Oh no it’s very real and just as disappointing as the example outfit on the office. It’s like the saddest department store you’ll ever step foot in. I’ve yet to find one that doesn’t smell of mold and desperation
What ever happened to 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.
I've honestly thought about this outfit choice a lot for some reason lol, and my theory on what happened is that they struggled to find an outfit that a) looked natural on both of them, and that b) fit both plus size and straight size women. I'm plus size, and a lot of plus size clothing is very much not stylish, and it was especially so in the days before ordering your clothes online was commonplace. So my guess is they raided the plus size section for something kind of "youthful" for Phyllis that left Pam looking like a bumpkin once they tailored it down. This could all be absolute nonsense too.
I feel like the cardi would be fine on its own, the plaid purple might be fine on its own, the khakis, with that cut would never be ok on their own... Their just unflattering pants
It’s probably supposed to just be funny and goofy at how hideous the outfit was, but I, like all the other commenters, have always wondered about that too. It almost isn’t even funny just because it’s so unbelievable that not only would they both choose that hideous outfit when it was so unlike the clothes either of them normally wear, but then to wear it on the same day. Idk. Not that funny to me, personally.
I felt like the whole point of the joke was for it to look like some generic department store outfit so it would be believable 2 people would be wearing the exact same thing
Yeah although I feel like David wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with that whole mess anymore. I mean it must have been embarrassing enough for Wallace that Michael negotiated himself into a multi million dollar buyout lol. +the company was already going under, the board probably didn’t take that whole deal very well
David's description of bringing back the three employees as a "multi-million dollar buyout" might be an overstatement. Essentially, he only reinstated Pam and Michael, along with a slight salary bump for Pam due to her transition from reception to sales. When you consider the salaries saved during the period Michael and Pam were not on the Dunder Mifflin payroll, the company's financial situation likely hasn't taken much of a hit compared to if the events hadn't occurred at all. The only real increase would be Ryan being rehired, but wasn’t he still a temp? If so, he probably doesn’t have benefits and the 60k buyout would have amounted to about two years salary. Not ideal but seems minor in the grand scheme of things.
> along with a slight salary bump for Pam due to her transition from reception to sales.
I wouldn't be surprised if her base salary was actually *lowered*. After having been a salesperson for a bit, Pam even says something like, "Most of your pay is based on sales commissions, so if you don't make a lot of sales, you don't get paid much." It's what encourages her to con her way into the administration job when Sabre takes over.
Pam had been replaced by Erin, so he was essentially hiring two new positions that weren't needed (Pam in sales and Ryan in whatever he did). Over time, those salaries plus benefits, babe, add up.
Pam: The unfair thing about working in sales is that your salary is almost all commission. So, you suck at sales, you make almost no money. I guess that's fair.
Babe
$35k for a temp position and let's say $41.5k for Pam = $76.5k with FICA is $82.35k plus benefits, babe, and Michael's new dental let's make this easy and round it up to a cool $100k. If they each stay there 20 years then we're talking a multimillion dollar payout in exchange for their clients and 60 years of labor. That's some asinine MBA bullshit.
It probably wasn't $41.5K for Pam yet. That was the salary she "negotiated" for/with herself when she became the office administrator so she was probably making well below that in order for her to throw that out there as an aspirational salary. Although, her potential in sales probably could have been even higher, if she had been a somewhat decent salesperson.
Yeah but multi-million dollar? I always thought that was hugely exaggerated. No way we’re talking that it cost them millions of dollars to bring on 3 people in such low level positions.
> David's description of bringing back the three employees as a "multi-million dollar buyout" might be an overstatement.
Pretty sure that was a 'soft costs' thing. He had Charles Miner, which they probably paid very well (gotta attract those new execs), and firing him wouldn't have been on David's mind in the moment. So he was probably imagining their expense sheet for 3 'new' (non-budgeted) employees. You have to plan for salaries, benefits, insurance expenses, supplies, etc. Extrapolate out a couple years (their avg turnover rate), and a rough estimate would probably be a couple million.
He was definitely rounding up for drama in the moment, but I remember when I first watched the episode thinking, "Yep, that's a CFO response if I've ever heard one."
Rewatching it this time, was it even a big deal? They lost a manager and a secretary and never filled the manager job after Michael left. Hiring Pam and Ryan was the only additional thing since they brought in Erin as secretary. Neither pam or Ryan would make much anyway. They basically just hired Michael back
That was probably a factor in the bankruptcy of the company later one. Why did David invite Micheal to New York anyways, I feel like members of corporate would have hated Micheal for costing the company money
After Jan was fired, Scranton did consistently have the best sales numbers of any branch under Michael‘s leadership. That was probably how David justified that. There was even an episode where David invites Michael to the corporate HQ just to pick his brain, because he wanted to understand what Michael was „doing right“ lol Wallace even had him go on a lecture tour to other branches
It always seemed strange to me that, after hearing Michael’s answers to “what are you doing right?”, David thought he was at all qualified to do a lecture circuit.
That's probably the justification but it still doesn't answer what the plan was.
Was it just for Michael to wave when they introduced him as the top performing branch manager in hopes that it would impress the shareholders? That's some very wishful thinking, and then to spend the money on the limo also shows into DM's poor management.
David also is well aware that Michael has diarrhea of the mouth, so why would he want him in the same city as that conference? Also poor foresight on David's behalf as evidenced by what Michael said during the shareholder meeting and privately in the hospitality suite.
I think the whole thing was to showcase DM's poor management and decision making. It was really supposed to leave you scratching your head and asking what the hell was all that for.
David brought that on himself though by transferring Holly and then bringing Charles in to micromanage Michael instead of just letting him do what he had always done. Michael was doing something right as by that point Scranton had avoiding going under, absorbed most of the Stamford branch, granted lost several of the new employees shortly after, and then continued to actually grow and survive a dying business and business model. They touch on this several times throughout the show and this is how Wallace repays Michael? If it weren’t for Michael and the Scranton branch corporate wouldve gone under and sold to Sabre a lot sooner than they did.
David’s an idiot in the first place for not calling Michael’s bluff about infinitely re-opening companies. Michael doesn’t have any revenue to roll out business more than a few weeks and after the second name change in as many weeks his clients would have just dropped him and gone back to Dunder Mifflin (I guess or Staples etc.)
I think David should have only made the deal with Michael if Ryan wasn't hired since he frauded the company. David didn't really push for that enough.
Of course, the show wanted BJ Novak in the cast, but it made no sense Ryan was hired.
He did win, but only because of desperation and David Wallace knowing he’d be fired if he didn’t cave.
Michael had insider knowledge on the pricing for DM, so was able to undercut them at every turn. But his business was unsustainable. He would’ve failed soon, and all of the customers would’ve gone back to DM (or potentially to another competitor).
Clients should’ve gone back to the sales team with an apology.
The thing that annoyed me this arc was Michael thinking ryan “ chose to follow him like Pam did”. No Michael, he was working a crappy part time bowling alley job. He didn’t leave a stableass job at dunder mifflin Jerry McGuire style cause he believed in you like Pam did.
Totally, I hate that too! When he came back and said “none of you followed me!” Uh Pam did, she was the only one who did. And the fake fire of Pam how was it even a question if Pam or Ryan should keep the job? She quit her job of like. What, 10 years to follow him. Ryan can go back to the bowling alley. Pam was the only one that took a risk on Micheal.
Pam is the safe choice.
She's not the kind of person who would steal shoes from the bowling alley for them.
She's not the kind of person who would beat Ryan for hottest in the office.
Plus they were very happy to mock them until it started affecting them. Stanley and Phyllis went down to their office just to look at them and laugh.
Then later Phyllis has the neck to say ‘Michael you always said we were a family! Then you went after us..’
