andy, and she should have done it as soon as the office was made privy since it would be only a matter of time before the secret was revealed. So given that Angela wasn’t up to it, I think Michael was likely in the right to make that decisions, especially to keep Andy from spending any more money.

Naturally this is where the mood in the office begins to turn as the details begin to be revealed. Andy confronts Angela and while she dances around the question, she does finally acknowledge that she has been sleeping with Dwight and that the entire office knew about it. I feel that we have been withholding this from him only added salt to the wound, so I agree it was really unfair that we didn’t tell him ourselves. But it is Dwight who truly has his anger and they begin to argue over who should end their relationship with Angela, because they are both still willing to be with her. Andy wants to fight him and Dwight decides to declare that this is a duel, for which Andy agrees. To ensure no one can get involved, they decide to meet in the parking lot later where it will be outside of work.

I will admit that it is entertaining that they decide to duel; while they are barbaric I feel there are plenty of instances that could be resolved over a good old fashioned duel. Specifically I’m thinking that certain peoples such as those in public office should be able to be challenged to a duel. The history of dueling is extensive, even just here in the United States, but historically they were most often used to settle certain disagreements. Most commonly it was used by gentlemen and then certain prominent citizens (such as journalists or those in public office). That is not to say there are not rules, which can be found here. One of the most interesting ones is that although we normally think of duels as using pistols, the person who is challenged can actually choose what weapons are to be used as well as where it is to be located. Just a friendly warning to anyone planning on challenging someone to a duel, tradition states you do not get to choose the details¹. Andy tells Dwight he intends on using his fists, to which Dwight mocks him because he will simply cut them off with a sword. This was what prompted Jim to begin searching the office and clearing out any leftover weapons (much like how Toby had to do in the past). Dwight still had a pretty nice collection including throwing stars and a pair of nunchucks, leaving them to use only their fists in what I assume Jim was hoping would be a quick brawl.

The time comes and Dwight is in the parking lot with the rest of us upstairs eagerly awaiting the fight from the conference room. But Andy seems to have chickened out because he was nowhere to be seen; at least until we realized there had been a note left behind. Dwight had seen it and began reading it to himself, and this was when Andy finally showed up. He came up behind him driving his Prius; Oscar explained that it can remain silent if kept under 5 mph (and that was why Oscar felt he should win). Andy snuck up behind Dwight and proceeded to run into him, just enough to pin up against a tree but not to actually hurt him. While the rest of us were eager to see how this would pan out, Jim decided he needed to intervene before anything got too serious but they were adamant it didn’t include him. I could tell the fight was starting to spiral out because Dwight and Andy were talking about nonsense topics about why they are the better man for Angela. Andy thought Dwight was crazy for wanting to “protect her from bears” when Andy doesn’t believe there has been any recent sightings. For the record, the most recent sighting that I found documented publicly was in June of 2022 which proves that they do exist nearby². Andy then called Dwight “sasquatch” which he thanked him for as they are the strongest animal on the planet. Just to factcheck, the sasquatch is considered a cryptid so it is not truly part of the animal kingdom. I feel that “strongest animal on the planet” is pretty vague but I’m pretty confident in saying that it would be the African elephant as it is the largest terrestrial animal on the planet. Alternatively, it could be the blue whale which is the largest animal on the planet but I am unsure how much “strength” has been tested by the whale. But it was when Andy revealed that Angela had slept with him, that Dwight began to lose the will to fight. Dwight said Angela told him she was only sleeping with him; I suppose then it set in to both of them they had been lied to and betrayed. They proceeded to come back to their desks where Andy began calling and cancelling all of his wedding reservations while Dwight threw away the bobblehead of himself that it appears Angela had given him. In that moment, I think we all realized that it was over for them all with no winners in this duel.

Oddly enough, while we were having a disappointing time at the office Michael was crushing it at corporate. It sounds like David had invited Michael in to ascertain what he was doing so differently in Scranton because while all of the other branches are struggling, we are thriving and boasting record sales. I am not sure Michael was really able to put into words what we were doing differently but maybe it goes to show that he isn’t totally useless as a manager. He does know sales and tends to give the salesman some big leeway when it comes to clients so perhaps the space to thrive is what sets us apart. Or we treat everyday like we are going to be closed because of something Michael does so we try to show that we are irreplaceable. Time will come if Michael can truly explain what makes him so special.

And that was the Breakdown! So let me ask you, if you are challenged to a dual by someone, what is your weapon and location that will give you the edge? In all reality, more duels were challenged than actually fought because often the terms of the duel could lead to a negotiation being made. There is a famous story where Abraham Lincoln (not yet president) was challenged to a duel. In an epic move, he decreed the weapon of choice to be broadswords. When it became clear that Lincoln’s stature and strength was going to guarantee he had the advantage, he duel was quickly brought to a close, becoming Lincoln’s duel that never was³.

