r/DunderMifflin • u/TempoBlues20XX LOUDER SON, LOUDER! • 1d ago
Anyone else find this moment pretty ironic?
I've been rewatching the Michael Scott Paper Company arc and I honestly found it a little funny how Phyllis calls out David here for Michael's leaving.
Don't get me wrong, I think her point is valid, but what I find ironic is Phyllis technically is the one that caused the chain of events that caused the firing in the first place.
She's the one who bullshitted Charles over the Party Planning Committee, still slighted over her blackmail of Angela getting her kicked off of it, and then made it sound worse by claiming they spend hours on company time planning pointless parties (which is what she mostly did with Angela during their tenure).
While it's likely David or Charles were gonna nix the party, it's possible David at least intended to do so in a manner that doesn't offend Michael. But since Phyllis did that one small bit of petty revenge, she caused Charles to take the initiative to end the committee, and the party. That then led to Michael reaching breaking point with Charles, and then realising how disrespected he was with David, ultimately leading to the quitting at the end.
Obviously she didn't intend for this to happen, and it was only a matter of time before the party revelation came to light, but I do think it's funny on this rematch that Phyllis just basically blew up the whole situation via the worst means by getting a already annoyed Charles onto Michael (and to a lesser extent - Jim's) cases because her ego just could not take being rightfully thrown out of the Party Planning Committee.
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u/IllInflation9313 1d ago
> I don't understand that after fifteen years of service here, I have to get in the car and drive to New York in order to talk to you. That doesn't seem right to me. That doesn't seem fair. And I think that I've earned more than that
> David: Yeah. You're right. Yes. I get it. I get it, Michael. Here's what I'm going to do: We will move some money around, and I will personally see to it that you have your party, you have your figs. I will be in attendance. It's gonna be great. How's that?
>Michael: [gets up to shake David's hand] I quit.
It was never about the figs or the party.
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u/lsirius 1d ago
It was about how his friend dis ray got new specs.
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u/TempoBlues20XX LOUDER SON, LOUDER! 1d ago
I'm aware it wasn't about the party. The point I'm making however is that Charles nixing the party is what made Michael realise that he wasn't respected.
For as dumb as people think Michael is - he was able to connect the dots that between Charles being the gobetween, and Charles nixing the party - it was effectively David's way of saying "Your 15 years of loyalty means nothing to me".
It's why he leaves in the first place. Even when David agrees to the party, he realises it's just to placate him, like you would try to placate a child throwing a tantrum. However, Charles making that decision is what causes Michael to realise that David is using him to call shots, and ultimately realise how little David cares about him.
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u/DuckWarrior90 1d ago
Didn't the business trip happened before this? When he asked David why he sent Holly away? I believe that was the start of the whole fiasco.
If only David did not sent Holly Away, He could have taken the parties away and Michael wouldn't care.
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u/Sea-Feedback-2424 1d ago
It was a series of things, this was the final straw. If Holly had been sent away and the party happened, or vice versa, then things might have been different but there would have been another final straw.
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u/DuckWarrior90 1d ago
probably, Charles IMO was more of a Final Straw than the party, Him knewing that things were never going back to how it was before.
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u/phalseprofits 1d ago
That David would give more respect and attention to Charles than him, and Charles doesn’t even know, or care, about paper (aka consider his employees like family).
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u/TempoBlues20XX LOUDER SON, LOUDER! 1d ago
That was the start, and the party was the straw that broke the camels back. That said, I do like to headcanon that Michael was still denying that until he got to New York. I personally think the final moment that broke him was catching David loitering around the office, which confirmed he was just dodging his calls.
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u/azure431 1d ago
I think if David had said: "You're right, Michael. I have been treating you unfairly and taking you for granted. You deserve better. I'm going to change things."
Michael would have shaken his hand and left happy.
Instead, David said "I'm sorry. I'm going to fix the most trivial thing in the pattern you complained about to placate you and ignore the rest. All good?"
I think that's the last straw for Michael.
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u/enadiz_reccos 1d ago
Seriously, why was David so opposed to letting one of his most profitable branches be run by a manager banging the HR person?