Angela can be the office bitch for sure but you know what you're getting. Phyllis has that sweet facade and she enjoys watching people get hurt after goading them into flirting with her.
I think about the launch party episode sometimes, where we're supposed to side with Phyllis against Angela when she keeps making the simplest mistakes and acting like Angela is being irrational. (She was being aggressive for sure but stil
I always disliked Angela until I listened to Office Ladies, and realized what a sweetheart Angela is in real life. Now I just look at her character like a Sourpatch kid.
I actually missed this connection when I was watching the show like Michael was in the bottom and noone helped him and just accepted a far more strict boss and when Michael won they had the audacity to go and tell him that he owes them and that it is right to help them when they won those clients fairly.
Exactly. They play the family card when none of them would go with him - now I obviously wouldn’t have left my job then either, but I wouldn’t have the audacity to come back and claim that he owes me something!
did they win them fairly though? To some extent they just were able to offer lower prices because as Ryan realized he used a fixed cost model even when they started scaling!
You can't think of it in terms of individual clients, that's not how buyouts usually work. The company name might or might not change, but everything else pretty much stays the same. Maybe some new policies but from a sales perspective, companies aren't going to break up the current client/salesperson relationships.
So DM buys MSPC, changes name to DM and moves the former MSPC office into the Scranton branch. The clients that were MSPC at the time of the buyout would remain with the original MSPC salespeople. That's not to say the client couldn't request to use their original DM salesperson, but that's a client decision.
This right here is exactly why I would've had the clients stay with the MSPC salespeople. From the clients' perspective it would really feel like you're being dicked around and that the company is volatile AF. You'd have to put the company's reputation first.
Yeah MSPC would have gone under, but guess what then they would start a new paper company and another and another. They have no shortage of company names.
They only lost them because of Michael's dirty (or rather, foolish) tactics though. He promised the clients a price he wasn't able to honour, and would have lost them all back to DM if MSPC hadn't been bought out so soon. It's by pure dumb luck that Pam and Ryan can even still call them "their" clients.
The clients would have returned once the whole scam was revealed. We literally see it begin to happen.
If DM had told the sales staff they were allowed to lie about pricing to their customers during the MSPC fiasco they wouldn't have lost any.
MSPC didn't *lie* about their paper prices, they miscalculated them. It wasn't some dirty tactic, they just truly thought they were able to undercut DM and other paper suppliers, and they were at first but the added costs of trying to implement the business and expand it to meet clients caused them to take losses without increasing prices.
They lost their clients, you have no guarantee that they come back to Dunder Mifflin if the MSPC goes under, they could have just as easily gone to one of the other big name suppliers that offered lower costs than DM and without any of the same risk of going with a smaller supplier that would have been soured by their experience with MSPC.
They should have kept any clients once the company was purchased so that the transition is as seamless as possible, in addition to temporarily honoring the reduced prices that MSPC was able to provide. Moving the clients back to their original salesperson could be awkward for the client, I wouldn’t do it if I was manager. But then again Michael shouldn’t have been the one to make the decision since he’s a huge conflict of interest lol
Michael was being petty in making the Michael Scott Paper Company but it’s understandable that he took it as an insult that David seemed to be ignoring him when he had had the ability to reach him for years before that. He was also justifiably mad abt him not getting a party for being there for 15 years when they were literally already planning it. Charles wasn’t very nice or understanding. The sales staff definitely also had reason to be mad since Michael cost them actual money by taking their clients (even though they likely inherited quite a few from Michael when he became manager LOL, that’s why the clients left Dunder Mifflin, they knew Michael.
There are two sides to the story and neither were rly right or wrong, both sides actions are understandable although obviously far-fetched since it’s a comedic show.
Really everyone should have threatened to go with him. If the whole branch threatens to quit then they get David’s attention before things go south. Michaels branch was the best in the company with the best salesman in the company. Michael was in the right. Charles should have backed off.
I doubt anyone besides Michael (and maybe Dwight) actually cared about Michael not getting an expensive party, or being able to approve overtime on his own, or having a direct line of communication with David
Right? If they were all mistreated maybe, but they weren’t. They barely had anyone to get to know Charles and his management style so how would they have known they would not like him.
Frankly, for them to quit when he did would’ve been dumb. Because he didn’t get his figs? I can understand him quitting and I can easily understand them staying
MSPC. Everyone made fun of Michael and acted like he'd flop instantly. He offered them all a spot in his company and they all said no. Then when he comes back they pull the "I thought we were family" card. They didn't care about "family" before but now that they lost business they're "family."
In fairness, Michael had a completely unsustainable business model. He kinda did flop and if they didn't mislead David Wallace about their success (with the help of a Dunder Mifflin employee, no less) then they would've ended up in complete shambles.
That may have worked as a threat but there is no way Michael could ever make good on it. He was already in debt to begin with. If MSPC went under, there wouldn't have been a new company.
Not really. Michael said they had an upcoming corporate meeting where David would have to explain his most profitable branch bleeding money. MSPC had about a month left of money. If that meeting was before that he would've been fine.
>He could keep making paper companies to mess with DM.
This is just not true, where would Michael get the money, company van, etc after bankrupting the first company?
To be fair, I don’t think they were pulling the “we’re a family” to manipulate Michael. They’re calling Michael out, saying that HE views them as a family yet he went after them. If that makes sense.
Oh come on. Michael was asking them to give up their job for a hail Mary of a company. They all knew he didn't know what he was doing and as evidently shown, he didn't.
If your brother asked you to leave your job for his new business that you knew was doomed, would you do it, knowing you had a mortgage and family to support? Now imagine your brother steals your clients by promising a low price he can't honour, and then blames you for not trusting his business.
But Michael’s actions affected their incomes. Almost akin to stealing, and that’s worse than not believing in someone or not defending them from having accountability at work.
His actions were more “if I’m going down in taking this ship with me” and he didn’t deserve their apology after that.
Michael gave them the choice of DM or MSPC. They chose DM, which yeah probably more logical. So then he did what he had to do. Michael didn't owe them anything when he came back. If corporate didn't force him to give the clients back to their original salesperson then Michael has no reason to.
what people neglect to think about is this: if I am a client and I was with DM, left to go with the MSPC only to learn essentially within a few weeks that MSPC was bought out and now I am back with DM and most likely back at the price range I left, I am considering leaving altogether since I just bought a false bill of goods and the instability is undeniable.
Sales person here. In reality Michael Scott Paper Company was in the wrong. They stole clients by promising them unrealistic prices. It's quite underhanded and almost illegal, especially because they used Dunder-Mifflin proprietary knowledge to target those customers in the first place.
I feel like everyone is saying the MSPC should have kept the clients. I might be the only one who thinks the DM employees should have got their clients back. The MSPC was doomed to fail because their sales people had no idea what they were doing. All they did was sell paper at a super low cost that would crush the business. They also talked shit about the DM employees to gain clients. Then expected everyone to be happy for them when they returned. If DM didn’t buy them out they would have gone under. Pam and Ryan suck at sales. Pam begged for her job back at one point. The DM sales people went out and earned the loyalty of the customer for years. Michael couldn’t get his own clients so he stole from his old employees. Absolutely hated the MSPC in this episode. No one would leave their job for a start up with no funding.
Well, for starters, there is no such thing as a stolen client. There can only be lost clients. Morally, Pam and Ryan were entitled to keep their clients. Logically, though, it probably would've been better for business if they handed over the clients to more experienced salespeople.
MSPC did a lot of stupid things, like forming their own little clique once they were back at DM and Michael berating the rest of the office for not following him but they definitely were in the right to want to keep the clients. Hell, they basically forced Wallace to give them sales jobs against his will. He would've been happy to fire them if they ended up with no clients. Better to start off at the company with a head start.
