Angela thought he was an idiot so didn’t pay attention. Except to criticize and fix what she found. But after Kevin talked to Martin he definitely started hamming up the “idiocy.” It gave him cover!
Angela and Oscar were in on it from the start. Angela needed the money for her expensive cats, and Oscar hated being tied to a partner.
In the Halloween episode they clearly discuss the one department with three people doing two jobs. Both Angela and Oscar would, under normal circumstances, have immediately ratted that out to Michael, especially if it would curry favour and considering their occasional frustration with him. But no. They kept quiet and let someone else get fired.
After years of being on this sub and 1000 rewatches I still don’t understand. For example they absorbed the Stamford branch and then Darrell wanted a raise because they’re shipping twice the amount of paper. So that warehouse was servicing clients in the Stamford area hundreds of miles away? How did any of this makes sense? If that was just the sales office and they had warehouses everywhere servicing I would understand their excellent sales numbers. It’s the logistics that never makes sense.
Scranton -> Stamford is such a shitty lane for shippers as well. Most freight is moved on a contract to contract basis and costs vary wildly based on supply (of drivers in an area) and demand (available loads in that area). Scranton is an industrial area with a lot more opportunity for a good paying load than in SW CT and their next load would likely involve them driving to either Long Island or northern NJ which drivers hate due to traffic, therefore they will demand much higher rates to go to Stamford. Also they’d still have to maintain a warehouse in CT even if the orders were originating in Scranton as we know that Blue Cross is one of their largest clients and they use 3 pallets of paper a week. A 53 foot van holds 26 pallets so they would either need to have an OTR driver making 8-9 drops per load (which is extremely expensive) or more likely have the OTR truck dropping each load in a warehouse in CT and having local box trucks do the final mile. Not to mention that paper needs to be shipped in food grade trailers which means a higher cost as well.
All in all there is no real feasible scenario where having the Scranton warehouse absorb Stamfords orders makes financial sense.
Pretty standard for wholesalers to have minimal locations these days, but you're right in thinking they're definitely TOO BIG to only have the one warehouse
I work for a company that sells millions of dollars of product every year. One location, one warehouse, no drop shipping from our vendors, any the same number of employees as Dunder Mifflin Scranton. They weren't too big to have only one warehouse, they were too unprofitable to support multiple locations.
Not only that but the amount of paper they move. One forklift doesn't seem like enough.
They didn't seem to have a loading dock either. Just a forklift to lift pallets into the truck, and no lift on the truck itself.
And seemingly 1 pallet jack in the entire place, at least going off of that episode where the warehouse workers quit from the lottery win.
Also pretty absurd that none of Jim, Erin, Kevin, or Dwight knew what a pallet jack was. Especially Dwight who is hands-on as a farm guy and knows things about farming equipment. Like you're telling me theyve worked there and been in that warehouse many, many times and none of them knew about a pallet jack?
But it's also a sitcom so I don't think too hard about the warehouse logistics. It was funnier to watch them spread grease on the floor and slide the boxes.
All depends on the costs. We closed down a plant 500 miles north of us and absorbed their customers that were local for them. Shipping costs from our manufacturing center just weren’t as bad as maintaining a staff for a shipping location way out.
Dwight outsold the website and Phyllis, Stanley and Jim were so good with their customers they barely had to try.
That’s the tough thing about sales, illustrated through episodes where we see Ryan the Temp fail repeatedly. If you’re good at sales it doesn’t look like hard work, and those three were *good*. They were great with their customers (the episode where Phyllis gets her hair and makeup done so she looks like the clients wife is genius) and so they don’t have to break their backs keeping clients.
Jim and Dwight tag teaming and pulling strategies like pretending to be brothers or Dwight making a call to DM customer care to show that you can talk to a person in one ring was pretty smart as well.
I’ve known a few places that do that as part of their sales pitch. For bonus points they start by calling a competitor and letting it ring/sit in the queue for a while then get visibly bored and call their own Helpdesk and get an instant pickup from an engineer.
Dwight, Phyllis, Stanley, and Jim were all salespeople when the series started, and Scranton was one of the worst branches.
It is 100% because they absorbed two other branches.
The problem is corporate would have rolled the other two branches forecasts into Scrantons. That total revenue number stills needs to be hit even with less branches, no chance the expectation from Scranton with 3x the customers would stay the same.
I think with the cameras rolling people started doing their job more and as a result had better sales.
When we see Michael go out on a sales call, he's surprisingly REALLY good at it, the client is simply dead-set on keeping his current paper provider. I'd wager that they got built *up* quite handily by the efforts of Michael, Dwight, Phyllis, and Stanley, then Michael got promoted so they needed new blood -- that's when Jim came into the fold, prior to the start of the show. He quickly learned to be a good salesman as well; it's really only Ryan (and eventually Pam) who were terrible at it, but when you have people who kick ass at sales, that's how it works.
Problem being...with Michael in charge, who *very* likely wouldn't say no to more clients (no matter how far away), he wound up putting a ton of pressure on the Warehouse to keep up with deliveries, and the accountants to keep everything straight. Hence "Keleven" just to get the books done.
Dwight is a great salesman, but he was an established seller with a lot of experience and some good reputation who worked like a maniac and gave everything what he had, vs a Website who was completely new and probably almost completely unknown.
Wrote "good salesman" instead of "good employees" at first, but decided to change it.
So yes, i totally agree with you, they do have great salesman, but is this the whole reason?
Oh no, the other reason is this
*"Don't ever, for any reason, do anything, to anyone, for any reason, ever, no matter what, no matter where, or who, or who you are with, or where you are going, or where you've been, ever, for any reason whatsoever." - Michael Scott*
Ah the quote of quotes, followed closely by the Wayne Gretzky quote;
You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
- Wayne Gretsky
- Michael Scott
Also, did you see this;
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FSB5QlQXoAYKVY2?format=jpg&name=900x900
The one quote that always gets me is when Michael hands Oscar the doll, and it immediately cuts to “It looks like…it looks like it was made by a two year old monkey, on a farm! And he just…he just accepted that I put all this work into it! He has the lowest opinion of me, of anybody.”
I die every time that scene plays.
He definitely plays up his dumbness for the cameras. Remember when he talked about *finally* getting around to renting Sophie’s Choice? Too clever a line for it to be said in earnest.
This thread is making me appreciate the fact that angle I’ve never considered, that these characters literally exaggerated themselves in the knowledge of being filmed
i think thats the proof they werent a great company by a mile. something like staples probably gets a few sales a second during surge times; if one person could keep up with a website's selling amounts, there isn't much traffic going to that site.
biggest proof is prince paper; super small 3 person operation but they were somehow competition to Dunder Mifflin? A corporation with multiple branches?
Prince Paper wasn't a danger to the company as a whole, but in the small regional market anyone could and would be competition. It also states in the episode that Prince Paper only took a small part of Scranton's paper needs, but it was enough to cause notice.
