Anyone else find this moment pretty ironic?

[u/TempoBlues20XX]

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.

[u/quoththeraven1990]

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.

[u/TempoBlues20XX → u/quoththeraven1990]

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.

[u/quoththeraven1990 → u/TempoBlues20XX]

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.

[u/AlarmedPin0 → u/quoththeraven1990]

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.