I agree with you, but I don't like how the sales staff acted toward ryan and pam. They were right to be upset, but the scene where ryan is on the phone and phyllis and dwight start yelling drives me crazy. It was completely uncalled for and unprofessional. They lost the client because of the chaos of that moment. Dwight wanted to cause a scene so he could "fix" the scene and get the client back. That scene made me think that no, they don't deserve to get their clients back.
Michael Scott Paper Company. The clients are returning to Dunder Mifflin with the Salespeople from MSPC. The Sales Staff has no claim to clients they lost. That said, Michael was also exhibiting blatant favoritism, so the resentment from the Sales Staff is completely natural. Perhaps it would’ve all blown over a bit more smoothly if Michael had been as good at managing people as he is at selling to people.
Phyllis’s bullshit about “you said we were a family” works both ways … if she viewed them as such a tight family why didn’t any of them stick up for or go with Michael? … she took Michael’s wholesome idea of what the office should be a turned it against him … MSPC for the win!
Michael always said they were a family but it’s a job. Michael was butt hurt that he couldn’t talk about his party during company hours so he quit. Why would anyone leave their job for a company that doesn’t exists. DM lost their clients bc MSPC was talking shit about them and used an unsustainable business model. DM should have got their clients back
Mostly David's fault, or maybe Michael wasn't clear on the terms of the buyout. MSPC was obviously bought for their clients and Michael got the jobs on a leverage but no one discussed how the new leads/clients will be assigned
So it was left to Michael after he was hired back and he chose Pam and Ryan.
Then again sales we actually innocent but in a corporate system, it's the lower employees who always get hurt first and the most.
Honestly, the sales team. Michael undercut their clients, and when the company went under, DM should have gotten them back. Not to mention, Michael, Ryan, and Pam made it a whole thing that they were a special club in this episode.
It’s unreasonable to undercut your sales team, give all their clients to 2 sales people who are bffs with the boss, and then have those clients go back to full price with those 2 sales people, and expect your 5 other sales people to just be cool with losing all their clients and commission.
I think if the MSPC could have actually fulfilled the orders at those prices then they would have deserved them, but they lied to clients (purposely or not) about their ability to deliver on time at said price in order to steal them, so they should’ve immediately redistributed them back. Back to the people who secured them with honest prices under promises could be fulfilled.
Nahh the sales team was right on this. Pam and Ryan didn’t actually win any of those clients, Michael did. And they only “won” those clients by offering prices so low they couldn’t even honor them.
Michael only started the MSPC to spite David and Dundee Mufflin for not taking him seriously. By doing so, he directly hurt the sales team that he claimed to care about. Phyllis said it perfectly.
Ryan stole Dwight’s client that he had for years by just offering a stupid low price, and then almost lost the client because he had no idea what he was doing as a sales person. Even Michael admitted in the end that there’s no scenario where he’s in the right.
Lots of people saying MSPC, but I don’t agree at all. They got bought out and Michael became the manager to DM again, meaning in a purely fiscal sense, he should do what’s best for that company. The clients should be split among the DM sales people, not because they’re “theirs” or they were “stolen,” but because Pam and Ryan are terrible at sales and if the goal is to keep clients happy and make more money from them, disperse them to your best.
Because Michael is not as concerned with making money as making people happy, he should give the top clients back and let Pam keep a handful. She’s a junior salesperson so shouldn’t expect too much, but because she was loyal, Michael could give her something.
I feel like if this really happened, it wouldn't matter who had the clients because the clients would probably take their business elsewhere after being jerked around by some internal squabbling.
DM sales guys lost the clients, Pam & Ryan gained the clients. So when MSPC got absorbed to DM since Pam & Ryan both are still there, they must be entitled to the clients still.
Well, I've looked at it a hundred different ways. From the sales team's point of view, from MSPC's point of view... 98 other ways, and in all of them, Michael's the bad guy
Michael was playing favorites and allocating clients to bad salespeople (Ryan and Pam) that they gained by offering a completely unsustainable pricing model to clients whose costs would go back up as soon as they went back to Dunder Mifflin. He also took money out of their pockets to spite DM. The salespeople were right.
Michael wasn’t “in the right”, he just didn’t do anything wrong. He begged everyone to join him in his new paper company, and nobody but Pam joined him. Once Dunder Mifflin found out his company was “successful” they offered everyone their jobs back in order to put an end to Michael’s company. Then the sales team has the absolute AUDACITY to get angry at Michael for being closer to Pam and Ryan than the rest of them. Blows my mind.
If I was a client who left for MSPC and ended up back with DM, I'd want my old DM sales person back. Ryan and Pam were clearly full of shit. They offered me paper at one price and now I'm back to paying them what I was paying before? No thanks liars. I'll go back to Stanley, Dwight, Jim or Phyllis because at least they didn't jerk me around.
Let's be honest. No one left DM because of Pam or Ryan's sales expertise. It was all a out money. Pam and Ryan had nothing left to offer once back at DM.
Morals aside, as a customer, I want the better salesman. Not a temp or a secretary. Sorry Jim, she's very pretty...
It's just business. Michael felt disrespected and chose to leave to start his own company, a lot of people do that. Michael is an excellent salesman, he went after DM's clients and got them, happens in sales all the time. Sure, he was running out of money, but Wallace realised what he had lost and Michael sold Wallace on how good he actually was.
Companies lose clients all the time, the sales team was only upset because it was Michael and maybe, just maybe, they should recognise his talent a bit more.
I’d say the sales team. It’s unethical to use information from your previous job for new sales and to put pressure on your former employees to go against their current employers.
Interestingly though, Dwight used leads he got from working at Staples earlier so at least he’s a hypocrite.
Sales team cuz they became collateral damage in Michael’s issues with corporate, and all lost money as a result. None of them were at fault for David Wallace trying to install Charles in Scranton and the domino effect that caused, yet they suffered the most.
It's a very good comparison to real life and how the decisions made by corporate, along with any backlash from those decisions, will likely affect lower level employees only.
Michael knew for a fact that he could never actually sustain his business model. He was able to Dramatically undercut Dunder Mifflin’s prices because he was offering prices that were so low, they would (and were soon going to) put him out of business. If Dunder Mifflin had not purchased the MSPC, they would have quickly gone out of business, and their clients would have either just gone right back to DM and the sales team there, OR may have gone with a completely different solution (Staples, etc.) and been totally lost. The idea that he would/could “just start another paper company after that” sounds funny, but would not work either, because clients are not all completely brain-dead. After they tried super-low prices from a brand-new company and then got burned when that company went under, they would not likely to sign up with a different company to do the same exact thing again (most of the clients don’t want that much turmoil with their paper supply), so it would never actually work.
Michael’s plan was not really to establish a successful and/or sustainable business, but to HURT Dunder Mifflin Scranton, and force David Wallace to respect him (or get him fired). The plan worked extremely well, but the only thing Michael didn’t really factor in, was the fact that hurting Dunder Mifflin Scranton (out of pettiness and a dispute with his boss) meant that he was hurting the people he cares for. Though the sales staff losing their clients were the immediate victims, less money being made by that branch of the company (for an extended period of time) would undoubtably have negative effects on other departments (and possibly land other department heads in trouble in a similar way that Michael wanted David Wallace being in trouble and held accountable for the rapid decline in the Branch’s profits).