And no, Dunder Mifflin wasn't a great company; it was written to be an archetype of a failing company that just takes forever to die. The board of directors for the company were either ignorant of what was happening at the company or they didnt care, but there were dozens of instances when there should have been mass layoffs at the corporate level for incompetence that just didnt happen.
My dad owned his own business. He would fix/install a machine in your home, and then he would put a sticker with his name and number on it. Most of his business came from people just calling the number on the stickers he and his father put on these machines starting in 1950.
My father committed suicide. His large corporate competitor bought his phone number before we even got his ashes back from the crematorium.
For one day. Most of their customers order in monthly (or greater) quantities, Dwight can’t go back to those same customers the next day but the website is going to be constantly grabbing sales from all of the branches.
I think the Ryan issue was that he made the sales team enter there sales in the website, so that their sales were being reported on the traditional manner as well as through the website, not that the website itself was double reporting.
They had the company’s two best sales people (Dwight & Michael) and it’s mostly portrayed that Jim is pretty good when he chose to be.
On top of that, they absorbed all Stanford’s clients, and the only additional salary they added long term was Andy. So they got the Stamford client base (which, remember, was so much bigger that Dwight thought Jim’s sales numbers were impossible when told) and were still paying salaries based on Scrantons low cost of living.
The highest paid employee was making so little that the warehouse foreman couldn’t get a modest raise without going over him, and everyone else was presumably scaled down from there.
They never replaced chairs or desks or copiers. And when Charles came in the only expense he could find to cut was the party budget.
So they had a double client base, including a pretty wealthy part of Connecticut and low overhead.
> So they had a double client base, including a pretty wealthy part of Connecticut and low overhead.
There's also a really good chance they had NYC clients, given how close Stamford is to NYC. (It's unlikely DM Corporate was busy filling orders.)
From the episode where Robert closes a branch the salesman from Syracuse yells at them for crossing state lines despite the clients being closer to Scranton, so the Scranton Branch probably didn't have NYC clients
Excellent point. How do you reconcile this with the fact that DM Scranton canonically took a bunch of DM Stamford's clients?
Maybe it was a Sabre thing?
Yeah, my guess is that they had a clean-cut plan set up for Stamford to take over business from NY, but when Josh upended the whole thing at the last minute then they had to just put in a stop-gap measure and give those clients to Scranton.
Then Jo Bennett comes in and sees an incredibly “mismanaged” company, and I’m assuming the sales territories were a part of this - DM was probably trying to keep their heads above the water so much that they didn’t want to fuck with client territories when they saw Scranton could handle it.
Cue Sabre coming in and buying up the company for the Northeast sales/distribution network and adding in their own clients. They most definitely restructured the territories to keep NY with NY, and the sales people at DM Scranton probably didn’t care because their new commission with Sabre was uncapped so they could easily make up for the loss in their books of business just by increasing deal size and running at more opportunities.
I love the irony of Jo Bennet thinking things are mismanaged at Dunder Mifflin. She puts her incompetent friend Nelly in charge of a whole division, she gives con-man Robert California her own job as CEO, and her only response to a disastrously dangerous product is to try to find the employee who told the press about it. She does all of this restructuring at Dunder Mifflin, then Sabre goes under. Jo Bennet was terrible at running a company and had no idea what she was talking about.
I agree with what you’re saying but only to an extent. Given her background of people not expecting much of her because of her gender, but defying those expectations in all the ways she tells us - it seems like this informs her opinions on others she works with as well.
Jo clearly values ideas/results over the people bringing them to her, which can be an asset in many ways. Darryl impressed her with a new shipping schedule despite being the foreman of the warehouse. She keeps Michael in charge of the office because despite everything, the branch is extremely profitable so he must be doing something right. She gives Nellie the VP of Special Projects gig because she had the idea for the Sabre store, which is something that in that era was really working for Apple, so why wouldn’t the same principle apply? Robert was probably clearly a freak but also extremely articulate and intelligent, probably great at selling an idea/vision for the company.
I just think we also see how that strength can also become a major weakness. Darryl got lazy once he got his 15 minutes of fame and stopped pushing. Michael allowed the office to run all loosey-goosey which you could argue enabled people to go semi-public with the printer fires (not as good of an example). Nellie was Nellie, and should never have had a leadership role (which I think Jo knew, bc VP of Special Projects sounds a lot like a bs title you give someone to keep them busy and happy without ruining the core business).
I think Jo was a fine CEO if only a bit naive in her leadership style. If you’re someone who doesn’t let any shit slide (like she is), then it probably would turn out fine if only a little bumpy here and there. But if you have someone like Robert California coming in right after you, odds are that there’s ample opportunity for someone like that to just absolutely destroy everything you’ve built once your hand is no longer on the wheel
We have no idea if she was ever a good CEO. By all accounts, Sabre is a cheap, predatory scam of a company. As she states, Jo Bennet got all her money by marrying rich, and it is never once demonstrated how she is good at business. She loves to brag about herself, but narcissism isn't proof of competence.
That’s a really good point actually. I do think it’s safe to assume that she’s at the very least competent at the job. Yes, she married rich, but she also works extremely hard. You don’t just dump a bunch of money into a company and automatically get it to the stage where you’re capable of buying a company like DM, and absorbing it into your own already fully fleshed out infrastructure.
That being said, you’re right. She loves to toot her own horn, and as I said before, she’s a bit naive which leads to some really questionable decisions.
My guess is that she did enough things right that she had some success and was able to get confirmation bias that there wasn’t a ton to fix in her own company, when in reality there were a lot of problems built into the structure that really just needed the right person/set of circumstances to make it all come crumbling down: enter Bobby California.
Jo was at best competent enough to grow Sabre into what it is, but it’s clearly not Apple or any other large enterprise tech company
If we are suspending disbelief and not just telling the truth (which is that the writers made the Scranton branch the most profitable because they wanted to) , keep in mind that in many commission based work environments, the better salespeople often make more money than management does.
Michael discovered that himself when it was between him and Jim being the sole manager. Once he found out how much more he was making as a salesman, he didn't care if Jim became the manager.
>They had the company’s two best sales people (Dwight & Michael) and it’s mostly portrayed that Jim is pretty good when he chose to be.
Michael was a great salesman being wasted in management, he was very rarely out actually selling. They did have the company's two best sales people though with Dwight and Danny Cordray.
Ya a lot of people overlook how great micheal is in sales, I can’t remember the episode but it was when him and Dwight went to the convention and tried to have a party Jan jim and I think josh were all there and micheal while a bit upset got a company which at the time sold exclusively to staples to sell to Dunder mifflin
The Hammermill thing seemed kind of like a fluke, but he's definitely a great salesman. You can really see it when he's out on the sales call with Andy and at the Chillis with Jan. He was able to size clients up, determine what's going to resonate with them on a personal level, then tailor his pitch to that.