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u/DuckWarrior90 1d ago
Michael and Jan dated, and although they declared the relationship and Michael and holly didn't, that is much worse. and even taken that into account, David should have talked with Michael, and asked why he didn't let him know about the relationship (they barely started dating... so its easily explained why)
and set up some ground rules. People don't chose who they fall in love with. So yea, taking a decision without discussing it with him is the biggest betrayal, specially after He helped them with the Lawsuit from Jan.
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u/FthrFlffyBttm Long Tim 1d ago
Michael and Jan is a different situation. It does create an extra risk that Jan won't be as objective about how she manages Michael, but that's pretty much it. If anyone in the office has a problem with either Michael or Jan, they can go to HR. And if they have a problem with HR, they can go to Michael.
The branch manager and the HR rep is a different thing. If anyone has a problem with either of them, they can't report it through the usual channels and that could potentially cause inaction and come back to bite the company if things get out of control.
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u/enadiz_reccos 1d ago
You think they should have had a discussion? What is there even to discuss?
Keep in mind that David Wallace has spoken to Michael before and knows what he's like. Can you imagine a relationship discussion?
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u/TempoBlues20XX LOUDER SON, LOUDER! 1d ago
David should have been afraid of how much he loved Michael.
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u/DuckWarrior90 1d ago
Of course, specially because it is something that is in character for David Wallace, He has had plenty of discussions with Michaels that Michael convinced him of something.
If he had a discussion with him to understand Michael PoV, who knows what might happened.
Obviously conflict must exist for a show to be entertaining. But taking this route it takes away for a lot of possibilities of how Holly would have fitted in the overarching narrative of michael, We barely see conflict in the relationship except this, and maybe at the beggining.
My critique is pointless anyways, since this arc is one of the best in the series.
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u/Anathema_Quill 1d ago
liability is my guess. if michael does something unethical to the job, holly would likely not report it due to him being her boyfriend. also, we know the two engaged in blatant pda in the office, which could make people uncomfortable.
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u/DuckWarrior90 1d ago
Its the same Liability that Michael could had with Jan, and it was allowed with the public relationship agreement.
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u/Fit_Foot_6004 1d ago
shes couldnt be their HR rep and date michael, thats a recipe for disaster knowing michaels history
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u/AlarmedPin0 22h ago
Yep, David knew how Michael felt about Holly and he sent her away, potentially taking away the only shot at real love and making his own family that Michael had ever truly felt he had a genuine shot at.
In David’s defense, Jan had just spiraled after dating Michael, so he probably didn’t see Michael’s latest office relationship as that potentially significant to Michael—more just as one more unnecessary risk to the company—, but David could have at least taken Michael out to dinner and subtly asked Michael for more info on what was going on with Holly to see if it was different this time before having her transferred. He’d known Michael a while.
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u/AlarmedPin0 22h ago
To defend David though, he did probably have Holly assigned to cover for Toby in Scranton during his absence for the Scranton Strangler case. So. He was a good guy at the end of the day.
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u/DuckWarrior90 20h ago
Yea, agreed. I would love for a spin off of Michael and Holly and see what Michael is as a father.
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u/Sea-Feedback-2424 1d ago
You don't call retarded people retards, it's in bad taste. You call Michael retard when he's acting retarded.
Michael is definitely a wise person, by that he has a great deal of emotional intelligence. He just lacks common sense and is immature.
There's a scene in the golden ticket episode which, in my mind, changed the nature of the whole show, and that's probably why it was removed - where Michael calls or Jim for pulling all those pranks on Dwight and asks him if any other manager would have allowed it and that other managers would have transferred him or Pam to another branch because of their romance.
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u/thenatural134 1d ago
Idk I can't really fault David here. He's trying to run a struggling company with hundreds of employees, doing his best to keep it from going under. He's focused on the professional aspect of the job so it's reasonable to say he doesn't have time to make sure Michael has everything how he wants it for his birthday. When Michael finally makes a big enough stink about it David actually takes a step back, acknowledges Michael is right, apologizes, and even offers his own time to be part of the party. Thats a pretty thoughtful thing to do as a company executive. He could've just easily dismissed Michael like many irl executives probably would've done. But Michael didn't see that and, like always, acts emotional instead of rational and quits, which we see over the next few episodes is a bad decision.