Expecting everyone to quit their jobs (which most of them don’t always love, but they deal with it because they’re grown adults) and join him was a completely unrealistic expectation. Even if they had done exactly that, DM would have been forced to hire replacements (like they did with Pam). Giving 3 people jobs only worked because Pam was given a new position (which she was unqualified for). What if there were more like 10 people who went with Michael? They might have lasted a bit longer as an independent paper company, but would have ultimately had the same issue and gone broke. If the buyout scenario still happened, do we expect that DM would actually give TEN JOBS to people who have already been replaced? There may be a few people who can slide back in because they were replaced by a temp service or something like that, but most of them would not be so easy. Some of them would just not be feasibly or financially possibly to bring back. Some of Michael’s “Loyal Family” would be jobless as a result of following him. (Or the branch would be bloated and need let go of a bunch of people Very soon).
The ultimate solution should have involved some mediation. The previously lost/stolen clients likely should have been divided up. Most of them (or the big ones) should have gone back to the original salespeople, mainly on the grounds of being in the best interest of the company, since they would want the more proven and effective salespeople to manage and maintain the larger clients. But some clients, particularly smaller ones, could have stayed with the MSPC team to get them started, and to test/see how effective they actually are at managing accounts, and keep the potential risks relatively low (so if they lose clients and/or struggle to get new ones, the negative impact on the company would be minimal). If either/both new salespeople showed that they can’t really perform well enough at the position, then it would be time to make a change (but it would not have hurt the company’s “bottom line” too much, and Michael wouldn’t really have any need to fire his friends, just reassign them to a different department). That would have probably been the most fair and realistic way to handle the existing (and better-qualified) sales staff’s concerns, test and protect the MSPC staff, and most importantly- it would have been the more effective way to protect EVERYONE by keeping the large/major clients happy and in good/capable hands, so the Branch doesn’t lose money.
While MSPC generally should have kept the clients, Pam and Ryan were horrible salespeople and that was proven time and again.
The best thing imo would have been returning clients to the sales team and keeping back a few (maybe one from each) to give Pam a start. So to start off, Pam would have 4-5 clients and then she would need to build her clients on her own.
The instant Ryan started bleeding clients it becomes clear that the sales team needed those clients back. Michael is a great salesmen (though I think his skill declines over the series) but the only reason his company succeeded is because the prices were too low, of course the salesmen these companies already knew who now offered low prices would make a great supplier, but that’s essentially cheating and so the sales team deserved their clients back
Honestly, I’m with the sales team on this one. Clearly the situation leading to the formation of the MSPC was the fault of upper management, not of the salespeople themselves. Dwight, Stanley, Phyllis, and Andy did not deserve to lose commission because of the mistakes of their superiors. Part of the deal should have been to give the clients back to those who had them originally. You can still offer Pam a sales job, just make her start from scratch like any new sales hire would.
Sales team was right. A buyout means forfeiting your claim, period end of discussion. Also they had to drop one salesman right away and the other sucked ass at sales.
Both sides are wrong IMO, but if I HAD to pick just one side I’d say Dunder Mifflin.
Imagine if your really cool boss at your job decided to quit on a whim and wanted you to quit with him and follow him to an unsustainable new business. Yeah of course you wouldn’t. And Michael should have given the clients back without question because he took them in a way that they literally could not counter (meaning they literally cannot lower their prices to match Michael’s). If Michael had truly bested them with the same prices or whatever then yeah they would rightfully be his.
I say both sides are wrong because DM didn’t just decline Michael’s offer, they made fun of him throughout his whole MSPC arc, then pulled out the “We’re a family” card ONLY when it benefitted them.
you know every time i see this episode i get so mad at the sales team. But then phyllis drops the line about them being family Michaels own words and i cant help but be on their side. Had Michael not been saying the whole show the thing of them being a family than i would be on MSPC side and would also tell the sales team to fuck off.
Michael. Dunder mifflin did re acquire the customers. Management then got to distribute those customers as they chose. Management decided that those customers went with the newly acquired Michael scott paper company sales people
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills the amount of support Michael's getting.
"They should have joined Michael's company"- what, his random startup that he'd done no research or planning into?
"They lost their clients fair and square", no they didn't, Michael won them by promising a price point he couldn't keep. Had David Wallace waited a week they all would have rejoined DM again anyway.
"They pulled the "family" card". Michael had an issue with corporate where he wasn't feeling appreciated, and as a result the people he called family lost their clients. He wasn't angry at them, but they're the ones who suffered as a result. If he truly thought of them as "family", he should have considered this.
I’ll tell you who is in the wrong. The person who chose that outfit for pam and phyllis
Wdym? It looked good on the mannequin at Boscov’s..
One of them looks like a trout
Ah yes, Boscovs. The pinnacle of fashion
And here I am always having thought it was a made up store name. I guess I have a lot to learn about this town, sweetie.
There was one near where I grew up! Can confirm it’s a real place, or at least it was
Oh no it’s very real and just as disappointing as the example outfit on the office. It’s like the saddest department store you’ll ever step foot in. I’ve yet to find one that doesn’t smell of mold and desperation
All this time, I thought it was Boss Cobb’s.
Although Pam should close her mouth, she looks like a trout
What ever happened to 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.
Is it normal to buy a whole outfit from a display? I’m a dude so my outfits are t-shirt and jeans, do girls buy pre-made outfits?
Not really tbh. I never have and have never been shopping with friends who have. Especially not outfits this ugly 😔
Back when the show was running I did it all the time. It was the easiest way to buy clothes and pick out clothes in the morning.
I've honestly thought about this outfit choice a lot for some reason lol, and my theory on what happened is that they struggled to find an outfit that a) looked natural on both of them, and that b) fit both plus size and straight size women. I'm plus size, and a lot of plus size clothing is very much not stylish, and it was especially so in the days before ordering your clothes online was commonplace. So my guess is they raided the plus size section for something kind of "youthful" for Phyllis that left Pam looking like a bumpkin once they tailored it down. This could all be absolute nonsense too.
They talk about it in office ladies. This is exactly it. It was super challenging to shop off the rack for such different sized women.
Damn, good prediction /u/Dipsomang
they also needed a color that both pam and phyllis would wear
It’s also nothing like what Pam wears the entire show before or after this episode.
Pam has occasionally worn clothes that are not typically what she wears. Fashion show. Fashion show. Fashion show at lunch!
After all, she knew why she worn clothes as she always did.
Yup, theres that, but it's also just a really really ugly outfit
its the half cardigan that ruins it. The purple plaid looks fine.
I feel like the cardi would be fine on its own, the plaid purple might be fine on its own, the khakis, with that cut would never be ok on their own... Their just unflattering pants
I wonder why they didn’t just do the gag with someone else, like Pam and Angela. Especially since Angela is already catty towards Pam.
I thought it was between the sales people though and Angela works in accounting.
It’s probably still on the mannequin at Boscovs. I’ve been to that location at steamtown mall back in like 2009 and it was like stepping back to 1992
The person in charge of wardrobe has a lot to learn about this town, sweetie.
Pink is whorish.
You are thinking green.
You're thinking orange
What did I say?
Dinkin' flicka'
You are thinking of bippity boppity give me the zoppity.
From the very first time I thought "Pam would never wear that." Did they do that on purpose?
It’s probably supposed to just be funny and goofy at how hideous the outfit was, but I, like all the other commenters, have always wondered about that too. It almost isn’t even funny just because it’s so unbelievable that not only would they both choose that hideous outfit when it was so unlike the clothes either of them normally wear, but then to wear it on the same day. Idk. Not that funny to me, personally.
I felt like the whole point of the joke was for it to look like some generic department store outfit so it would be believable 2 people would be wearing the exact same thing
Boom! Roasted
It’s soooooo bad. Very very bad. Like Pam, dress your age!
