Business Model
At this late date it's hard to complain about the level of reality in The Office. It was just about impossible to buy that Michael Scott could be in charge of the Dunder Mifflin Scranton branch for any length of time, since he was incompetent and impossibly dense, and demonstrated this to his bosses over and over. (Occasionally they'd have an episode claiming he and his branch were selling a lot of paper, which was also hard to buy.)
But the latest turn in the plot I find ridiculous. Michael, unhappy with his new boss, quits Dunder Mifflin and starts his own paper company. He takes Pam with him and also picks up Ryan. That's it. He has no business plan. He files no legal documents. He just starts selling paper.
Lawyers and doctors carry much of their capital with them. But a paper seller? If you're going to start a company, don't you have to, you know, make paper? Dunder Mifflin wasn't just a paper brokerage, they manufactured the stuff. If Michael's to sell it, where's he getting it? Couldn't we at least have Ryan, who went to business school, explain this model?
But the latest turn in the plot I find ridiculous. Michael, unhappy with his new boss, quits Dunder Mifflin and starts his own paper company. He takes Pam with him and also picks up Ryan. That's it. He has no business plan. He files no legal documents. He just starts selling paper.
Lawyers and doctors carry much of their capital with them. But a paper seller? If you're going to start a company, don't you have to, you know, make paper? Dunder Mifflin wasn't just a paper brokerage, they manufactured the stuff. If Michael's to sell it, where's he getting it? Couldn't we at least have Ryan, who went to business school, explain this model?
posted by LAGuy @ 12:06 AM
3 Comments:
Sorry to nitpick, LAGuy -- but I'm not sure Dunder Mifflin is a paper manufacturer. Their website says they are a "micro-cap regional paper and office supply distributor." See www.dundermifflin.com/about/
Part of the comedic underpinning of The Office is that Michael somehow stumbles into management that works, at least sometimes, in spite of appearing to be a complete idiot. For example, when Jim took over the office in Michael's absence in one episode, he decides to do away with Michael's absurdly wasteful practice of having a separate birthday party for everyone in the office. He replaces it with a monthly birthday party that is supposed to cover everyone who had a birthday that month. This causes extreme havoc and discontent among the employees who were looking forward to their individualized birthday parties that month, and Jim reverts to the individual parties. When Michael returns, he reveals that he tried the monthly party years earlier and found out it wouldn't work. It is always shocking and scary to Jim that Michael may actually know something.
They occasionally will try to show Michael is successful or knows what he's doing, but it's belied by what he says and does the other 99% of the time.
They don't make paper? So what's that warehouse about? Also, how can they take orders for paper unless they know what and how much they have? Bigger than that, someone's got to deliver it, and they have no delivery arm.
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