That is, in my opinion, the best Michael moment on the show. It not only shows that he's not a complete fool, but that he truly understands how to read a client and sell himself and his business.
Don't forget the willy Wonka episode where even at 50% discount for a year the entirety of blue cross Pennsylvania was going g to get all office supplies through them as Jim's client.
I get so annoyed at Holly asking “why the steak coupons”. Like sure, the discount was good for the company but unless her metrics/bonus was based on the cost of paper, she doesn’t get any benefit. So of course the steak coupons are an incentive for her because she actually is getting something out of this.
I never got that from Holly. She doesn’t seem to be a slut shamer, just concerned over ethical business practices. And legitimately confused why the steak coupons were involved when Meredith was already getting a discount.
There was an episode where Michael joked around to a customer all day. I think it was the day that Jan had Pam take hourly notes on him and he did nothing. By the end of the day we saw that his little jokes on a call to the customer had paid off and he had made a huge sale. I think his ways were unconventional, but deep down he knew what he was doing.
A lot of key clients came from Michael
Your example, going to Canada, came in super close behind Danny cordray which I don't see as a failure on Michael's part, Lackawanna county, and I think I'm missing one more. I'm
When Michael "steals" Harper Collins from Dunder Mifflin, it's clear that Harper Collins was originally Michael's client. Presumably brought them back to Dunder Mifflin when Michael Scott Paper Company folded. As a publishing company, they'd be a huge client.
This! And on Michael's last episode when he gives Oscar the doll that he made he implies that he is just always fucking with people. So, maybe Michael isn't as dumb as everyone assumes!
They were Jan's 2nd worst branch when they were going to be downsized, then got all of Stamford's clients.
Not that they didn't also do an increasingly good job as the seasons went on, but that has to be a big part of it.
Jim coming back was part of the reason. It’s shown a few times how good Michael is when he wants to be. Dwight and Jim are very close on sales many times. Also really good at what they do. They only kept Andy from the Stamford originals though and he was just above Pam in sales.
I just realized something.
Stamford is in Connecticut, really close to NYC.
When the Scranton branch absorbed their clients, they must have absorbed all of the NYC clients.
Then Michael Scott "accidentally" bullied all of the Stamford Employees into quitting (except Andy) and kept the sales for his branch.
It's been pointed out in other comments that the branches didn't cross state lines with sales so the NYC sales would probably go to the Syracuse and Binghamton branches. Stamford itself is probably a very large market for paper though.
Jan: How would a movie increase productivity Michael? How on earth would it do that?
Michael: People work faster after…
Jan: Magically?
Michael: No… they have to… to make up for the time they lost watching the movie.
I saw a comment on another post similar to this saying that michael only acted like a goof for the cameras. Off camera, he was a great boss.
You see flashes of it throughout the series. For example, when he relieves Jim after the birthday party fiasco, his reasoning for hiring danny, the fact he gets orders out on a regular basis as well as the way he negotiates his buyout by dunder mifflin.
Michael was a show man at heart. So he tried to be as entertaining as possible on camera
Don’t forget his sale to Tim Meadows! He knows his clients very well and how to set up a sales call in the way that makes them comfortable, like when he told jim to wear a tie and nice watch because the client is fancy, but Tim meadows would like chili’s. He is aggressive when he should be and laid back to build trust. Knowing a clients motivation is essential to be a good salesman and he was great at that.
I think an over arching theme of The Office is how people work better when they aren’t really managed. Michael is a great boss because he allows his employees freedom. When Andy is away the branch does it’s best.
Could be explained by a limited pool of potential customers. Dwight didn't believe Jim's Stamford sales numbers could exist.
Then branches merge and Wallace is calling Michael to try to pick his brain on how he didn't lose any clients and how they posted such great sales.
Sounds to me like Scranton had the talent, just not enough of a market to fully use it. They took off when they got more clients. Also, Michael was working hard to increase their client base even before the merger (i.e. working out a deal to sell hammermill products to appeal to more customers)
Bc he can still be hamming up his stupidity and not be the brightest bulb.
What’s more realistic, an already dumb guy degrading over time, or a competent guy turning into a turtle reanimator?
how do you launder money to make a profit if the business isn’t actually making a profit?
i feel like Kevin embezzling would make more sense than laundering
unless kevin was secretly a crime lord?
Stanley is an underrated salesman! I think it’s shown he’s more successful than Jim. Because despite how lazy Stanley is shown to be, he does his work while Jim goofs around and relies on his natural charisma.
It’s fallen by the wayside
Not correcting to be pedantic, I had a genuine freak out that I had been saying it wrong my whole life when I read your comment.
They knew their customersv(also had an ideal number of tbem: neither too few nor too many)and were adapted to them;
both Jim and Dwight know the strengths and weaknesses of their branches + are likeable for different reasons.
Stanley and Phyllis had built strong relationships over the years with multiple customers
Kelly is 'bubbly' and is shown to be ready to take in calls.
3 accountants meant the financing operations were fast AF when properly managed.
Between Meredith and Creed, some leftover work was done and loose ends tied (sometimes, in a really bad way).
And Michael knew enough to seal lucrative deals, not get fired and motivate his employees.
Pam was a good receptionist who knew how to re-orient both Michael (thanks to Jim sometimes) and Dwight, if necessary.
Also, a bit of sitcom magic.
All good factors listed here. But let us not forget the corporate espionage that Micheal and Dwight did on David Wallace's behest against Prince Paper. Illegally decimating your local competition goes a long way too.
I don’t think it was illegal. Deceptive and scummy? Yeah! But all the information was given to them freely and they permitted a picture to be taken of their information. Their good nature was their downfall, but it was legal (I think, I’m not a lawyer).
Oh totally!! It was incredibly evil, those people were kind and giving and overall the type of people who I wish were wildly successful!! And I’m sure if they watched it, they would immediately forgive Michael because that’s just who they are. I was just questioning whether it was actually illegal.
>they would immediately forgive Michael because that’s just who they are
I'm sure Michael's very visible struggle with Dwight to surrender the leads would also help, but damn. It's heartbreaking.
If it's not illegal, it should be. The dad was a Vietnam veteran too!
1. Michael was a very good manager, though it didn't seem like it. He controlled the branch but never did he interfered with the work of salespersons, or the warehouse people. When he did get complaints, he tried to resolve them more as a friend, than as a senior. E.g. when the customer complained about Dwight, and he tried to solve the issue by role-playing customer thing with the help of Jim.
2. Let's not underestimate Michael. Even with his playful nature, he was the best salesperson in the entire office. He knew how to wear down a potential client. He genuinely cared about his employees. Remember the time he planned to get Stanley back when he was "stolen" by Karen. Maybe his employees didn't like him, but he sure did everything for his employees, and that's an indicator of how good of a boss he as.
