I work at Dunder Mifflin Inc.
For the humorless souls who have never experienced The Office, Dunder Mifflin is the fictitious
paper company employing the series’ cast – it is the office.
There are an array of quirky relationships and inappropriate
behaviors that make the Dunder Mifflin environment so unique. The running theme
of hazing/pranking is a pretty visible example of that classic Dunder oddity. Watch a clip here.
I have never been hazed at Oasis* -- the health food store
where I work. Nevertheless, from day one, I noticed that the employees and
management were of the Dunder Mifflin variety.
One day, walking into the back office of the store, I made
sure to introduce myself to both people sitting in the cubicle size room. To
greet me, Meredith,* the woman that would be training me on the cash register,
says to the other person in the zip-lock bag of a room, “uuuggh, I do not
feeling like training today. I just don’t have the patience.”
It is 8:50 a.m. on my first day of work.
Later that week I made a mistake on the register and
Meredith punched me – literally.
Soon after, I was given a new Sensei; Roy* would be training
me on the juice bar.
Roy is an over-six-foot tall White guy. During our first
bout of small talk, he asked me if I “had a boyfriend or what.” I answered "no," and his response let me know that he is the I-only-asked-a-question-so-I-could-talk-about-myself
type.
“Oh, no. I’m single as f***. Yeah, I used to be fat as f***,
so now that I’m not, I just like do whatever I want. And I think you know what
I mean by that.”
I told him I understood what he meant and asked him how many
ounces of liquid were we supposed to use for a 16 ounce smoothie.
The following Monday, I was across the store, and he asked
me, at a speaking-across-the-store octave, if I had “gotten any of that Vitamin
D over the weekend.”
What I find most interesting about Roy, though, is not that
he’s so blunt. It’s that he is noticeably unfriendly. He’s rude. To the
customers, to the other employees, to me. So when he asks me about “Vitamin D,”
or says “damn, you should wear those jeans to work” when I come in the store on
my off-day, I’m not offended by his frankness, I’m just confused as hell.
There’s an older black guy, Stanley, who plays The Office’s token grump. What makes
him so great is that he is blatantly rude
– I mean, there is no wit there. But Stanley is also oddly comfortable talking
to his co-workers about his personal life, well-beyond the appropriate 45
seconds that is office small talk. Stanley will tell you that your stupidity
disarms him, and then talk to you for three minutes about his upcoming
vacation– casually insulting you the whole time. “Ooooo, I can’t wait to get
the hell up out of here and get some sun! Lord knows I’m sick of looking at
your pasty faces!”
That’s kind of how I felt when Roy said “this may surprise
you” – I didn’t ask – “but I listen to a lot of Migos and stuff like that.”
“Why would that
surprise me?” I asked the back of Roy’s shirt as he walked away. Strange how he
offers up personal information, without making any attempt to be even remotely
sociable.
Within the two-to-three day period I spent underneath Roy, I
had seen Wilma*, one of the managers, around the store. We didn’t talk beyond
the polite “hi, how are you?” But she seemed nice enough. Normal.
Early one work-morning, she walks up to me and Roy and says
“Hi Danielle, I just wanted to let you know that you should park on the
employee side of the lot.” I apologized for the oversight, and thanked her. The
second she walked away, Roy turns to me and asks: “what a f****** b***h right?”
I foolishly assumed that this was a classic case of the new
girl not having the full story. I must have missed something.
Oddly, every day for the rest of my time training, a
different co-worker said something along those same lines.
Wilma would say “Good morning, Danielle,” and Meredith would
mumble “what is her f***in’ problem?”
What really shocked me, though, was hearing one of the older
cashiers talk about Wilma this way. The majority of my co-workers are in their
early twenties, so their behavior was odd, but not unfamiliar to me.
Carla*, on the other hand, is 50. Easily.
On my same day-off that Roy strangely suggested I “wear
those jeans to work,” Carla was the cashier that rang me up. I made polite
small-talk—even if none of my co-workers knew how—and explained to her that I
grocery-shopped at Oasis long before I worked there. Somehow she thought
informing me of what she studied in undergrad also counted as small talk.
“My degree is in Psychology. The girl that you replaced studied
that, too. I asked her if she did a psych work-up on all of us in here.” The
eye contact got weird at this point. It was obvious she wanted to say more, so
I offered her a chuckle of encouragement. She finished her thought: “I
especially wonder what she diagnosed Wilma with. Am I right?”
I regretted my chuckle. Asked her if I could apply my
employee discount to everything I bought, or if it was only redeemable with
certain items.
I was wrong to assume that I was just the confused new girl.
I hadn’t missed anything.
Wilma is Oasis’s “Toby” character.
Toby is one of the only people in The Office that takes his work seriously. On this basis, Michael
Scott, the branch manager, fundamentally disagrees with the way that Toby
conducts himself in the office. Throughout 9 seasons, the mystery of what the
hell Toby ever actually did to Michael remains unsolved. Instead, there are a
series of scenes in which Toby does his
job, while Michael harasses, and schemes to “justifiably” fire him.
After a month working at Oasis, and bearing witness to the
makings of a satirical sit-com, I have resolved to find the ironic humor in
everything.
So when Kat,* another 20-something cashier told me that I
“really need to take out my nose ring because the managers are like all about
professionalism and shit” I discreetly enjoyed the irony of the name tattooed across
her neck. I was laughing inside as I looked at the ink covering both of her
arms.
She eventually realized the irony.
“Nah, it’s like I got hella tattoos, but I took out my
eyebrow ring, though.”
I asked her if she could cover my register. I needed to go on break.
*all names and places have been changed*
