The Office: Season three episode 21

“Beach Games”
This episode of the office deals with several different story lines that we can relate to class. Michael is asked to offer recommendations for his replacement, because he has been asked to go to the corporate office to interview for a job there. The manner in which he decides to find his replacement is to have a beach day, an informal way to get the office members to relax and see who has the characteristics that he likes. Toby stays behind because Michael sees him as not very fun, and he gets sad because he has a small crush on her.
Michael asks Pam to take notes on who seems to be showing leadership qualities. Michael makes reference to the Starfish and the Spider model, by saying, “What happens when you cut off a chickens head? It dies until you find a new head,” By saying this he is referring to a centralized organization that will essentially die if he doesn’t replace himself. He is looking for the office workers indefinable qualities. Pam is sad because she says that she has, “the most boring job in the office, why shouldn’t she have the most boring job on beach day.” Michael seems to put Pam in the position to continually not be controlled by any Hawthorne effect (beach day is allowing the workers time to relax), but because she has to do things so often and through her own personal time she is making reference to the “White Collar Sweatshop.”
While en route to the beach, Michael lets everyone in the office know that he will be monitoring them throughout the day and someone will get a special prize at the end of the day, the prize being his job. This sparks a Tayloristic mindset in all of the workers. If they perform better, the better chance that they have not only to keep their jobs, but also to advance in the company.
Michael is having a hard time keeping his employees motivated for two reasons. The first is that a few of the people that he is considering have also been offered a job at corporate, and the second reason is that he is not keeping enough motivation for his specific job. Michael is also oppressing Pam by making her take notes and not participate in anything. Pam, the secretary in normal circumstances, breaks out of the grip of Michael. She has her own resistance narrative by walking over the hot coals that Michael wanted everyone else to walk over. She walks over them, and then makes a speech about her life to the entire office.
There are also many roles that the people of the office fulfill in this episode. The character named Andy tried to “reconstruct the person according to the needs of the organization” through his member role. He tried to be everything that Michael would want in a person as a leader. Dwight fell under this as well because he tried to compete to the best of his ability making him what Michael would want. The office may have formal roles, but the way in which the office is run there are many informal roles, and overstepping of people, including Michael. Friendships seem to take over some of the formal roles, creating cliques and a sort of human relations approach.
Pam and Michael have a reciprocal/complimentary role because they engage in an interlocking relationship. Michael needs her in the office, as well as on Beach day to take notes and to do the work for him that he cant complete at the time. Stanley has only partial inclusion in this episode as well as the show. Stanley only put part of his identity into his job, and most of the time seems depressed or sad to even be at work. Stanley also takes a role distancing approach because he doesn’t want to do work so often.
Dwight loves Michael as well as the office so much that he has full role embracement. He takes a stand in this episode where he is on the coals and cries out that the will not leave the hot coals until he is given the job of regional manager. He loves his job but would love to move up because he is so in love with the company.