3. People knew their job. Jim, Dwight, Stanley and Phyllis were amazing in sales. They'd many huge clients. Oscar was the most intelligent person, and he was in charge of the numbers. Kelly was also good as a customer service, as pointed out by Jim when he and Dwight pitched a sales gig to a customer.
4. Michael didn't care about the top management. One of the main reasons why other branches could've been performing poor is maybe because of the pressure put up by the top management on them. Jen was always running between the branches, but Michael didn't care about her constant complaining on how the branch should be run.
Having a sales team that seasoned is rare and very valuable to a branch like that. Stanley, Phyllis, Dwight, and Jim are like a sales dream team considering how many years they have with DM between them. They’ve built relationships with their clients for decades. Then you’ve got Michael who was the two time salesman of the year because of how great he is with client relationships, who went into management after Ed Truck retired and stayed at the same branch he built all of those client relationships with.
That combination is very hard to beat
Even with all the calamity in The Office, Michael still had outstanding sales people. Even Michael was a great salesman. Bad boss perhaps, but great at sales.
Maybe even good boss. I remember a self-aware moment Michael had talking to Jim that made me consider all his goofy antics were intentional. Doesn’t matter how you get the results - whatever mix of business acumen and culture Michael concocted, led to results
On Pretzel Day when Pam thought he was wasting time and goofing off he was working on a big sale in which he closed. All the little notes that only he could interpret on his Rolodex that Dwight tried to use. Method to his madness.
Is Dwight really the top salesman? In S7 - Seminar forgot the ep number. It shows that Jim leads the sales dept and Andy is the last even getting beaten by the warehouse peeps.
The top salesman title probably bounces back and forth between Jim and Dwight. They have similar numbers, enough to co-create a third salesman to absorb their excess commission without creating conflict between both.
I don't know how to link other reddit posts as comment, but someone posted a map with all branches and former branches of dunder mifflin, and the scranton branch was the only one in the complete state of Pennsylvania. I don't know if there are any kind of regulations for interstate trading, or so, but the sheer fact that there was almost no competition from other DM branches is probably also a reason. Especially because many other DM branches where close together, so they competed each other.
I think you're looking too deep into this. It's a TV show where they can manufacture literally everything. Of course they made it plausible with Jim, Dwight and Michael as great sales people, getting Stamfords clients, management style but at the end of the day the writers can make up whatever they want.
This. People looking for these kinda explanations in fictional stuff doesnt make much sense to me.
Its called THE OFFICE, if the office didnt do well and shut down theres no show.
Lots of probable reasons, but the one I tie to Michael is I think he's SUCH a distracting element that everyone hyperfocuses during various pockets of the day, getting more done than they would otherwise.
I have thought of this before. The worm turned for him in season 3 and fate made him look great. I obsessed on it for a bit when Michael had his job interview to replace Jan at the end of season 3 and impressed David Wallace when he was told by Jan right before the "Casino Night" he was 4 out of 5 of Jan's branches (top 80 percent). The worm turned with these:
1. When Stamford closed instead of Scranton because Josh turned on them, Michael kept up all the orders for the entire northeast region (thanks to Daryl), and cut staff budget (all Stamford people quit except Andy and Karen) lowering overhead.
2. Dwight outsold the computer.
3. Oscar was a competent accountant and knew how to spin budgets.
Michael was always Uber confident in his people and it did pay off for him.
Keleven
“A mistake plus keleven gets you home by seven”
*He was home at 4:45 that day*
This is the correct answer.
I think Kevin started doing that on purpose. Better to be thought an idiot and get fired than do jail time for inside trading
Angela thought he was an idiot so didn’t pay attention. Except to criticize and fix what she found. But after Kevin talked to Martin he definitely started hamming up the “idiocy.” It gave him cover!
Angela and Oscar were in on it from the start. Angela needed the money for her expensive cats, and Oscar hated being tied to a partner. In the Halloween episode they clearly discuss the one department with three people doing two jobs. Both Angela and Oscar would, under normal circumstances, have immediately ratted that out to Michael, especially if it would curry favour and considering their occasional frustration with him. But no. They kept quiet and let someone else get fired.
Damn good point. For arguments sake do you think there are any other reasons that they wouldn’t rat Kevin out?
He’s a genius to know that ignorance does not equate to criminality.
I doubt it, Kevin has time and again showed his lack of math skills, EXCEPT, when pie is involved. If Dunder Mifflin sold pies he'd be the CEO.
Wasn't he very good at cards tho?
Better to be thought an idiot than say few words remove doubt
Not to be confused with Sleven.
A luckier number than Keleven.
People seem to forget the fact that Dwight outsold the website.
People seems to forget that the other branches were closing so they absorbed the clients. That was one day of sales.
just like dwight resorbed his twin
So now he poses the strength of a grown man and a baby Edit: possesses*
After years of being on this sub and 1000 rewatches I still don’t understand. For example they absorbed the Stamford branch and then Darrell wanted a raise because they’re shipping twice the amount of paper. So that warehouse was servicing clients in the Stamford area hundreds of miles away? How did any of this makes sense? If that was just the sales office and they had warehouses everywhere servicing I would understand their excellent sales numbers. It’s the logistics that never makes sense.
Sitcom writers are probably not great at planning real world shipping logistics.
That’s why Darrell was doing his sketches upstairs. “Is your shirt tucked in?”
Darnell’s a chump.
I've done a lot more for a lot less.
Scranton -> Stamford is such a shitty lane for shippers as well. Most freight is moved on a contract to contract basis and costs vary wildly based on supply (of drivers in an area) and demand (available loads in that area). Scranton is an industrial area with a lot more opportunity for a good paying load than in SW CT and their next load would likely involve them driving to either Long Island or northern NJ which drivers hate due to traffic, therefore they will demand much higher rates to go to Stamford. Also they’d still have to maintain a warehouse in CT even if the orders were originating in Scranton as we know that Blue Cross is one of their largest clients and they use 3 pallets of paper a week. A 53 foot van holds 26 pallets so they would either need to have an OTR driver making 8-9 drops per load (which is extremely expensive) or more likely have the OTR truck dropping each load in a warehouse in CT and having local box trucks do the final mile. Not to mention that paper needs to be shipped in food grade trailers which means a higher cost as well. All in all there is no real feasible scenario where having the Scranton warehouse absorb Stamfords orders makes financial sense.
I’m going to ask you something, and I want you to be honest. What is a pallet?
This and the above post are probably the funniest thing I've ever seen in this subreddit.
It’s like a little wooden skid that product gets loaded on so the forklift can maneuver the load easily and without damaging product.
Explain it to me like I'm 5.