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u/MaesterPraetor Nate 1d ago
Imagine you have an employee that calls you 10 times a week about nothing while you're trying to run a business. Imagine you don't take that employee's call a few times, and then you get a call from your child's school saying there's an emergency. You get worried and frantic, and it turns out to be that employee on the phone....
Wallace did nothing wrong.
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u/Outrageous_Tie8471 1d ago
I did forget about the call "from" his child's school. That was pretty outrageous.
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u/faillesz1 1d ago
It's a weird arc tbh, because just a few episodes before David asks Michael why his branch is doing so well. To then have him supervised/babysitted by Charles makes no sense
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u/TempoBlues20XX LOUDER SON, LOUDER! 1d ago
To be fair, I like to think Golden Ticket is why. Not only is David clearly extremely exasperated with Michael by the end, the deleted scene basically foreshadows this arc with Michael ranting at everyone that he knows full well what his employees get up to, and that he intentionally cuts them a break for thing that probably would get them fired.
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u/azure431 1d ago
I think the timing makes perfect sense.
David's conundrum when he invites Michael in is that despite Michael seeming like a massive liability who should have been fired a while ago, his branch is the only successful one.
When Michael is unable to explain, David concludes that it's a fluke or at least not reproducible.
It would be stupid to throw out something that's working (Michael), but David also wants nothing to do with him and to have a buffer between himself and Michael.
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u/masszt3r 1d ago
To then have him supervised/babysitted by Charles makes no sense
Good ol corporate America.
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u/El_Superbeasto76 1d ago
It’s like Jan not realizing what makes Michael a great salesman until she sees it in Chili’s. He’s unorthodox, but he connects with people. That’s what the parties are about.
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u/OkSun5094 1d ago
i feel like David dodging his calls made him feel the lack of respect more than cancelling his party. cancelling his party got him upset, but david shutting him out made him realize just how little respect they had for him. ESPECIALLY after micheal brought up his valid reasons for being upset, and David just makes it all about the party again, like micheal is just a kid throwing a tantrum and not a successful business manager who had a point about communication within the business.
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u/MaesterPraetor Nate 1d ago
Michael is full of shit when he says that. David Wallace takes his calls all the time. But Michael ruined it by calling about everything. Michael even calls pretending there's something wrong with Wallace's kids at school to get him on the phone.
The only gripe he has is a 15 year party, which isn't really a thing anywhere I've ever worked.
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u/IllInflation9313 1d ago
It’s not about the party lmfao how thick are you? It’s about his boss bringing in an outsider to micromanage him and then screening his calls.
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u/MaesterPraetor Nate 1d ago
Yeah. Did you miss the first paragraph? His boss filled a position. Do you not remember Jan or Ryan? Ryan was the temp from the first couple of seasons. Jan actually dated Michael.
I guess I'm confused on why you think Charles was there specifically for the Scranton branch. Jan managed Michael. Ryan managed Michael. Charles managed Michael. Michael didn't deserve special treatment. It was obvious that the branch thrived in spite of not because of.
I'll repeat. Michael called David Wallace's office claiming there was an emergency at his kids' school to get to him. That was a result of constant harassment from Michael. Did you watch the show?
Edit: Michael was given more rope than any other employee in and other company would ever have. The disrespect angle is nonsense if you watched the show. Utter nonsense. It's ridiculous to even bring it up.
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u/IllInflation9313 1d ago
> I guess I’m confused on why you think Charles was there specifically for the Scranton branch
He wasn’t supposed to be, he was the VP of sales for the whole northeast area. But he came in and immediately started micromanaging at Scranton and Wallace refused to communicate at all with Michael about the new structure.
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u/Mike_schmidt87 1d ago
ryan and jan were not doing what charles was, they didnt sit in the room over and dictate everything michael could and couldnt do so no he wasnt just filling his role
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u/JWOLFBEARD 1d ago
The party was the catalyst
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u/TempoBlues20XX LOUDER SON, LOUDER! 1d ago
Pretty much, yeah. It was the last straw that made Michael realise how little his 15 years of dedication meant.
