S8:E3 “When I worked in the warehouse, I was part of that lottery pool. And they won playing my birthday.” – Darryl
On last night’s episode of The Office, the gang had a hard time working because the warehouse guys won the lotto and they all quit. But the reason why the salesman and the accountants upstairs couldn’t work wasn’t because they had no one to ship their paper supplies to their clients. Instead, it was because they were all busy speculating as to what they would each do if they had won the lottery. Jim said he wanted to move Pam and their kids to Maine, and Pam said she wanted to move to SoHo so she could wake up in the morning and Jim could serve her flavored coffee. Kelly said she would keep working and would willingly accept a salary of $1 a year, but clarified she would do no work. The only person who didn’t participate in all the fantasies was Darryl, who stayed in his office because he was depressed that he didn’t work in the warehouse anymore and was therefore ineligible to receive a portion of the $950,000. He was also tasked with the job of finding replacements for all the warehouse workers, which he really didn’t want to do because he was so depressed that he didn’t win any money.
“What’s the problem? Grunting is scientifically proven to add more power. Ask any female tennis player. Or her husband.” – Dwight
Until Darryl hired new people to work in the warehouse, Jim, Dwight, Kevin and Erin were responsible for making sure all the shipments went out on time. After spending a significant amount of time without moving very many boxes, they were confused by how the people who used to work in the warehouse did everything so quickly. Kevin suggested that Erin, Jim and Dwight lube him and the boxes up and then slide them across the floor and then into the trucks because it would be both fun and efficient, but nobody was particularly interested in doing that. Upstairs, Darryl and Andy held some interviews so they could compile a new staff for the warehouse, but Darryl was in such despair that he described the job poorly to all the prospective employees – and then when Andy confronted him about making the hiring process harder, Darryl demanded Andy fire him.
“The job was mine, Andy. Everyone said it was mine. Make me manager, or fire me.” – Darryl
After Darryl refused to take part in finding the replacements, Andy had no choice but to hire three random people: one of whom had a weird hearing impairment he didn’t think was a hearing impairment, another who was a grad student that was writing a thesis about blue collar workers, and the third was a really handsome athlete Oscar had a crush on. As Andy was taking them all downstairs to show them where they’d be working, Darryl interrupted the group and Andy asked him why he was so damn upset that he didn’t win that stupid lottery money. Darryl responded by finally admitting what he was really angry about, which was that Jo did not hire him to be the regional manager of the branch. He added that he deserved to be the regional manager more than Andy did because he worked way harder than anyone (especially Andy) and he was entitled to that job. Andy then pulled out all the stops and told Darryl that Jo initially considered him, but she decided to go with Robert California because he stopped pushing for the position and she noticed how he suddenly didn’t seem ambitious anymore. It really was a pretty incredible piece of dialog to watch because Andy is turning out to be the exact same kind of completely endearing manager that Michael was, in that most of the time he doesn’t know what he’s doing but then suddenly, out of nowhere, he becomes this person who’s dominant and wise and articulate and it’s someone who is rightfully a leader.
At the end of the episode, Darryl agreed that Andy was the right person to be the manager and they united to give the new warehouse workers a tour of their new…workspaces. But when they went inside the warehouse they found the whole floor covered in grease because Kevin and Erin had convinced Dwight and Jim to just try their method of sliding the boxes across the floor and then into the truck. It proved to be a highly disappointing way of operating, but at least they came up with a stellar name for it – which was Señor Slidenstein, or something, and when Jim was asked to elaborate on how they came up with the name, he simply said “porque es muy rápido.”