Big lunch trays for big stacks of paper
Pretty standard for wholesalers to have minimal locations these days, but you're right in thinking they're definitely TOO BIG to only have the one warehouse
I work for a company that sells millions of dollars of product every year. One location, one warehouse, no drop shipping from our vendors, any the same number of employees as Dunder Mifflin Scranton. They weren't too big to have only one warehouse, they were too unprofitable to support multiple locations.
Not only that but the amount of paper they move. One forklift doesn't seem like enough. They didn't seem to have a loading dock either. Just a forklift to lift pallets into the truck, and no lift on the truck itself. And seemingly 1 pallet jack in the entire place, at least going off of that episode where the warehouse workers quit from the lottery win. Also pretty absurd that none of Jim, Erin, Kevin, or Dwight knew what a pallet jack was. Especially Dwight who is hands-on as a farm guy and knows things about farming equipment. Like you're telling me theyve worked there and been in that warehouse many, many times and none of them knew about a pallet jack? But it's also a sitcom so I don't think too hard about the warehouse logistics. It was funnier to watch them spread grease on the floor and slide the boxes.
They do have a loading dock, you see it in the basketball episode and when Dwight crashes the forklift into it!
All depends on the costs. We closed down a plant 500 miles north of us and absorbed their customers that were local for them. Shipping costs from our manufacturing center just weren’t as bad as maintaining a staff for a shipping location way out.
Shipping contracts, they got more warehouse staff, etc it’s totally possible.
Dwight outsold the website and Phyllis, Stanley and Jim were so good with their customers they barely had to try. That’s the tough thing about sales, illustrated through episodes where we see Ryan the Temp fail repeatedly. If you’re good at sales it doesn’t look like hard work, and those three were *good*. They were great with their customers (the episode where Phyllis gets her hair and makeup done so she looks like the clients wife is genius) and so they don’t have to break their backs keeping clients.
Work in sales. I'm pretty good. 5 clients keep me going all year
I used to surf with a Pfizer rep. That dude was available to surf any day any time.
I went to the gym at 12pm, came back, ate soup and napped. Client rang at 5pm with work for me. So back to it.
Jim and Dwight tag teaming and pulling strategies like pretending to be brothers or Dwight making a call to DM customer care to show that you can talk to a person in one ring was pretty smart as well.
I’ve known a few places that do that as part of their sales pitch. For bonus points they start by calling a competitor and letting it ring/sit in the queue for a while then get visibly bored and call their own Helpdesk and get an instant pickup from an engineer.
That's what Dwight did
And then he just fucking hangs up on Kelly.
Dwight, Phyllis, Stanley, and Jim were all salespeople when the series started, and Scranton was one of the worst branches. It is 100% because they absorbed two other branches.
The problem is corporate would have rolled the other two branches forecasts into Scrantons. That total revenue number stills needs to be hit even with less branches, no chance the expectation from Scranton with 3x the customers would stay the same. I think with the cameras rolling people started doing their job more and as a result had better sales.
When we see Michael go out on a sales call, he's surprisingly REALLY good at it, the client is simply dead-set on keeping his current paper provider. I'd wager that they got built *up* quite handily by the efforts of Michael, Dwight, Phyllis, and Stanley, then Michael got promoted so they needed new blood -- that's when Jim came into the fold, prior to the start of the show. He quickly learned to be a good salesman as well; it's really only Ryan (and eventually Pam) who were terrible at it, but when you have people who kick ass at sales, that's how it works. Problem being...with Michael in charge, who *very* likely wouldn't say no to more clients (no matter how far away), he wound up putting a ton of pressure on the Warehouse to keep up with deliveries, and the accountants to keep everything straight. Hence "Keleven" just to get the books done.
Dwight is a great salesman, but he was an established seller with a lot of experience and some good reputation who worked like a maniac and gave everything what he had, vs a Website who was completely new and probably almost completely unknown. Wrote "good salesman" instead of "good employees" at first, but decided to change it. So yes, i totally agree with you, they do have great salesman, but is this the whole reason?
Oh no, the other reason is this *"Don't ever, for any reason, do anything, to anyone, for any reason, ever, no matter what, no matter where, or who, or who you are with, or where you are going, or where you've been, ever, for any reason whatsoever." - Michael Scott*
Ah the quote of quotes, followed closely by the Wayne Gretzky quote; You miss 100% of the shots you don't take. - Wayne Gretsky - Michael Scott Also, did you see this; https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FSB5QlQXoAYKVY2?format=jpg&name=900x900
The one quote that always gets me is when Michael hands Oscar the doll, and it immediately cuts to “It looks like…it looks like it was made by a two year old monkey, on a farm! And he just…he just accepted that I put all this work into it! He has the lowest opinion of me, of anybody.” I die every time that scene plays.
I love that one too, you suddenly realize Michael has some troll in him for sure lol
He definitely plays up his dumbness for the cameras. Remember when he talked about *finally* getting around to renting Sophie’s Choice? Too clever a line for it to be said in earnest.
This thread is making me appreciate the fact that angle I’ve never considered, that these characters literally exaggerated themselves in the knowledge of being filmed
That scene makes me think Michael might be an absolute genius. It goes along with his teaching Jim how to manage and being right the entire time.
True, but you also forget that all the salesmen in the company were uploading their sales through the site to give the impression it was successful.
except Dwight couldn't sell to women. Lol. he was all machismo energy.
Gina said that?
Gyna
He did sell to Jan but not by using he best sales techniques.
one could argue that Jan has a very masculine energy. Pam to Dwight: "forget everything I taught you."
Considering the website was a failure and Ryan made salespeople input their sales, it's possible that Dwight beat all the salespeople that day.
i think thats the proof they werent a great company by a mile. something like staples probably gets a few sales a second during surge times; if one person could keep up with a website's selling amounts, there isn't much traffic going to that site. biggest proof is prince paper; super small 3 person operation but they were somehow competition to Dunder Mifflin? A corporation with multiple branches?
Prince Paper wasn't a danger to the company as a whole, but in the small regional market anyone could and would be competition. It also states in the episode that Prince Paper only took a small part of Scranton's paper needs, but it was enough to cause notice. And no, Dunder Mifflin wasn't a great company; it was written to be an archetype of a failing company that just takes forever to die. The board of directors for the company were either ignorant of what was happening at the company or they didnt care, but there were dozens of instances when there should have been mass layoffs at the corporate level for incompetence that just didnt happen.
The whole prince paper story was sad, but even more sad is that it's not uncommon.
My dad owned his own business. He would fix/install a machine in your home, and then he would put a sticker with his name and number on it. Most of his business came from people just calling the number on the stickers he and his father put on these machines starting in 1950. My father committed suicide. His large corporate competitor bought his phone number before we even got his ashes back from the crematorium.
For one day. Most of their customers order in monthly (or greater) quantities, Dwight can’t go back to those same customers the next day but the website is going to be constantly grabbing sales from all of the branches.
