The Office

Chloe Lawrence pulled into the Dunder Mifflin parking lot. It was her first day on the job and she was running thirteen minutes late.

She ran around to the passenger side, squeezing in between her car and a red Pontiac Trans Am whose driver had decided to park like Stevie Wonder might have if he were allowed to drive a vehicle.

Chloe wedged the passenger door between her leg so that she wouldn't ding the car and grabbed the new leather briefcase that her parents bought for her first 'grown-up' job; they even had it monogrammed for her.

She pulled and and then tried tugging it at a different angle, the briefcase wouldn't budge.

What the hell? she thought.

This incident was making her even more late and she let go of the briefcase and counted to ten, calming herself. Chloe attempted one more time to wrench the briefcase out from the floor of the car. The briefcase suddenly came loose, sending Chloe back into the Pontiac while the briefcase collided with the driver's side window.

Chloe gasped looking at the cracked glass and began panicking.

She frantically looked around for another parking spot. Seeing one at the far end of the parking lot she hurriedly got back into the driver's seat and moved her car.

What was a few more minutes late going to hurt?

Getting out of her car Chloe noticed a cameraman who was pointing the camera directly at her. She froze like a deer in headlights and remembered now that Jan Levinson had mentioned that this office was being filmed for some sort of reality TV show.

"Did you get that on tape?" she asked, grabbing the handles of her damned briefcase as she stared at the camera.

The cameraman nodded.

"All of it?"

"All of it," he confirmed.

Chloe hid her face and continued into the building.

She was now twenty minutes late.

"Hi," Chloe said, smiling down at the receptionist, "I'm looking for Toby Flenderson."

The receptionist smiled back. "Hi! What's your name?"

"Chloe Lawrence."

"Oh, the psychologist. You're gonna have a lot of fun here," she winked and glanced over at the rest of the employees.

"Great," Chloe spoke slowly, awkwardly glancing over at the camera set up in the corner of the room.

The receptionist offered her hand to Chloe. "I'm Pam, by the way."

Chloe shook it happily.

"All right, I'm gonna just buzz Toby." Pam excused herself as she picked up the telephone.

Chloe looked around, all eyes on her, as she stood waiting. She waved awkwardly and immediately a man with beady eyes and a middle part stood up.

"Who are you?" he bellowed. "And what is your business here?"

Chloe saw the cameraman that was positioned in the right corner of the office scanning back and forth from this crazed man and her.

"Please don't heckle the new employee, Dwight," a soft-spoken man with thinning strawberry-blond hair said as he emerged from the back of the office. "Come this way, Chloe."

"Sorry I'm late," Chloe muttered as they made their way past the conference room.

Toby shook his head. "Oh, don't worry about it. We won't hold it against you on your first day."

"Thanks."

Toby led Chloe into an empty office near the back corner of the main part of the room. It was small, very small...it reminded her of the closet Harry Potter was kept in when he was eleven except hers had windows that looked out at the rest of the employees and one that had a nice view of an empty lot and several sets of train tracks.

"I'll give you some time to settle in and then give you everyone's file so you can have a chance to get to know them."

"Sounds great."

***

Chloe sat behind her new desk with another cameraman pointing his camera directly at her. The director had cornered her in the break room and asked her to give her first interview.

She leaned against her desk, staring at the director.

"You signed a release, right?" the director asked.

Chloe pursed her lips and turned her heads sideways. "I signed a lot of papers, so...probably."

"Good." The director threw her file on the conference table and snapped his fingers twice at the cameraman and then pointed at Chloe.

Chloe looked blankly into the camera and then shook her head after a few moments passed. "I don't get what I have to do."

"Think of this as a confession slash interview. You can start by telling us a little bit about yourself."

"Okay, well, my name is Chloe Lawrence and I grew up in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania which is a city only, like, twenty minutes away from Scranton. I graduated from Temple University with my doctorate in counseling psychology last spring and as soon as I put my resume on Monster.com Jan Levinson called me."

"Did she tell you anything?" the director asked.

