Last night’s episode of The Office made me uncomfortable. This was not the first time, I have had that reaction before when Michael is being his most obnoxious, which I think can go overboard at times. But this was not that.
I am in the same line of work in real life as the good folks at Dunder Mifflen are on TV. I have been to the office supply conventions, I have hosted clients at Chili’s, I have made calls to people trying to sell them paper. So I can relate to that aspect of the show, but generally I just enjoy it like anybody else, and if you asked me which character I would equate myself to, I would say there wasn’t really one. That is, until last night’s episode: Prince Family Paper.
I am Mr. Prince, well Mr. Prince’s son actually. I work with my dad, and we are a small independent office supply company that regularly gets raided by the big guys. Sure, I was laughing at the funny lines, (i.e.: “I opened the store when I got back from Vietnam.” “I hear it’s beautiful there.”) but I felt sick for the Prince family because I have been in that exact situation many times. Ok, not quite exactly, I have never handed a list of my customers to the competition, but I have gone out of my way for clients (similar to fixing their bumpers) only to be unceremoniously dumped by them because even though they say they know better, some unnamed person somewhere down the line thinks bigger is better. Or whatever lame excuse I might hear.
So that is why this episode made me uncomfortable (well, that and wondering what Hilary Swank must be thinking) to the point that my wife was asking me what was wrong and I even thought to mention it here.
You can give me all the sales seminar stuff you want about making yourself invaluable to your customers, etc., but sometimes, no matter what you do, your competition just takes them from you and it does not feel good. I am sure, too, that I have been on the other end of that every time I get a new customer, but somehow taking from the big guys does not seem as bad as the opposite.
Anyway, Hilary Swank is not hot.
