The Office - A Farewell To My favorite TV show.

Imagine a show that is based entirely on the lives of a few employees working at an office that sells paper products in a small county, now stretch your imagination a little more and conjure up an image of the show running for nine years, visualize it getting nominated for over 150 major awards and conceptualize a scenario where you find yourself falling in love with every single character on the show so much so that you feel they are part of your real life- that’s ‘The Office’

2 years ago when my brother first introduced me to ‘The Office’, I wasn’t familiar with the single camera setup of filming, I didn’t like the show, and episodes from 7 different seasons of the show lay quietly in my hard drive, like a treasure hidden right beneath where I stood.

It was a time when shows from the genres of action and drama occupied most of my TV viewing schedule, The eccentric doctor in ‘House MD’, The convoluted plot twists of ‘Lost’ and the frustrating exoneration of an innocent man in ‘Prison break’ these shows either came to an end or became unbearably boring and I knew it was time to try something else.

After Seinfeld and F.R.I.E.N.D.S finished their run the whole sitcom scene became unappealing to me, Sci-fi based shows have failed to impress me for ages, I reluctantly started watching ‘the office’ again.

And, to this day I haven’t stopped.

The Office is a special show, probably because there is nothing extraordinary about it, the show just shows us how wonderful our day to day lives are-no matter how boring they may seem if only we just looked a little more closely at them.

It may seem very boring at first, but as you get to watching more and more episodes it will be hard for you to stop, as it was in my case and as it is in the case of many of my friends who have been introduced to the show through me.

The show can be compared to a guy or a girl whom you find uninteresting and dull at first, a few days, weeks or months go by and you just can get enough of him or her.

The series finale of the office aired last night, this blog post is a

synopsis of sorts, it’s all about how much I love this show and why I

will miss it for years to come.

Michael Scott is a middle aged man, lonely, irritating and self obsessed, He is the regional manager of a medium sized paper company-Dunder Mifflin. 

DM sells paper and other office supplies, Mike has a small sales team, it is led by Jim Halpert a lanky handsome young man who everyday dreams of leaving Scranton and pursuing a different career, he is in love with Pam Beesly the receptionist who sits 5 feet from his desk, but she’s engaged to Roy a guy who works in the warehouse, a good portion of their day is spent pulling pranks on sales associate-Dwight Shrute, the assistant (to the) regional manager, beet farmer, safety officer and part time Lackawanna county sheriff,Dwight is the most passionate paper salesman on earth, he shares complex feelings with Angela the diminutive head accountant of the branch, She Loves cats, perhaps more than she loves Dwight but she hates both her co-workers the gay accountant Oscar and the lovable chubby bald guy Kevin who cannot go from A to Z without making at least 10 mistakes let alone add numbers correctly.

Meredith sits behind Kevin, she is an alcoholic ( But that’s like the least of her problems), Creed Bratton shares Meredith’s desk he is wanted by the police of 10 different countries and what he does is in the office is classified, he’s the oldest working member here next only to Stanley Hudson-the droopy eyed African American salesman, father of two who lives for the clock to strike 5 p.m each day.

Phyllis another sales associate is an excellent knitter she wears weird perfumes and often releases room clearing farts, Ryan the good looking temp frequents the office annex where he shares a flirtatious relationship with the beautiful Indian customer service associate Kelly Kapoor.

Daryl Philbin works in the warehouse below, his team of workers include a wide variety of peoplefrom a Japanese heart surgeon named heday to a bunch of guys from ‘the hood’ and a woman- Madge whom Michael refers to as pudge they are in charge of shipping the orders, finally there’s the Scranton strangler (He doesn’t work at the office-Obviously ! But his presence is always felt) and…. Well…. There’s Toby.

Nothing great right? just a weird mix of people, like every other work place.

But as the show starts to progress and you invariably get involved with the characters, you start wondering-

If Jim will ever tell Pam how he feels about her, whether Pam would reciprocate ?

Would Michael ever find true Love?

If Dwight will ever go from being assistant (to the) regional manager

to being full manager of the Scranton branch?

Would Kelly and Ryan ever be able to define their relationship?

Will the Scranton strangler ever be caught?

Will the office grow, would there be more interesting characters starting work here, one dude in particular who sings and plays the banjo like it’s nobody’s business?

Will Toby ever………stop being Toby?

Millions of fans worldwide spent the last 9 years in the pursuit of the answers to these and many other questions; being one of them I can tell for sure that it has been one heck of a ride.

I assure you that if you start watching this show and give it some

time you will truly madly & deeply fall in love with it, for that matter

isn’t that true about everything else in this life. 

Over the last 9 years, the office as a show has explored everything that can happen at a workplace, office relationships,romances, affairs,fights pranks,branch closings and acquisitions,mergers, office picnics, birthday parties, Christmas Parties,downsizing and so on........

Now that the show has come to an end and I finally have all my answers, I realize how much I am going to miss it, every 21 minute episode of the show has given me many reasons to smile, cry, laugh out loud and even want to fall in love, through all the sadness I can’t help but think of something one of the characters says in the series finale-

“No matter how you get there, or where you end up, human beings have this miraculous gift to make that place HOME”.

Until next time

TGV