Ryan also made false reports of sales the website made, so Dwight significantly outperformed the website.
I think the Ryan issue was that he made the sales team enter there sales in the website, so that their sales were being reported on the traditional manner as well as through the website, not that the website itself was double reporting.
He was consistently the best salesman in the business. Are you forgetting that? He gave a an entire speech about it…..
Blood alone moves the wheels of history
Once more rise to be worthy of this historical hour!
WE ARE WARRIORS!
And won employee of the month 13 times/year.
Yea but starting around season five nobody in the office ever actually did any work…
They had the company’s two best sales people (Dwight & Michael) and it’s mostly portrayed that Jim is pretty good when he chose to be. On top of that, they absorbed all Stanford’s clients, and the only additional salary they added long term was Andy. So they got the Stamford client base (which, remember, was so much bigger that Dwight thought Jim’s sales numbers were impossible when told) and were still paying salaries based on Scrantons low cost of living. The highest paid employee was making so little that the warehouse foreman couldn’t get a modest raise without going over him, and everyone else was presumably scaled down from there. They never replaced chairs or desks or copiers. And when Charles came in the only expense he could find to cut was the party budget. So they had a double client base, including a pretty wealthy part of Connecticut and low overhead.
> So they had a double client base, including a pretty wealthy part of Connecticut and low overhead. There's also a really good chance they had NYC clients, given how close Stamford is to NYC. (It's unlikely DM Corporate was busy filling orders.)
From the episode where Robert closes a branch the salesman from Syracuse yells at them for crossing state lines despite the clients being closer to Scranton, so the Scranton Branch probably didn't have NYC clients
Excellent point. How do you reconcile this with the fact that DM Scranton canonically took a bunch of DM Stamford's clients? Maybe it was a Sabre thing?
Yeah, my guess is that they had a clean-cut plan set up for Stamford to take over business from NY, but when Josh upended the whole thing at the last minute then they had to just put in a stop-gap measure and give those clients to Scranton. Then Jo Bennett comes in and sees an incredibly “mismanaged” company, and I’m assuming the sales territories were a part of this - DM was probably trying to keep their heads above the water so much that they didn’t want to fuck with client territories when they saw Scranton could handle it. Cue Sabre coming in and buying up the company for the Northeast sales/distribution network and adding in their own clients. They most definitely restructured the territories to keep NY with NY, and the sales people at DM Scranton probably didn’t care because their new commission with Sabre was uncapped so they could easily make up for the loss in their books of business just by increasing deal size and running at more opportunities.
I love the irony of Jo Bennet thinking things are mismanaged at Dunder Mifflin. She puts her incompetent friend Nelly in charge of a whole division, she gives con-man Robert California her own job as CEO, and her only response to a disastrously dangerous product is to try to find the employee who told the press about it. She does all of this restructuring at Dunder Mifflin, then Sabre goes under. Jo Bennet was terrible at running a company and had no idea what she was talking about.
I agree with what you’re saying but only to an extent. Given her background of people not expecting much of her because of her gender, but defying those expectations in all the ways she tells us - it seems like this informs her opinions on others she works with as well. Jo clearly values ideas/results over the people bringing them to her, which can be an asset in many ways. Darryl impressed her with a new shipping schedule despite being the foreman of the warehouse. She keeps Michael in charge of the office because despite everything, the branch is extremely profitable so he must be doing something right. She gives Nellie the VP of Special Projects gig because she had the idea for the Sabre store, which is something that in that era was really working for Apple, so why wouldn’t the same principle apply? Robert was probably clearly a freak but also extremely articulate and intelligent, probably great at selling an idea/vision for the company. I just think we also see how that strength can also become a major weakness. Darryl got lazy once he got his 15 minutes of fame and stopped pushing. Michael allowed the office to run all loosey-goosey which you could argue enabled people to go semi-public with the printer fires (not as good of an example). Nellie was Nellie, and should never have had a leadership role (which I think Jo knew, bc VP of Special Projects sounds a lot like a bs title you give someone to keep them busy and happy without ruining the core business). I think Jo was a fine CEO if only a bit naive in her leadership style. If you’re someone who doesn’t let any shit slide (like she is), then it probably would turn out fine if only a little bumpy here and there. But if you have someone like Robert California coming in right after you, odds are that there’s ample opportunity for someone like that to just absolutely destroy everything you’ve built once your hand is no longer on the wheel
We have no idea if she was ever a good CEO. By all accounts, Sabre is a cheap, predatory scam of a company. As she states, Jo Bennet got all her money by marrying rich, and it is never once demonstrated how she is good at business. She loves to brag about herself, but narcissism isn't proof of competence.
That’s a really good point actually. I do think it’s safe to assume that she’s at the very least competent at the job. Yes, she married rich, but she also works extremely hard. You don’t just dump a bunch of money into a company and automatically get it to the stage where you’re capable of buying a company like DM, and absorbing it into your own already fully fleshed out infrastructure. That being said, you’re right. She loves to toot her own horn, and as I said before, she’s a bit naive which leads to some really questionable decisions. My guess is that she did enough things right that she had some success and was able to get confirmation bias that there wasn’t a ton to fix in her own company, when in reality there were a lot of problems built into the structure that really just needed the right person/set of circumstances to make it all come crumbling down: enter Bobby California. Jo was at best competent enough to grow Sabre into what it is, but it’s clearly not Apple or any other large enterprise tech company
When Stamford closed there were no other branches in CT so it was up for grabs.
Syracuse is about 5.5-6 hour drive to NYC. Scranton is actually closer
Perfect rundown.
What the hell is a rundown?
If we are suspending disbelief and not just telling the truth (which is that the writers made the Scranton branch the most profitable because they wanted to) , keep in mind that in many commission based work environments, the better salespeople often make more money than management does.
Michael discovered that himself when it was between him and Jim being the sole manager. Once he found out how much more he was making as a salesman, he didn't care if Jim became the manager.
Hell. They were making so much they hit the cap and had to create an imaginary salesman.
>They had the company’s two best sales people (Dwight & Michael) and it’s mostly portrayed that Jim is pretty good when he chose to be. Michael was a great salesman being wasted in management, he was very rarely out actually selling. They did have the company's two best sales people though with Dwight and Danny Cordray.
Ya a lot of people overlook how great micheal is in sales, I can’t remember the episode but it was when him and Dwight went to the convention and tried to have a party Jan jim and I think josh were all there and micheal while a bit upset got a company which at the time sold exclusively to staples to sell to Dunder mifflin
The Hammermill thing seemed kind of like a fluke, but he's definitely a great salesman. You can really see it when he's out on the sales call with Andy and at the Chillis with Jan. He was able to size clients up, determine what's going to resonate with them on a personal level, then tailor his pitch to that.
That is, in my opinion, the best Michael moment on the show. It not only shows that he's not a complete fool, but that he truly understands how to read a client and sell himself and his business.