If nothing else, I hope I was able to pique your interest with some cool duel facts that you are now heading out to learn more. I hope you all have a great weekend, and I’ll be sure to say hello to you around the Breakroom.

1. (n.d.). Code Duello: The Rules of Dueling. PBS. Retrieved May 29, 2025, from https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/duel-code-duello-rules-dueling/ ↩︎
2. Tomkavage, R. (2022, June 12). Watch: Bear spotted in downtown Scranton. The Times-Tribute. Retrieved May 29, 2025, from https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/2022/06/12/watch-bear-spotted-in-downtown-scranton/ ↩︎
3. Cooper, N. (2021, August 19). Lincoln’s avoided duel. Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Retrieved May 29, 2025, from https://presidentlincoln.illinois.gov/Blog/Posts/141/Abraham-Lincoln/2021/8/Lincolns-avoided-duel/blog-post/ ↩︎

Good morning everyone and welcome back to the Breakroom. This is absolutely been one of those weeks that seems to drag on and the weekend cannot come soon enough, or is that just me? This has mostly been an uneventful week, although I’m looking forward to celebrating my brother graduating his college program this coming week. He has been working on it for a couple of years now and I know what it is like when it feels like it will never end.

So one thing I wanted to bring up was related to a conversation I had earlier. There was discussion about incorporating an AI tool into our processes. It sounds like there is some push from senior leadership that because we have access to these tools with the programs we use, departments should find ways of using them to improve productivity. This is where I chose to speak up because I am still very much on the side that is hesitant towards the use of AI. My problem with using AI in the business world for helping with audits and catching problems is that I question if it really makes us more productive. I would argue that we end up using the same amount of time training the AI and reviewing what the program has compiled or completed. A big part of this is because at the end of the day, AI will never be able to compete with a human as they do not have the capability to apply critical thinking and make proper decisions. And one of my leaders pointed out, what happens if the AI makes a sizeable mistake. Who should be held responsible? I was honest and said that the blame should be placed on the senior leader who is pushing this need for AI. I will say that I believe this belief that AI should be used everywhere is proof that the business world has very few leaders and instead everyone wants to jump on whatever is considered trendy. Working in the healthcare industry, I would argue it is very prevalent because no healthcare organization wants to be the first to do something and will only follow suit with whatever is the current trend in the industry. Furthermore, there is increasing evidence that while AI might make many tasks easier and could be good for a company’s bottom line, it is having negative impacts on our brain. By becoming reliant on AI being there for us, we begin to forget how to do certain tasks and areas of our brain can begin to atrophy. According to this article by Lars Daniel, we need to be cognizant with how we use and interact with AI. Perhaps one of the biggest examples of where we are not interacting accurately is where we hold this belief that if go to an AI tool with a question, they will always give us the right answer¹. Instead it is not uncommon for AI to make information up because it is trying to fabricate an answer, or it begins to mesh information together into a confusing amalgamation of details. The AI industry has been given too much power too fast so it is impossible to put that genie back into the bottle, but it is not too late for us to be mindful with what AI should be used for. We talk about how to train AI so often, we forget to focus on training ourselves on how to properly use it. I would love to hear opinions from the rest of you on where you stand with our obsession with AI. How do you think businesses bringing AI into their organization can ensure it does develop AI-fueled brain rot?

I know you did not stop by today just to hear my opinion on AI in the business sphere, so let us get to the details of what happened at the office this week. The topic is, the surplus.

The day started off with what should have been a fairly simple event. Oscar brought in the final budget projections for the year since the fiscal year was about to end, and he wanted Michael to know what he found. Turns out we are set to have a budget surplus of $4,300 and Oscar wanted to make sure Michael was aware of it so he could spend it. Unfortunately, Michael is pretty lost and not quite sure on what the heck a surplus is, so Oscar comes up with a great analogy. Which reads as:

“Oscar: Your mommy and daddy give you ten dollars to open up a lemonade stand. So you go out and you buy cups and you buy lemons and you buy sugar. And now you find out that it only costs you nine dollars.
Michael: Ho-oh!
Oscar: So you have an extra dollar.
Michael: Yeah.
Oscar: So you can give that dollar back to mommy and daddy, but guess what? Next summer…
Michael: I’ll be six.
Oscar: And you ask them for money, they’re gonna give you nine dollars. ‘Cause that’s what they think it costs to run the stand. So what you want to do is spend that dollar on something now, so that your parents think it costs ten dollars to run the lemonade stand.
Michael: So the dollar’s a surplus. This is a surplus.”