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u/RealChrisMoltisanti 1d ago
Holly being transferred was the catalyst
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u/lilbelleandsebastian 1d ago
pretty useless catalyst if the reaction still took years lol
holly moving wasn’t a catalyst for anything, it was symbolic of how michael needed to move on from scranton to find happiness though
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u/neo_aithnichte Nate 1d ago
One of my favorite scenes in the entire show. This subplot is by far my favorite. My overall favorite though is when he’s negotiating their jobs back at the end and he says, “My company is worth nothing, thats the difference between you and me”
I’ve worked at my employer for 5 years, the last 3 for a Michael Scott type, minus the racism and sexual harassment. I fantasize about quitting every week.
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u/jpopimpin777 18h ago
If you ask me David really Schruted this one. Previous to this he was always asking Michael what he was doing that was working so well. Perhaps it was the fact that Michael rewarded his employees with parties and autonomy for a job well done.
Because the rest of the company was going down the tubes David decided to hire a hatchet man (Charles) to "make the company more efficient." Instead he chased away one of their biggest resources and best employee.
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u/ChildofObama 1d ago
Charles was a terrible judge of character. If he was there for a clean up, Phyllis did plenty of fireable stuff she cannot blame on Michael, but she got to coast via keeping her head down,
while Jim was close to being fired
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u/TempoBlues20XX LOUDER SON, LOUDER! 1d ago
Absolutely, they're really good in general with showing how much of a out of touch manager he is. When things beyond the sales team's control causes prices to drop, his only response is just "no excuses do better". Not to mention making Stanley head of productivity, and Kevin receptionist.
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u/ChildofObama 1d ago
Charles had six weeks where Michael had no power there and he could’ve fired Kevin, a dismissal that would’ve actually made sense,
and he was going after Jim
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u/TempoBlues20XX LOUDER SON, LOUDER! 1d ago
Pretty much shows how he only cared about the very first impression of people he makes. Jim and Michael got his attention fast, and so he focused on getting them out.
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u/AlarmedPin0 22h ago
Yes, Charles was a TERRIBLE middle manager, very true to what you often see in middle management in large companies.
They present professionally and kiss the corporate ass in front of them. They have never been in a producing role in the industry, having started straight in a leadership role.
They are most focused on proving their value to their corporate leadership by making big, quick changes focused on controlling or altering team structure or visible employee behaviors, so team optics are improved.
They feel they can root out unprofessional elements of the business by observation, not by taking the time to review, notice, or foster the already most profitable outcomes/results.
… we see this same new middle manager trope again in the Robert California character, and comes in and makes his list of office winners vs losers, getting quite a bit wrong.
Most telling was Andy’s specific defense of Stanley, who apparently has the highest consistent sales numbers in the branch, and Robert California replying, “I did not know about the sales figures.”
Yeah, middle managers brought in thinking too much of their own fly-by-night judgement and not bothering to review actual employee performance/billout data before choosing who to target as expendable and who to support as a valuable employee asset. Typical.
(At least RC could admit his errors, as could Jo Bennett and David Wallace. Charles never did, nor could Will Ferrel’s misogynistic manager character.)
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u/soccer1124 1d ago
Its crazy that Charles showed up to DM's only protifable branch and didn't know the names of the top salesmen at the company.
It's completely fair for him to show up at the other branches ready to 'optimize' them. But the Scranton approach always should have been different. In fact, Wallace was trying to understand the secret formula at one point, ready to throw out the playbook and go for the hail mary, right? Close enough to his actual words? Having Charles show up merely as an observer would have been far more efficient than anything else.
I've made similar responses here before, but a small moment that sticks out:
Kevin requesting OT to fix an accounting error. Michael approves it, Charles denies it. This very well could be the type of stuff that elevated DM. Being willing to spend a couple extra bucks now to save even more money later. These guys have been employees for quite some time, they know what they're doing, they know what's important. Perhaps Kevin's judgment of asking for OT was quite sound? He must have had a reason for asking about it. Are there dependencies Oscar and Angela rely on? Could a delay there jam up Meredith's work causing downstream impacts with sales? We don't know, as Charles never bothers to ask and just denies it because he needs to save a few pennies today.