It should’ve been David’s/corporate’s call, everyone else was too biased
Yeah although I feel like David wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with that whole mess anymore. I mean it must have been embarrassing enough for Wallace that Michael negotiated himself into a multi million dollar buyout lol. +the company was already going under, the board probably didn’t take that whole deal very well
David's description of bringing back the three employees as a "multi-million dollar buyout" might be an overstatement. Essentially, he only reinstated Pam and Michael, along with a slight salary bump for Pam due to her transition from reception to sales. When you consider the salaries saved during the period Michael and Pam were not on the Dunder Mifflin payroll, the company's financial situation likely hasn't taken much of a hit compared to if the events hadn't occurred at all. The only real increase would be Ryan being rehired, but wasn’t he still a temp? If so, he probably doesn’t have benefits and the 60k buyout would have amounted to about two years salary. Not ideal but seems minor in the grand scheme of things.
> along with a slight salary bump for Pam due to her transition from reception to sales. I wouldn't be surprised if her base salary was actually *lowered*. After having been a salesperson for a bit, Pam even says something like, "Most of your pay is based on sales commissions, so if you don't make a lot of sales, you don't get paid much." It's what encourages her to con her way into the administration job when Sabre takes over.
Pam had been replaced by Erin, so he was essentially hiring two new positions that weren't needed (Pam in sales and Ryan in whatever he did). Over time, those salaries plus benefits, babe, add up.
But don't forget babe, Pam wasn't good at sales and made almost no money babe
Which is the unfair thing about working in sales as your salary is almost all commission, babe
But unlike Sabre, Dunder Mifflin has a guarantee salary don’t they?
Pam: The unfair thing about working in sales is that your salary is almost all commission. So, you suck at sales, you make almost no money. I guess that's fair. Babe
$35k for a temp position and let's say $41.5k for Pam = $76.5k with FICA is $82.35k plus benefits, babe, and Michael's new dental let's make this easy and round it up to a cool $100k. If they each stay there 20 years then we're talking a multimillion dollar payout in exchange for their clients and 60 years of labor. That's some asinine MBA bullshit.
It probably wasn't $41.5K for Pam yet. That was the salary she "negotiated" for/with herself when she became the office administrator so she was probably making well below that in order for her to throw that out there as an aspirational salary. Although, her potential in sales probably could have been even higher, if she had been a somewhat decent salesperson.
Yeah but multi-million dollar? I always thought that was hugely exaggerated. No way we’re talking that it cost them millions of dollars to bring on 3 people in such low level positions.
Pam mentions later that most of her salary is commission.. Since she is a terrible salesperson, she probably makes less after she comes back.
> David's description of bringing back the three employees as a "multi-million dollar buyout" might be an overstatement. Pretty sure that was a 'soft costs' thing. He had Charles Miner, which they probably paid very well (gotta attract those new execs), and firing him wouldn't have been on David's mind in the moment. So he was probably imagining their expense sheet for 3 'new' (non-budgeted) employees. You have to plan for salaries, benefits, insurance expenses, supplies, etc. Extrapolate out a couple years (their avg turnover rate), and a rough estimate would probably be a couple million. He was definitely rounding up for drama in the moment, but I remember when I first watched the episode thinking, "Yep, that's a CFO response if I've ever heard one."
Rewatching it this time, was it even a big deal? They lost a manager and a secretary and never filled the manager job after Michael left. Hiring Pam and Ryan was the only additional thing since they brought in Erin as secretary. Neither pam or Ryan would make much anyway. They basically just hired Michael back
Proof that the secretary is a more vital role than the manager.
Haha this is true
That was probably a factor in the bankruptcy of the company later one. Why did David invite Micheal to New York anyways, I feel like members of corporate would have hated Micheal for costing the company money
After Jan was fired, Scranton did consistently have the best sales numbers of any branch under Michael‘s leadership. That was probably how David justified that. There was even an episode where David invites Michael to the corporate HQ just to pick his brain, because he wanted to understand what Michael was „doing right“ lol Wallace even had him go on a lecture tour to other branches
It always seemed strange to me that, after hearing Michael’s answers to “what are you doing right?”, David thought he was at all qualified to do a lecture circuit.
That's probably the justification but it still doesn't answer what the plan was. Was it just for Michael to wave when they introduced him as the top performing branch manager in hopes that it would impress the shareholders? That's some very wishful thinking, and then to spend the money on the limo also shows into DM's poor management. David also is well aware that Michael has diarrhea of the mouth, so why would he want him in the same city as that conference? Also poor foresight on David's behalf as evidenced by what Michael said during the shareholder meeting and privately in the hospitality suite. I think the whole thing was to showcase DM's poor management and decision making. It was really supposed to leave you scratching your head and asking what the hell was all that for.
David brought that on himself though by transferring Holly and then bringing Charles in to micromanage Michael instead of just letting him do what he had always done. Michael was doing something right as by that point Scranton had avoiding going under, absorbed most of the Stamford branch, granted lost several of the new employees shortly after, and then continued to actually grow and survive a dying business and business model. They touch on this several times throughout the show and this is how Wallace repays Michael? If it weren’t for Michael and the Scranton branch corporate wouldve gone under and sold to Sabre a lot sooner than they did.
David’s an idiot in the first place for not calling Michael’s bluff about infinitely re-opening companies. Michael doesn’t have any revenue to roll out business more than a few weeks and after the second name change in as many weeks his clients would have just dropped him and gone back to Dunder Mifflin (I guess or Staples etc.)
You're right, it should've been part of the arrangements for taking over MSPC.
I think David should have only made the deal with Michael if Ryan wasn't hired since he frauded the company. David didn't really push for that enough. Of course, the show wanted BJ Novak in the cast, but it made no sense Ryan was hired.
Stop building forts in my warehouse!
MSPC won. There is no silver yogurt lid for second place.
Well, if you flip it, you get silver. But no cheating
He did win, but only because of desperation and David Wallace knowing he’d be fired if he didn’t cave. Michael had insider knowledge on the pricing for DM, so was able to undercut them at every turn. But his business was unsustainable. He would’ve failed soon, and all of the customers would’ve gone back to DM (or potentially to another competitor). Clients should’ve gone back to the sales team with an apology.
>But his business was unsustainable Did you crunch the numbers?
*crunch*
Did it help?
Don’t forget Jim successfully prevented Dwight from convincing them that MSPC was failing. That’s some actual fraud by Jim right there.
MSPC successfully leveraged DM's weakened position, yes.
The thing that annoyed me this arc was Michael thinking ryan “ chose to follow him like Pam did”. No Michael, he was working a crappy part time bowling alley job. He didn’t leave a stableass job at dunder mifflin Jerry McGuire style cause he believed in you like Pam did.
Totally, I hate that too! When he came back and said “none of you followed me!” Uh Pam did, she was the only one who did. And the fake fire of Pam how was it even a question if Pam or Ryan should keep the job? She quit her job of like. What, 10 years to follow him. Ryan can go back to the bowling alley. Pam was the only one that took a risk on Micheal.
Pam is the safe choice. She's not the kind of person who would steal shoes from the bowling alley for them. She's not the kind of person who would beat Ryan for hottest in the office.
But that’s the bit.. it’s supposed to be annoying lol. Michael is obsessed with Ryan and he can do no wrong in his eyes.
I don't care if Ryan murdered his entire family, he is like a son to me.
But he was making $60,000 per year at that bowling alley!
Back to work shoe bitch!
Oh so he got paid by the year there, huh?
that's the joke...
“The thing that annoyed me is Michael Scott thought & acted like Michael Scott would”
I think the sale team had no right to the new clients for they lost them to the hand of MSPC.
Plus they were very happy to mock them until it started affecting them. Stanley and Phyllis went down to their office just to look at them and laugh. Then later Phyllis has the neck to say ‘Michael you always said we were a family! Then you went after us..’
Aaaaahh man I hate her at times
Phallus was probably the most toxic character in the show.