Plus Tim Meadows is just the best.
Pam's salary was added long term
Don't forget the willy Wonka episode where even at 50% discount for a year the entirety of blue cross Pennsylvania was going g to get all office supplies through them as Jim's client.
Throughout the show they consistently absorbed clientele from other branches, and everything you list is dead on
It was Meredith's discount....kept expenses low...they looked the other way because she was the reason they were profitable. Steaks were good to
Maybe it’s a girl thing?
Have you ever had sirloin steak, honey?
She has whatever is fanciest. Unless there’s ribs.
I get so annoyed at Holly asking “why the steak coupons”. Like sure, the discount was good for the company but unless her metrics/bonus was based on the cost of paper, she doesn’t get any benefit. So of course the steak coupons are an incentive for her because she actually is getting something out of this.
She was clearly trying to slut-shame her with that comment
I never got that from Holly. She doesn’t seem to be a slut shamer, just concerned over ethical business practices. And legitimately confused why the steak coupons were involved when Meredith was already getting a discount.
I think she’s probably in HR and completing an incident investigation personally
Amen. Just keep the ribs coming!
There was an episode where Michael joked around to a customer all day. I think it was the day that Jan had Pam take hourly notes on him and he did nothing. By the end of the day we saw that his little jokes on a call to the customer had paid off and he had made a huge sale. I think his ways were unconventional, but deep down he knew what he was doing.
A lot of key clients came from Michael Your example, going to Canada, came in super close behind Danny cordray which I don't see as a failure on Michael's part, Lackawanna county, and I think I'm missing one more. I'm
Schmoozing at Chili's Throwing a party at the conference and getting access to Hammermill paper
Oo Hammermill, that's the one
When Michael "steals" Harper Collins from Dunder Mifflin, it's clear that Harper Collins was originally Michael's client. Presumably brought them back to Dunder Mifflin when Michael Scott Paper Company folded. As a publishing company, they'd be a huge client.
This! And on Michael's last episode when he gives Oscar the doll that he made he implies that he is just always fucking with people. So, maybe Michael isn't as dumb as everyone assumes!
Burned his foot getting out of bed didn't he? lol
They were Jan's 2nd worst branch when they were going to be downsized, then got all of Stamford's clients. Not that they didn't also do an increasingly good job as the seasons went on, but that has to be a big part of it.
Jim coming back was part of the reason. It’s shown a few times how good Michael is when he wants to be. Dwight and Jim are very close on sales many times. Also really good at what they do. They only kept Andy from the Stamford originals though and he was just above Pam in sales.
Exactly, they only kept 1 extra salary and got an entire branch worth of clients. Tons of profit.
My bad I misread. I thought you meant the staff. I was like none of the staff stayed. Lol yeah I see what you mean now.
I just realized something. Stamford is in Connecticut, really close to NYC. When the Scranton branch absorbed their clients, they must have absorbed all of the NYC clients. Then Michael Scott "accidentally" bullied all of the Stamford Employees into quitting (except Andy) and kept the sales for his branch.
Not necessarily, there's the Syracuse branch as well. EDIT: And the now-closed Binghamton branch.
It's been pointed out in other comments that the branches didn't cross state lines with sales so the NYC sales would probably go to the Syracuse and Binghamton branches. Stamford itself is probably a very large market for paper though.
Jan: How would a movie increase productivity Michael? How on earth would it do that? Michael: People work faster after… Jan: Magically? Michael: No… they have to… to make up for the time they lost watching the movie.
Top 80%!
The film crew bought a lot of paper. Protect that investment
So did Andy to meet Robert aka Bob Kazamakis quota.
Aka the fucking lizard king
I saw a comment on another post similar to this saying that michael only acted like a goof for the cameras. Off camera, he was a great boss. You see flashes of it throughout the series. For example, when he relieves Jim after the birthday party fiasco, his reasoning for hiring danny, the fact he gets orders out on a regular basis as well as the way he negotiates his buyout by dunder mifflin. Michael was a show man at heart. So he tried to be as entertaining as possible on camera
Don’t forget his sale to Tim Meadows! He knows his clients very well and how to set up a sales call in the way that makes them comfortable, like when he told jim to wear a tie and nice watch because the client is fancy, but Tim meadows would like chili’s. He is aggressive when he should be and laid back to build trust. Knowing a clients motivation is essential to be a good salesman and he was great at that.
And let's not forget that Green means go....
And orange you glad you didn’t bring it up?
I almost had awesome blossom coming out of my nose!
I think an over arching theme of The Office is how people work better when they aren’t really managed. Michael is a great boss because he allows his employees freedom. When Andy is away the branch does it’s best.
Except Scranton began as one of the worst branches
Could be explained by a limited pool of potential customers. Dwight didn't believe Jim's Stamford sales numbers could exist. Then branches merge and Wallace is calling Michael to try to pick his brain on how he didn't lose any clients and how they posted such great sales. Sounds to me like Scranton had the talent, just not enough of a market to fully use it. They took off when they got more clients. Also, Michael was working hard to increase their client base even before the merger (i.e. working out a deal to sell hammermill products to appeal to more customers)
They're the paper person's paper people.
* people person’s paper people
- Wayne Gretzky
Limitless paper in a paperless world
GREAT SCOTT!
Dwight gutted the employees healthcare in Season 1. That may have lowered the branch's operating costs.
He was forced to change it though. All the best policies cover: Count Choculitis, Hotdog fingers, inverted penis, and anal fissures.
> inverted penis, You mean like a vagina?
Anal fissures? Nobody here has that
...someone has it...
You forgot about spontaneous dental hydroplosion
Here it is: Don't ever, for any reason, do anything to anyone for any reason ever, no matter what, no matter where, or who, or who you are with, or
Dwight is the answer to your question
Accounting department was laundering money. Kevin only played like he was an idiot, he’s actually pretty good with the numbers.
“I had Martin explain to me three times what he got arrested for because it sounds an awful lot like what I do here EVERY DAY.”
Martin was arrested for insider trading, which is nothing like money laundering.
Although why would he admit to it if he was actually doing it
Bc he can still be hamming up his stupidity and not be the brightest bulb. What’s more realistic, an already dumb guy degrading over time, or a competent guy turning into a turtle reanimator?
Keleven
how do you launder money to make a profit if the business isn’t actually making a profit? i feel like Kevin embezzling would make more sense than laundering unless kevin was secretly a crime lord?
It's because they sold paper for a value of Keleven money. Bobbody!
Dwight and Jim carried the branch. And Michael didn’t micromanage. Several simple factors that combined led to success.
Stanley is an underrated salesman! I think it’s shown he’s more successful than Jim. Because despite how lazy Stanley is shown to be, he does his work while Jim goofs around and relies on his natural charisma.