Chloe nodded her head. "Yep. She basically said that the Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company was in dire need of psychological help and that I would be a great addition to their team."

"Have you had a chance to meet anyone?"

"Well, that creepy man--Dwight, I think his name was?--interrogated me as soon as I stepped through the door and then Toby had that perky Indian girl, Kelly drop off everyone's file. She talked to me for a half hour about her boyfriend, Ryan who, I learned, also works here."

"Is there anything else you'd like to say?"

"I'll be conducting my first meeting in about two minutes," Chloe said after she glanced down at her watch. "So..you should probably leave..."

"No, we'll stay here. That's the whole reason why we're here--to record everything you and the rest of the employees at Dunder Mifflin do."

"Oooo-kay."

***

Chloe waited at the front of the conference room while all of her colleagues filed in, taking seats around the large oval table. Toby was standing beside her--he was going to introduce her.

Michael Scott, regional manager of the Scranton branch came into the conference room and sighed when he saw Toby at the front of the room. "This is a really big inconvenience to everybody's day, Toby.

"No," Toby said, "this will only take a few minutes, Michael. And then you can get back to your afternoon nap."

Michael glared at the Toby but remained silent.

Chloe had a funny feeling that Michael would be in her office a lot.

Toby cleared his throat. "I would like to introduce you all to our new resident psychologist, Chloe Lawrence."

There was a split reaction to Chloe's introduction; some mumbled a pitiful greeting while others simply stared blankly at her.

Toby turned to Chloe. "Take it away, Chloe."

Chloe nodded her thanks to Toby and stepped forward.

"So, basically my job here is to listen to your problems...if there are any. If you're feeling depressed or you just really need to get something off your chest I'm here for you. My office is in the back right corner of this room and all of you are welcomed to come in whenever you want.

"Are there any questions?" she asked.

Dwight's hand shot up and he spoke immediately, not waiting to be called on. "I hope you know that your job is obsolete. We already have Toby to listen to our problems."

"That's not a question..." a younger man named Jim Halpert muttered beside Dwight.

"Actually, Dwight, it's not," Chloe answered, "Unlike Toby I can actually give you guys advice on the things you need help with but he's still there to listen if I'm not around."

Chloe could see a smile growing on Michael's face as he raised his hand. "So, in actuality, Toby's job is obsolete."

"Well--" she started.

Michael stood up and looked at Toby. "You're fired, Toby."

"You can't fire me, Michael."

"Yes, I can."

"No. You can't."

"Yes, Toby. I am the boss and I can fire anyone I want and, today, I've chosen to fire you."

Chloe looked down at her watch. It was only two in the afternoon--there were still four hours left until she could leave.

It was going to be a long day.

A very long day.

"I'll just call Jan and get permission to fire you." Michael said quickly, pulling out his cell phone.

A very...very long day.

***

Dwight Schrute packed up his things, leaving the office with only muttering a goodbye to Pam. He had gotten the okay from Michael to leave early as he was on a mission to the supermarket to pick the best noodles he could for his beloved Angela.

They had a very important date tonight and he promised her that he would prepare his famous lasagna.

He stuffed his hand into his pants pocket to pull out his large collection of keys. It didn't take him longer than a second to find the right key because he had them all memorized by their individual grooves.

"What is this?" he said, seeing the spider-web shatter in his window. "What is this!?"

"Attention everyone, attention!" Dwight said as he stormed back into the building. "I need to know who smashed the window of my car!"

"Well," Jim said, "did you see the car that was parked next to you? Because they probably did it."

"Yes, Jim. Of course I checked the cars around me but there were no cars!" Dwight said. "Do any of you know how hard it is to find a replacement glass for a 1978 Pontiac Trans Am?"

"Your mechanic can probably find a replacement, Dwight. You just need to call," Pam said.

Dwight turned slowly to Pam. "My car is a classic, Pam. I can't just have any piece of glass installed into my car!"

While one camera was trained on Dwight and his crisis another camera panned over to Chloe's office just as she was lowering the blinds to her windows.