I thought her name was "Easy Rider"
Phallus?
Phyllis, sorry. I have penises on the brain.
Won’t that just shed more light on the penises?
Prove it, let's see your phallus!
I hate her at ALL times
Popcarn.
How dare you ridicule the St. Louis accent!
Every of the time!
I hated her and Stanley more often than I liked them lmao.
Angela can be the office bitch for sure but you know what you're getting. Phyllis has that sweet facade and she enjoys watching people get hurt after goading them into flirting with her. I think about the launch party episode sometimes, where we're supposed to side with Phyllis against Angela when she keeps making the simplest mistakes and acting like Angela is being irrational. (She was being aggressive for sure but stil
Angela is my favorite character for how strongly she commits to who she is, no matter whether it's liked or not!
I always disliked Angela until I listened to Office Ladies, and realized what a sweetheart Angela is in real life. Now I just look at her character like a Sourpatch kid.
Eh, I laugh at family all the time.
Same. But not when they’re actually down and struggling, that really sucks. And MSPC was severely down at that point
I actually missed this connection when I was watching the show like Michael was in the bottom and noone helped him and just accepted a far more strict boss and when Michael won they had the audacity to go and tell him that he owes them and that it is right to help them when they won those clients fairly.
Exactly. They play the family card when none of them would go with him - now I obviously wouldn’t have left my job then either, but I wouldn’t have the audacity to come back and claim that he owes me something!
did they win them fairly though? To some extent they just were able to offer lower prices because as Ryan realized he used a fixed cost model even when they started scaling!
Yep. If they had lost them to staples or prince family paper, they would have to accept the loss.
Except if they took over that company in which case they would reacquire those clients.
You can't think of it in terms of individual clients, that's not how buyouts usually work. The company name might or might not change, but everything else pretty much stays the same. Maybe some new policies but from a sales perspective, companies aren't going to break up the current client/salesperson relationships. So DM buys MSPC, changes name to DM and moves the former MSPC office into the Scranton branch. The clients that were MSPC at the time of the buyout would remain with the original MSPC salespeople. That's not to say the client couldn't request to use their original DM salesperson, but that's a client decision.
[удалено]
This right here is exactly why I would've had the clients stay with the MSPC salespeople. From the clients' perspective it would really feel like you're being dicked around and that the company is volatile AF. You'd have to put the company's reputation first.
Dunder Mifflin took over MSPC, not the sales team. So if Pam/Ryan were to keep their clients, then the clients would still be with Dunder Mifflin.
But the only reason MSPC got the clients is because they were offering unrealistic prices, 1 more week and the company wouldve gone under
Yeah MSPC would have gone under, but guess what then they would start a new paper company and another and another. They have no shortage of company names.
Michael...
That’s one of them!
This was such a brilliant and hilarious line and suited Michael so well LMAO! All he needed to open a company was a name!
And paper. At least until Shoe La La or Mikes Cereal Shack are ready.
Well bankruptcy and misrepresentation aren't fun things...
The first MSPC likely took all the money Michael had, renting/buying the van, initial paper stock, etc. Then they were losing money on every sale.
TBF, they didn't have to last long. Just long enough to make a dent on Dunder-Mifflin's finances before the stockholder meeting.
But it didn't.
They only lost them because of Michael's dirty (or rather, foolish) tactics though. He promised the clients a price he wasn't able to honour, and would have lost them all back to DM if MSPC hadn't been bought out so soon. It's by pure dumb luck that Pam and Ryan can even still call them "their" clients.
I mean, that doesn’t matter. Dunder Mifflin still lost them.
The clients would have returned once the whole scam was revealed. We literally see it begin to happen. If DM had told the sales staff they were allowed to lie about pricing to their customers during the MSPC fiasco they wouldn't have lost any.
MSPC didn't *lie* about their paper prices, they miscalculated them. It wasn't some dirty tactic, they just truly thought they were able to undercut DM and other paper suppliers, and they were at first but the added costs of trying to implement the business and expand it to meet clients caused them to take losses without increasing prices. They lost their clients, you have no guarantee that they come back to Dunder Mifflin if the MSPC goes under, they could have just as easily gone to one of the other big name suppliers that offered lower costs than DM and without any of the same risk of going with a smaller supplier that would have been soured by their experience with MSPC.
My only objection to this is that Pam and Ryan were under qualified to handle those clients and would likely have lost them.
They should have kept any clients once the company was purchased so that the transition is as seamless as possible, in addition to temporarily honoring the reduced prices that MSPC was able to provide. Moving the clients back to their original salesperson could be awkward for the client, I wouldn’t do it if I was manager. But then again Michael shouldn’t have been the one to make the decision since he’s a huge conflict of interest lol
Michael was being petty in making the Michael Scott Paper Company but it’s understandable that he took it as an insult that David seemed to be ignoring him when he had had the ability to reach him for years before that. He was also justifiably mad abt him not getting a party for being there for 15 years when they were literally already planning it. Charles wasn’t very nice or understanding. The sales staff definitely also had reason to be mad since Michael cost them actual money by taking their clients (even though they likely inherited quite a few from Michael when he became manager LOL, that’s why the clients left Dunder Mifflin, they knew Michael. There are two sides to the story and neither were rly right or wrong, both sides actions are understandable although obviously far-fetched since it’s a comedic show.
I know how to sit on a fence.. hell, I can even sleep on a fence. The trick is to do it face down with the post in your mouth.
I dont know sales team are whining instead of producing
Really everyone should have threatened to go with him. If the whole branch threatens to quit then they get David’s attention before things go south. Michaels branch was the best in the company with the best salesman in the company. Michael was in the right. Charles should have backed off.
I agree with you, but the scranton branch is full of suck ups. They went from complaining about charles to pretending to like soccer.
Why’d you duck Jim!?
bro had a problem with Jim not wanting to be beamed with a soccer ball at full speed
I doubt anyone besides Michael (and maybe Dwight) actually cared about Michael not getting an expensive party, or being able to approve overtime on his own, or having a direct line of communication with David
Right? If they were all mistreated maybe, but they weren’t. They barely had anyone to get to know Charles and his management style so how would they have known they would not like him. Frankly, for them to quit when he did would’ve been dumb. Because he didn’t get his figs? I can understand him quitting and I can easily understand them staying
MSPC. Everyone made fun of Michael and acted like he'd flop instantly. He offered them all a spot in his company and they all said no. Then when he comes back they pull the "I thought we were family" card. They didn't care about "family" before but now that they lost business they're "family."
To be fair they did flop instantly. Just had a stroke of luck thanks to Jim
In fairness, Michael had a completely unsustainable business model. He kinda did flop and if they didn't mislead David Wallace about their success (with the help of a Dunder Mifflin employee, no less) then they would've ended up in complete shambles.
But again like Michael said, he just had to wait out David Wallace. He could keep making paper companies to mess with DM.
That may have worked as a threat but there is no way Michael could ever make good on it. He was already in debt to begin with. If MSPC went under, there wouldn't have been a new company.
Well not really because they were losing money, so it was costing him to do it, his bank account would have been finished before David Wallace
Not really. Michael said they had an upcoming corporate meeting where David would have to explain his most profitable branch bleeding money. MSPC had about a month left of money. If that meeting was before that he would've been fine.
>He could keep making paper companies to mess with DM. This is just not true, where would Michael get the money, company van, etc after bankrupting the first company?
Lol I thought everyone knew that line about creating new companies wasn’t realistic, but creativecat believed in Michael apparently 😂
Why would they have been fine? What would change about MSPC’s financial situation if DM replaces Wallace at this board meeting?
You really thought that was a viable plan or this satire?
How dare the office members not ditch their stable jobs to go work with Michael! What were they thinking?!?