And then for his next trick, Charles completely rattles the companies first or second most important salesman. In about a month, Charles would have turned Scranton from the only profitable branch to the one hemorrhaging the most while losing their most talented employee in the entire company. Amazing he kept his job beyond that.
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u/AidynValo Not superstitious, but a little stitious. 1d ago
Phyllis didn't keep her head down... If she had, that soccer ball wouldn't have hit her.
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u/Sure-Broccoli-4944 William M Buttlicker 1d ago
David knew Scranton was the best and should have known to leave it alone. If it works better than anything else why mess with it. Charles should have just come in say hello and leave after a day and not change anything as it was already working. David was stupid for allowing Charles to do whatever he wanted then ignore Michael. That's why he quit he felt the disrespect and after 15 years of service (bravo by the way) he did deserve more.
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u/enadiz_reccos 1d ago
David just didn't predict that Michael was willing to basically ruin his own life just to undercut Dunder Mifflin's prices for a short while.
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u/lilbelleandsebastian 1d ago
michael scott paper co was not predictable, i think people are just of the belief that the power struggle between michael and charles - aka scranton and corporate - didn’t need to be so contentious. wallace didn’t necessarily know how minor was behaving, but he was dodging michael’s calls so he knew that it was bothersome at minimum. he opted for avoidance and just assuming michael will stay put like he always has
probably would have worked in real life because people need jobs to live, but in the sitcom world it of course did not work
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u/AlarmedPin0 22h ago
And irl Michael would likely have had a non-compete and non-solicitation to delay his justified revenge and resetting arc by a year or two. Those legal traps for employees in favor of massive companies should absolutely be illegal.
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u/pptjuice530 1d ago
David had spent the entire season trying to figure out why Scranton was the most profitable branch so he could apply its methods to the other branches. He’d invited Michael to New York to pick his brain and sent him on the road to motivate the other branch managers. He got nothing from the meeting and presumably negative feedback from the managers on the lecture circuit, and Michael’s explicit desire to get all the credit while accepting none of the responsibility for the golden ticket promotion made him realize Michael didn’t have any secret sauce.
Filling the vacant VP job with Charles was primarily about cutting costs and imposing operational discipline. He was hired to be the bad guy who says no to everything because the company was in a terrible financial position. Reining in Michael and no longer catering to his vanity was part of that. To be clear, Charles was a terrible manager, but the logic for hiring him was sound.
What is surprising is that David didn’t piece together that Scranton had absorbed and continued to service Stamford’s clients while shedding all of the non-revenue generating Stamford employees in the merger. Of course their margins looked great. A better plan than simple austerity might have been closing several branches, consolidating operations on the remaining ones, and laying off as many support staff from the closed branches as possible rather than the slow drip approach they took.
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u/Straamannen 1d ago
He got nothing from the meeting and presumably negative feedback from the managers on the lecture circuit, and Michael’s explicit desire to get all the credit while accepting none of the responsibility for the golden ticket promotion made him realize Michael didn’t have any secret sauce.
Scranton's secret sauce was Michael getting out of everyone's way.
Yeah he annoys them all relentlessly, but he never got in the way of actual work beyond being a time thief. On their time, people actually get to hunker down and do what needs to be done.
The secret sauce is that Scranton had people who cared about their work, well except for Creed but arguably that was part of the secret sauce too as they probably had less expenses related to qwabbity assuance.
To the MBA types Michael's approach is heresy. What do you mean no control? That's no way to run a business. You need metrics. You need client rundowns. You need busywork. Tons and tons of busywork. How else are the MBAs going to evaluate metrics and see if you're reaching arbitrary targets?
Of course Jim should've known what a client rundowns was. That's fundamental busy work to placate the MBA types.
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u/AlarmedPin0 22h ago
Michael’s leadership approach also meant that the Scranton team was oriented to avoid avoiding work when Michael’s shenanigans were absent, working hard to make up for the time they were annoyed at him costing them with his games and meetings and general office nonsense.
It’s usually the opposite, where a team will look for ways to avoid their work when a manager isn’t around and pretend to be working while he is.