This is a great example of offering a simplified explanation of a surplus which is when a company, government, or similar entity when the revenue exceeds your expenditures. This is related to the budget of a specific branch so basically it means that although we were budgeted out for a set amount for the year, we did not need to spend as much and we have this leftover amount. And if we chose to return it to the corporate office, then next year they will assume we can manage on a smaller budget. Obviously, this does not actually work in my opinion because you have to factor in for inflation so a budget always needs to go up. Additionally, just because we came in under this time around doesn’t mean it can happen every single year. Not to go back to my personal discussion up above but I feel it always goes back to senior leaders who only care about profits and productivity, but never question if their personal paycheck or budget could be trimmed back.

So now that Michael understands a surplus, what should be done about it? Well, Michael comes out and lets us all know that he was grateful to Oscar who suggested investing in a new copier for us to use in the office because the current one is terrible. I mean terrible because it rips paper, doesn’t work properly, and should be considered broken. I don’t even believe it is an issue about finding it in the budget because I believe this falls under the category of broken technology but here we are finding it in the budget.

This is where Pam interjects and insists that we are overdue for new chairs and the surplus should be used to replace the chairs in the office. She does point out she was meant to get Michael’s old chair before but he never actually got around to getting a new chair. Toby also interjected with suggesting we get the building air quality checked but no one agrees with him. Instead we see teams start to form, with Jim siding with Oscar in favor of the copier while Stanley joins Pam. Michael is now more confused than ever because he is unsure which side he should go with. And that leads to the rest of the day with us all trying to convince Michael that he should agree with our side.

And with that, the office essentially tries to become a masterclass of How to Win Friends and Influence People in using every possible technique we can. Jim and Oscar take him out to lunch at a fancy Italian restaurant, laughing at everything he says. Pam changes up her hair and makeup and gets pretty flirty with him, commenting on his clothes even. Kevin tries to bribe him with hot chocolate from the vending machine while Stanley and Kelly try to hold open every door. True to form, it only makes it harder on Michael in how to decide what to do. This is when he decides to look outside the office for help.

He first calls up Hank from security to come up and fully make the decision for the office. He mulls over the copier and the chairs, but it becomes pretty obvious he has no clue and is just up there killing time to get up from his desk. Michael then decides that he doesn’t think we need a copier or chairs and instead is just going to turn in the surplus. But Oscar catches on and we find out that Michael reached out to David Wallace and discovers that when a branch comes in under budget, the manager gets a bonus of 15% of the surplus. In this case Michael would be owed $645 which he immediately has lined up for something at Burlington Coat Factory. Obviously we are all pretty upset because we would much rather have some sort of contributions to the office rather than seeing Michael get a bonus. But he wasn’t going to budge and instead he decides that we need to make a unanimous decision of what to do with the surplus or else he gets the bonus.

I can see where he was going with this plan. We had to decide by the end of the work day what to do and because neither side was letting up, Michael assumed we would be stuck in a deadlock and he could get the bonus without it being his fault. It is a great idea, but I’m afraid Michael was not prepared for how quickly we can compromise. We ultimately were able to come to an agreement and settled on chairs for the office. It was done through popular vote as we all agreed that we didn’t want Michael to get it so might as well let the popular vote determine what we do with the money.

So we are getting new chairs so that is pretty exciting! So the real question, are you Team Chairs or Team Copier? My husband would have gone for chairs but personally I think I would have gone for the copier. My logic is the copier it absolute trash, and with a bad chair I could at least get a special cushion or something to make it more comfortable. That being said, I believe that allocating funds for a new copier would be easier and more feasible in the new year than trying to buy the entire office chairs, and I suspect that Oscar figured that out as well.

And that, everyone, is today’s Breakdown! Personally I cannot believe that Michael chose to go out of the office to get insight into the problem, but I suppose he was simply hoping an impartial person could make the decision for him. I suppose if I were him, I pry would have tried to use two methods of making the decision. I would do a pros-and-con list to go through my options to ascertain if one is inherently better than the other. Second, I would have brought in each person to get their personal opinion. Michael doesn’t make decisions by popular decision nearly as much as I would expect him to and I think it is because he doesn’t like to appease or disappoint a majority. He is absolutely an “all or nothing” type of person.

I hope you all have a great weekend, we are finally set to get some rain which is great because the green has set almost overnight and I believe some rain will help just that much more. Until next week, I’ll be sure to see you around the Breakroom.

1. Daniel, L. (2025, February 14). Your Brain On AI: ‘Atrophied And Unprepared’. Forbes. Retrieved May 16, 2025, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/larsdaniel/2025/02/14/your-brain-on-ai-atrophied-and-unprepared-warns-microsoft-study/ ↩︎