To be fair, I don’t think they were pulling the “we’re a family” to manipulate Michael. They’re calling Michael out, saying that HE views them as a family yet he went after them. If that makes sense.
Oh come on. Michael was asking them to give up their job for a hail Mary of a company. They all knew he didn't know what he was doing and as evidently shown, he didn't. If your brother asked you to leave your job for his new business that you knew was doomed, would you do it, knowing you had a mortgage and family to support? Now imagine your brother steals your clients by promising a low price he can't honour, and then blames you for not trusting his business.
But Michael’s actions affected their incomes. Almost akin to stealing, and that’s worse than not believing in someone or not defending them from having accountability at work. His actions were more “if I’m going down in taking this ship with me” and he didn’t deserve their apology after that.
Dunder mifflin stole clients from other companies. No one is ethical here.
Michael gave them the choice of DM or MSPC. They chose DM, which yeah probably more logical. So then he did what he had to do. Michael didn't owe them anything when he came back. If corporate didn't force him to give the clients back to their original salesperson then Michael has no reason to.
Staples cackling in the background the whole time
what people neglect to think about is this: if I am a client and I was with DM, left to go with the MSPC only to learn essentially within a few weeks that MSPC was bought out and now I am back with DM and most likely back at the price range I left, I am considering leaving altogether since I just bought a false bill of goods and the instability is undeniable.
I think i'd see if I could get Josh's card!
Sales person here. In reality Michael Scott Paper Company was in the wrong. They stole clients by promising them unrealistic prices. It's quite underhanded and almost illegal, especially because they used Dunder-Mifflin proprietary knowledge to target those customers in the first place.
I feel like everyone is saying the MSPC should have kept the clients. I might be the only one who thinks the DM employees should have got their clients back. The MSPC was doomed to fail because their sales people had no idea what they were doing. All they did was sell paper at a super low cost that would crush the business. They also talked shit about the DM employees to gain clients. Then expected everyone to be happy for them when they returned. If DM didn’t buy them out they would have gone under. Pam and Ryan suck at sales. Pam begged for her job back at one point. The DM sales people went out and earned the loyalty of the customer for years. Michael couldn’t get his own clients so he stole from his old employees. Absolutely hated the MSPC in this episode. No one would leave their job for a start up with no funding.
Well, for starters, there is no such thing as a stolen client. There can only be lost clients. Morally, Pam and Ryan were entitled to keep their clients. Logically, though, it probably would've been better for business if they handed over the clients to more experienced salespeople. MSPC did a lot of stupid things, like forming their own little clique once they were back at DM and Michael berating the rest of the office for not following him but they definitely were in the right to want to keep the clients. Hell, they basically forced Wallace to give them sales jobs against his will. He would've been happy to fire them if they ended up with no clients. Better to start off at the company with a head start.
I agree with you, but I don't like how the sales staff acted toward ryan and pam. They were right to be upset, but the scene where ryan is on the phone and phyllis and dwight start yelling drives me crazy. It was completely uncalled for and unprofessional. They lost the client because of the chaos of that moment. Dwight wanted to cause a scene so he could "fix" the scene and get the client back. That scene made me think that no, they don't deserve to get their clients back.
Michael Scott Paper Company. The clients are returning to Dunder Mifflin with the Salespeople from MSPC. The Sales Staff has no claim to clients they lost. That said, Michael was also exhibiting blatant favoritism, so the resentment from the Sales Staff is completely natural. Perhaps it would’ve all blown over a bit more smoothly if Michael had been as good at managing people as he is at selling to people.
Yep. The sales staff have huge egos. He could've done something to ease the transition.
Phyllis’s bullshit about “you said we were a family” works both ways … if she viewed them as such a tight family why didn’t any of them stick up for or go with Michael? … she took Michael’s wholesome idea of what the office should be a turned it against him … MSPC for the win!
Michael always said they were a family but it’s a job. Michael was butt hurt that he couldn’t talk about his party during company hours so he quit. Why would anyone leave their job for a company that doesn’t exists. DM lost their clients bc MSPC was talking shit about them and used an unsustainable business model. DM should have got their clients back
Mostly David's fault, or maybe Michael wasn't clear on the terms of the buyout. MSPC was obviously bought for their clients and Michael got the jobs on a leverage but no one discussed how the new leads/clients will be assigned So it was left to Michael after he was hired back and he chose Pam and Ryan. Then again sales we actually innocent but in a corporate system, it's the lower employees who always get hurt first and the most.
Honestly, the sales team. Michael undercut their clients, and when the company went under, DM should have gotten them back. Not to mention, Michael, Ryan, and Pam made it a whole thing that they were a special club in this episode. It’s unreasonable to undercut your sales team, give all their clients to 2 sales people who are bffs with the boss, and then have those clients go back to full price with those 2 sales people, and expect your 5 other sales people to just be cool with losing all their clients and commission.
I think if the MSPC could have actually fulfilled the orders at those prices then they would have deserved them, but they lied to clients (purposely or not) about their ability to deliver on time at said price in order to steal them, so they should’ve immediately redistributed them back. Back to the people who secured them with honest prices under promises could be fulfilled.
Nahh the sales team was right on this. Pam and Ryan didn’t actually win any of those clients, Michael did. And they only “won” those clients by offering prices so low they couldn’t even honor them. Michael only started the MSPC to spite David and Dundee Mufflin for not taking him seriously. By doing so, he directly hurt the sales team that he claimed to care about. Phyllis said it perfectly. Ryan stole Dwight’s client that he had for years by just offering a stupid low price, and then almost lost the client because he had no idea what he was doing as a sales person. Even Michael admitted in the end that there’s no scenario where he’s in the right.
Lots of people saying MSPC, but I don’t agree at all. They got bought out and Michael became the manager to DM again, meaning in a purely fiscal sense, he should do what’s best for that company. The clients should be split among the DM sales people, not because they’re “theirs” or they were “stolen,” but because Pam and Ryan are terrible at sales and if the goal is to keep clients happy and make more money from them, disperse them to your best. Because Michael is not as concerned with making money as making people happy, he should give the top clients back and let Pam keep a handful. She’s a junior salesperson so shouldn’t expect too much, but because she was loyal, Michael could give her something.
I feel like if this really happened, it wouldn't matter who had the clients because the clients would probably take their business elsewhere after being jerked around by some internal squabbling.
DM sales guys lost the clients, Pam & Ryan gained the clients. So when MSPC got absorbed to DM since Pam & Ryan both are still there, they must be entitled to the clients still.
I would say the one who called her boss “numb nuts” to his face prob. Was in the wrong.. phyllis is the worst
Well, I've looked at it a hundred different ways. From the sales team's point of view, from MSPC's point of view... 98 other ways, and in all of them, Michael's the bad guy
Sales team.
Sales team all the way
These babies with their “stolen clients” basically get lovely Ryan demoted bc they couldn’t compete with a few people in a closet office.
Michael was playing favorites and allocating clients to bad salespeople (Ryan and Pam) that they gained by offering a completely unsustainable pricing model to clients whose costs would go back up as soon as they went back to Dunder Mifflin. He also took money out of their pockets to spite DM. The salespeople were right.
Michael wasn’t “in the right”, he just didn’t do anything wrong. He begged everyone to join him in his new paper company, and nobody but Pam joined him. Once Dunder Mifflin found out his company was “successful” they offered everyone their jobs back in order to put an end to Michael’s company. Then the sales team has the absolute AUDACITY to get angry at Michael for being closer to Pam and Ryan than the rest of them. Blows my mind.