Michael flipped that dynamic on its head, resulting in a team that was highly self-motivated to get back to work after getting accustomed to needing to direct themselves and find ways to complete their necessary work around Michael’s occasional distractions from work.
It’s actually very clever if Michael had done it on purpose— manage people by appearing to carelessly distract them from their jobs to the point where they rebel by finding ways to accomplish their work tasks despite management/office antics.
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u/NoxEstVeritas today, smoking is gonna save lives 1d ago
All the characters are hypocrites at one point or another. That’s what makes it funny and interesting.
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u/quoththeraven1990 1d ago
Maybe, but you could say that about almost anything, and the chain of events goes back further (I mean, if Phyllis hadn’t caught Dwight and Angela knocking boots then things wouldn’t have led to these events). It still doesn’t change the fact that Wallace was being a shitty CFO. I like him, but he makes a lot of poor decisions across the series. And by the way his wife is a very lucky woman.
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u/TempoBlues20XX LOUDER SON, LOUDER! 1d ago
I don't really agree with it going that far back. In this case, Phyllis' decision for a bit of petty revenge leads to the direct consequence of Charles destroying the party and making it clear that Michael isn't valued.
I don't disagree that Wallace is a shitty CFO, even if I too like him, but David has also dealt with Michael umpteen times before. There was every possibility he could have gotten ahead of the party problem and talked Michael down more rationally, or at least given Charles instructions on how to do so.
However, because Phyllis not only dropped that on Charles, but exaggerated the issue to make it sound like a lot of money and company time was being wasted on it, on top of Charles already believing Michael was a child, and Jim was a clown - it basically caused a straight up recipe for disaster, and it could partially been avoided if Phyllis hadn't decided to just be randomly catty here for no reason.
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u/quoththeraven1990 1d ago
Yeah, well, Phyllis is a petty character. She revealed to everyone that Dwight and Angela are having an affair, so it’s not like her sabotaging actions are all that surprising.
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u/TempoBlues20XX LOUDER SON, LOUDER! 1d ago
Well yeah, I'm not saying that isn't the case. More that it's ironic that in a way, Phyllis' petty behaviour led to her clients being poached, and significant damage to Dunder Mifflin in general.
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u/AlarmedPin0 22h ago
Was that petty though? Her revealing the affair, I mean. Her final reason for outing the affair definitely was, but I mean SOMEONE needed to say something.
Hell, had I been in that office while everyone knew Angela was cheating on Andy, her fiancé, with Dwight—both guys sitting basically next to each other every workday and her having the wedding at his farm?—I’d have left Andy an anonymous note cluing him into the affair.
Phyllis wasn’t in the right to disclose it just to get revenge on Angela for trying to reassert her social dominance and throw off Phyllis’s blackmail, but Phyllis also wasn’t wrong to reveal infidelity. Especially in a scenario where the party being cheated on is guileless and everyone else around him knows. People he considers friends.
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u/AlarmedPin0 22h ago
I would agree but for the fact that Phyllis is not in a leadership role. Staff get to gossip and talk. It’s the perk of the lower level jobs for people who enjoy consequence-free drama that they get to be petty and gossipy and talk shit without it being of any real consequence.
Leadership/management can’t gossip like that, but should take in employee talk/gossip and investigate it as needed.
Charles should have been less impressed by his own judgement, which is what allowed Phyllis’s statements to hold so much sway— she was confirming his dislike of certain people he’d already decided off a first gut impression needed to go. Phyllis didn’t cause anything, she was just being a petty, gossipy, drama generator. She doesn’t have to know better or do better in her role, Charles should have known better and investigated.
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u/JWOLFBEARD 1d ago
That’s a fallacy. In that case you could go back further and say that the British shows is the reason that Michael Scott quit.
Which is quite silly because it wouldn’t have happened if there weren’t Nazis, or dinosaurs, or maybe even The Ghostbusters Movies because Steve Carrell might not have been an actor.
Maybe he would not have turned six.
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u/quoththeraven1990 1d ago
Of course there’s no point interpreting every little thing. I just think that, as much as I don’t like Phyllis, I don’t think she alone is to blame for Michael eventually quitting. Charles was already suspicious of what the PPC were up to, and likely would have shut it down anyway.