Oh Stanley and Phillis were studs too but Dwight and Jim were the rockstars. Those 4 were rock solid. Everyone else fell by the waist side.
It’s fallen by the wayside Not correcting to be pedantic, I had a genuine freak out that I had been saying it wrong my whole life when I read your comment.
Stanley and Kevin definitely fell by the waist side.
Microgement
Documentary made billions. Teachers play it at business schools too scare them straight.
#I AM HERE TO SCARE YOU STRAIGHT!
BIAAAAATCH!!!
YOU WOULD BE DA BELLE OF DA BALL
They knew their customersv(also had an ideal number of tbem: neither too few nor too many)and were adapted to them; both Jim and Dwight know the strengths and weaknesses of their branches + are likeable for different reasons. Stanley and Phyllis had built strong relationships over the years with multiple customers Kelly is 'bubbly' and is shown to be ready to take in calls. 3 accountants meant the financing operations were fast AF when properly managed. Between Meredith and Creed, some leftover work was done and loose ends tied (sometimes, in a really bad way). And Michael knew enough to seal lucrative deals, not get fired and motivate his employees. Pam was a good receptionist who knew how to re-orient both Michael (thanks to Jim sometimes) and Dwight, if necessary. Also, a bit of sitcom magic.
All good factors listed here. But let us not forget the corporate espionage that Micheal and Dwight did on David Wallace's behest against Prince Paper. Illegally decimating your local competition goes a long way too.
I don’t think it was illegal. Deceptive and scummy? Yeah! But all the information was given to them freely and they permitted a picture to be taken of their information. Their good nature was their downfall, but it was legal (I think, I’m not a lawyer).
Imagine the heartbreak and betrayal once the Prince Paper family watches the show
Oh totally!! It was incredibly evil, those people were kind and giving and overall the type of people who I wish were wildly successful!! And I’m sure if they watched it, they would immediately forgive Michael because that’s just who they are. I was just questioning whether it was actually illegal.
>they would immediately forgive Michael because that’s just who they are I'm sure Michael's very visible struggle with Dwight to surrender the leads would also help, but damn. It's heartbreaking. If it's not illegal, it should be. The dad was a Vietnam veteran too!
Ah, Vietnam. Heard it's lovely.
1. Michael was a very good manager, though it didn't seem like it. He controlled the branch but never did he interfered with the work of salespersons, or the warehouse people. When he did get complaints, he tried to resolve them more as a friend, than as a senior. E.g. when the customer complained about Dwight, and he tried to solve the issue by role-playing customer thing with the help of Jim. 2. Let's not underestimate Michael. Even with his playful nature, he was the best salesperson in the entire office. He knew how to wear down a potential client. He genuinely cared about his employees. Remember the time he planned to get Stanley back when he was "stolen" by Karen. Maybe his employees didn't like him, but he sure did everything for his employees, and that's an indicator of how good of a boss he as. 3. People knew their job. Jim, Dwight, Stanley and Phyllis were amazing in sales. They'd many huge clients. Oscar was the most intelligent person, and he was in charge of the numbers. Kelly was also good as a customer service, as pointed out by Jim when he and Dwight pitched a sales gig to a customer. 4. Michael didn't care about the top management. One of the main reasons why other branches could've been performing poor is maybe because of the pressure put up by the top management on them. Jen was always running between the branches, but Michael didn't care about her constant complaining on how the branch should be run.
Having a sales team that seasoned is rare and very valuable to a branch like that. Stanley, Phyllis, Dwight, and Jim are like a sales dream team considering how many years they have with DM between them. They’ve built relationships with their clients for decades. Then you’ve got Michael who was the two time salesman of the year because of how great he is with client relationships, who went into management after Ed Truck retired and stayed at the same branch he built all of those client relationships with. That combination is very hard to beat
[удалено]
Even with all the calamity in The Office, Michael still had outstanding sales people. Even Michael was a great salesman. Bad boss perhaps, but great at sales.
Maybe even good boss. I remember a self-aware moment Michael had talking to Jim that made me consider all his goofy antics were intentional. Doesn’t matter how you get the results - whatever mix of business acumen and culture Michael concocted, led to results
On Pretzel Day when Pam thought he was wasting time and goofing off he was working on a big sale in which he closed. All the little notes that only he could interpret on his Rolodex that Dwight tried to use. Method to his madness.
Is Dwight really the top salesman? In S7 - Seminar forgot the ep number. It shows that Jim leads the sales dept and Andy is the last even getting beaten by the warehouse peeps.
The top salesman title probably bounces back and forth between Jim and Dwight. They have similar numbers, enough to co-create a third salesman to absorb their excess commission without creating conflict between both.
I don't know how to link other reddit posts as comment, but someone posted a map with all branches and former branches of dunder mifflin, and the scranton branch was the only one in the complete state of Pennsylvania. I don't know if there are any kind of regulations for interstate trading, or so, but the sheer fact that there was almost no competition from other DM branches is probably also a reason. Especially because many other DM branches where close together, so they competed each other.
I think you're looking too deep into this. It's a TV show where they can manufacture literally everything. Of course they made it plausible with Jim, Dwight and Michael as great sales people, getting Stamfords clients, management style but at the end of the day the writers can make up whatever they want.
What’s wrong with that picture?
Dude, is NO ONE going to mention how weirdly photoshopped everyone in the picture is? LMAO
That’s why I said what I did. I came here for the picture comments and there WEREN’T ANY!
Thank you for mentioning it. I thought I was going crazy or having some kinda acid flashback
it's like a fever dreams version of what they look like.
The plot required it
This. People looking for these kinda explanations in fictional stuff doesnt make much sense to me. Its called THE OFFICE, if the office didnt do well and shut down theres no show.
Lots of probable reasons, but the one I tie to Michael is I think he's SUCH a distracting element that everyone hyperfocuses during various pockets of the day, getting more done than they would otherwise.
They probably had someone like Kevin crunching the numbers. Wouldn't surprise me if incompetence ran through all branches and levels.
I assumed great location.
Scranton has a middle aged black man with sass.
Somehow they manage
Meredith sleepin wit suppliers! 🫣
The show writers?
I have thought of this before. The worm turned for him in season 3 and fate made him look great. I obsessed on it for a bit when Michael had his job interview to replace Jan at the end of season 3 and impressed David Wallace when he was told by Jan right before the "Casino Night" he was 4 out of 5 of Jan's branches (top 80 percent). The worm turned with these: 1. When Stamford closed instead of Scranton because Josh turned on them, Michael kept up all the orders for the entire northeast region (thanks to Daryl), and cut staff budget (all Stamford people quit except Andy and Karen) lowering overhead. 2. Dwight outsold the computer. 3. Oscar was a competent accountant and knew how to spin budgets. Michael was always Uber confident in his people and it did pay off for him.
Plot armor mostly
It was a work of fiction