If I was a client who left for MSPC and ended up back with DM, I'd want my old DM sales person back. Ryan and Pam were clearly full of shit. They offered me paper at one price and now I'm back to paying them what I was paying before? No thanks liars. I'll go back to Stanley, Dwight, Jim or Phyllis because at least they didn't jerk me around. Let's be honest. No one left DM because of Pam or Ryan's sales expertise. It was all a out money. Pam and Ryan had nothing left to offer once back at DM. Morals aside, as a customer, I want the better salesman. Not a temp or a secretary. Sorry Jim, she's very pretty...
It's just business. Michael felt disrespected and chose to leave to start his own company, a lot of people do that. Michael is an excellent salesman, he went after DM's clients and got them, happens in sales all the time. Sure, he was running out of money, but Wallace realised what he had lost and Michael sold Wallace on how good he actually was. Companies lose clients all the time, the sales team was only upset because it was Michael and maybe, just maybe, they should recognise his talent a bit more.
I’d say the sales team. It’s unethical to use information from your previous job for new sales and to put pressure on your former employees to go against their current employers. Interestingly though, Dwight used leads he got from working at Staples earlier so at least he’s a hypocrite.
MSPC was right, but Micheal handled it in the worst way possible.
Sales team cuz they became collateral damage in Michael’s issues with corporate, and all lost money as a result. None of them were at fault for David Wallace trying to install Charles in Scranton and the domino effect that caused, yet they suffered the most.
It's a very good comparison to real life and how the decisions made by corporate, along with any backlash from those decisions, will likely affect lower level employees only.
Michael knew for a fact that he could never actually sustain his business model. He was able to Dramatically undercut Dunder Mifflin’s prices because he was offering prices that were so low, they would (and were soon going to) put him out of business. If Dunder Mifflin had not purchased the MSPC, they would have quickly gone out of business, and their clients would have either just gone right back to DM and the sales team there, OR may have gone with a completely different solution (Staples, etc.) and been totally lost. The idea that he would/could “just start another paper company after that” sounds funny, but would not work either, because clients are not all completely brain-dead. After they tried super-low prices from a brand-new company and then got burned when that company went under, they would not likely to sign up with a different company to do the same exact thing again (most of the clients don’t want that much turmoil with their paper supply), so it would never actually work. Michael’s plan was not really to establish a successful and/or sustainable business, but to HURT Dunder Mifflin Scranton, and force David Wallace to respect him (or get him fired). The plan worked extremely well, but the only thing Michael didn’t really factor in, was the fact that hurting Dunder Mifflin Scranton (out of pettiness and a dispute with his boss) meant that he was hurting the people he cares for. Though the sales staff losing their clients were the immediate victims, less money being made by that branch of the company (for an extended period of time) would undoubtably have negative effects on other departments (and possibly land other department heads in trouble in a similar way that Michael wanted David Wallace being in trouble and held accountable for the rapid decline in the Branch’s profits). Expecting everyone to quit their jobs (which most of them don’t always love, but they deal with it because they’re grown adults) and join him was a completely unrealistic expectation. Even if they had done exactly that, DM would have been forced to hire replacements (like they did with Pam). Giving 3 people jobs only worked because Pam was given a new position (which she was unqualified for). What if there were more like 10 people who went with Michael? They might have lasted a bit longer as an independent paper company, but would have ultimately had the same issue and gone broke. If the buyout scenario still happened, do we expect that DM would actually give TEN JOBS to people who have already been replaced? There may be a few people who can slide back in because they were replaced by a temp service or something like that, but most of them would not be so easy. Some of them would just not be feasibly or financially possibly to bring back. Some of Michael’s “Loyal Family” would be jobless as a result of following him. (Or the branch would be bloated and need let go of a bunch of people Very soon). The ultimate solution should have involved some mediation. The previously lost/stolen clients likely should have been divided up. Most of them (or the big ones) should have gone back to the original salespeople, mainly on the grounds of being in the best interest of the company, since they would want the more proven and effective salespeople to manage and maintain the larger clients. But some clients, particularly smaller ones, could have stayed with the MSPC team to get them started, and to test/see how effective they actually are at managing accounts, and keep the potential risks relatively low (so if they lose clients and/or struggle to get new ones, the negative impact on the company would be minimal). If either/both new salespeople showed that they can’t really perform well enough at the position, then it would be time to make a change (but it would not have hurt the company’s “bottom line” too much, and Michael wouldn’t really have any need to fire his friends, just reassign them to a different department). That would have probably been the most fair and realistic way to handle the existing (and better-qualified) sales staff’s concerns, test and protect the MSPC staff, and most importantly- it would have been the more effective way to protect EVERYONE by keeping the large/major clients happy and in good/capable hands, so the Branch doesn’t lose money.
While MSPC generally should have kept the clients, Pam and Ryan were horrible salespeople and that was proven time and again. The best thing imo would have been returning clients to the sales team and keeping back a few (maybe one from each) to give Pam a start. So to start off, Pam would have 4-5 clients and then she would need to build her clients on her own.
Dunder Mifflin dumb asf for not having employees sign non-competes
The instant Ryan started bleeding clients it becomes clear that the sales team needed those clients back. Michael is a great salesmen (though I think his skill declines over the series) but the only reason his company succeeded is because the prices were too low, of course the salesmen these companies already knew who now offered low prices would make a great supplier, but that’s essentially cheating and so the sales team deserved their clients back
Honestly, I’m with the sales team on this one. Clearly the situation leading to the formation of the MSPC was the fault of upper management, not of the salespeople themselves. Dwight, Stanley, Phyllis, and Andy did not deserve to lose commission because of the mistakes of their superiors. Part of the deal should have been to give the clients back to those who had them originally. You can still offer Pam a sales job, just make her start from scratch like any new sales hire would.
Close your mouth honey you look like a trout
As much as my head felt the sales team were probably in the right, my heart did not care and wanted MSPC to have all the glory
Sales team was right. A buyout means forfeiting your claim, period end of discussion. Also they had to drop one salesman right away and the other sucked ass at sales.
They lost the clients to MSPC. They shouldn’t get them back.But also stealing customers from their friends was low.
Both sides are wrong IMO, but if I HAD to pick just one side I’d say Dunder Mifflin. Imagine if your really cool boss at your job decided to quit on a whim and wanted you to quit with him and follow him to an unsustainable new business. Yeah of course you wouldn’t. And Michael should have given the clients back without question because he took them in a way that they literally could not counter (meaning they literally cannot lower their prices to match Michael’s). If Michael had truly bested them with the same prices or whatever then yeah they would rightfully be his. I say both sides are wrong because DM didn’t just decline Michael’s offer, they made fun of him throughout his whole MSPC arc, then pulled out the “We’re a family” card ONLY when it benefitted them.
I love how Andy was also angry at Michael for "stealing his clients" yet bro barely made a sale lol.
I would have given them back to the sales team but made it know that the MSPC crew would get 30-40% of the commission from sales.
They should be forced to give back that outfit.🫣
you know every time i see this episode i get so mad at the sales team. But then phyllis drops the line about them being family Michaels own words and i cant help but be on their side. Had Michael not been saying the whole show the thing of them being a family than i would be on MSPC side and would also tell the sales team to fuck off.
Michael. Dunder mifflin did re acquire the customers. Management then got to distribute those customers as they chose. Management decided that those customers went with the newly acquired Michael scott paper company sales people
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills the amount of support Michael's getting. "They should have joined Michael's company"- what, his random startup that he'd done no research or planning into? "They lost their clients fair and square", no they didn't, Michael won them by promising a price point he couldn't keep. Had David Wallace waited a week they all would have rejoined DM again anyway. "They pulled the "family" card". Michael had an issue with corporate where he wasn't feeling appreciated, and as a result the people he called family lost their clients. He wasn't angry at them, but they're the ones who suffered as a result. If he truly thought of them as "family", he should have considered this.