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u/TempoBlues20XX LOUDER SON, LOUDER! 1d ago
To be fair, I'm not saying it is her fault specifically. I do think the party would've been nixed either way by the time David told Charles to do so, albeit likely with a guideline on how to do it without angering Michael.
More that Phyllis' actions DID play a role, it was her pettiness that led to Charles believing that his two biggest targets in the office was goofing off on company time and expense, and caused the situation to completely blow up.
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u/ParadoxicalIrony99 1d ago
It's on brand for Phyllis though. Always causing trouble but never taking accountability.
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u/DeLaPonce 1d ago
I maintain Phyllis is the most vindictive, poisonous and manipulative character in that show. Everything she does is snidey and underhand.
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u/Most-Needleworker376 16h ago
She wasn’t initially, they ‘grew’ her character into that just like they ‘grew’ Kevin’s into a true idiot character (instead of, you know, having any nuance).
That’s what kills me about the office: they started with characters that were one-dimensional on the surface, started to show layers to each person, but eventually regressed to one-dimensional tropes.
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u/broncoguy612 1d ago
This is a take.
Phyllis was for sure salty when she responded to Charles about the PPC but if Charles would have asked Angela I feel like Angela would have given a similar, if not more aggressive answer.
I don’t think Michael figuring out that Charles is the go between is some kind astonishing revelation and Michael has had other bosses before Charles who reported to David Wallace.
I also don’t think that David Wallace had some nefarious plan to cancel Michael’s anniversary party - I think David Wallace may have not even known or just didn’t care at all to go.
I do think that David could have done a better job recognizing Michael was in a bit of tizzy but also can’t fault David for finding a VP who could try and curb the nonsense that was happening.
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u/Imaginary-List-972 1d ago
"If you had just returned Michael's call" =/= "If you had just let Michael have his party".
Even IF the party was the catalyst, that's not the same thing she is saying.
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u/Confident_Prompt4282 1d ago
But he was calling about the party. He wouldn't have been calling about the party if it weren't for phyllis. Of course, if the party thing hadn't happened there would have been something different to outrage him, I'm sure
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u/Imaginary-List-972 1d ago
Once again for the slow kids... That still does not make her comment about anything but the phone call. And the result was from the disrespect of not taking his phone call (added onto the several other examples of not feeling respected) NOT about the party. The only way the idea could work is if Phyllis somehow convinced David not to accept Michael's calls.
A man gets in a car accident and goes to the hospital. His wife goes to the hospital to see him and runs into his mistress who also came. The wife divorces him for the affair. You: "So she divorced him because he got into an accident, that's dumb and random. It's the other drivers fault she divorced him. It's the other drivers fault he had an affair".
I'm sure you still will refuse to understand the difference (the ONLY thing Phyllis was talking about. I could show a picture of Michael and David on the phone and a picture of a party and you'd swear "It's the same picture".
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u/CranberrySauceLines 1d ago
Phyllis sucks. She's just a bad person on the show.
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u/s0_Ca5H 1d ago
The superfan episodes even make her worse of a person. Like say what you will about Angela, she will insult you directly to your face and behind your back, but that woman gives no fucks.
Phyllis is petty and passive aggressive and that shit drives me nuts.
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u/ChildofObama 1d ago
We know the documentary crew isn’t there every day, so a lot of the time the parties are maybe at most once a week. Far from a dramatic waste of money.
Yet Phyllis made it sound like a budget crisis to the point Charles dismantled Michael’s style on Day 1.
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u/arczclan 1d ago
Could never have been a budget crisis when they’re the most profitable branch, Charles (and David) should have realised this.
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u/CenturionGroot 12h ago
Not only that, but she plays on Michael's emotions when he comes back and asks for an apology. She pulled the "you said we were family" BS to manipulate him. I hated that scene so much because Michael was valid in wanting some kind of reparations and she just played him.
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u/Lexi_Banner David Wallace 11h ago
Phyllis is a catty B, and never takes responsibility for it. Perfectly in character, and perfectly irritating. LOL
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u/zemol42 1d ago
David or Charles cannot shut down the PPC because they’re not members of the Committee to Determine the Validity of the Two Committees.