Office Ladies - Boys and Girls

Episode Date: March 25, 2020

Ladies, please report to the conference room, boys to the bowels of the office! That's right, this week we're breaking down Boys and Girls, an episode of The Office based of a pitch straight from Jenna and Angela themselves! We chat about those classic Angela Martin moments, alpha wombs vs beta wombs, and do you call Jim and Pam JAM, or PB&J? Finally, we talk about Michael wrecking the warehouse, Jan union busting, and Pam and Jims first fight.

I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We were on The Office together. And we're best friends. And now we're doing the Ultimate Office rewatch podcast just for you. Each week we will break down an episode of The Office and give exclusive behind-the-scenes stories that only two people who were there can tell you. We're The Office Ladies. Hey gang. Hello everybody. I'm wearing my Office Ladies hoodie today. You really are. I am holding a note card. It's almost like I want to play it. I'm like in a poker game. I'm like ready to drop it. It's your ace of spades. Drop it like it's hot. Drop it like it's hot. But it says

Angela Sass. It does. And there's a lot of Angela Sass in this episode. So you're you're ready to play that. I'm ready because I know you have your stuff you're gonna say. But I'm holding an Angela Sass. It's coming in hot. Today we're talking about boys and girls. Season two episode 15 written by BJ Novak and directed by Denny Gordon. Badass Denny Gordon. Yeah she's back. Should I read a summary? Do it. All right. Jan hosts a women in the workplace seminar with the women of the office. But Michael feels threatened. So he decides to throw a competing men in the workplace seminar down in the warehouse which he slowly

destroys. That's fact number one. Fan question from Dan Felve. Was the idea for this episode based on anything that anyone went through like in a previous job? No Dan. It's based on an idea that Angela and I pitched. That's right. Dan. This is our proudest moment. We love this. We love this. Also we love that Greg Daniels was so collaborative, right? Yeah. That we could have this idea. So you know Jen and I both worked in corporate America and so we both had to go to a lot of like human resource meetings and things like that and we were on set one day sort of talking about it and I wrote about it in my journal. Lady I did too. I

wrote on Thursday February 2nd 2006. Boys and girls there are many things I love about working on the show but one of the coolest is the creative input that we get to have. A lot of shows just don't let their actors get involved that way. But Jen and I were talking about our lives before the show. When she was a secretary and I was an operator and we were laughing about all the crazy seminars and ridiculous meetings we had to sit through at our old corporate jobs. We sort of had this idea that it would be a funny episode called Women in the Workplace. We ran into Greg Daniels and told him our little idea. We didn't

have anything flushed out or written down and he got so excited. He grabbed BJ and he said start writing this down and BJ got a notepad and started jotting things down. Greg started scribbling notes too. Weeks later BJ Novak wrote this awesome script. Jen and I were so excited. We are so lucky to be a part of a show that would respect our ideas. Oh that is so nice. You wrote mostly about the collaboration. I wrote very differently about this in my journal. Wait can I say the last thing I wrote was to any of the writers out there we're not gonna get in the habit of just bugging you guys with ideas. I know we we would always have these

bright ideas as a cast and we always worried that we annoyed the writers but they were always so receptive and nice even if they were pretending. Okay so what did you write about? Okay I went on a very elaborate description of where we were when we came up with the idea for this episode. Where were we? We were in my trailer. We were having a picnic lunch. Oh my gosh. I described that we had scented candles. I love our two different accounts of this moment in time. Scented candles and that we were discussing it and I also wrote that we did this all the time. We would have these ladies' lunches and during this ladies' lunch we

got the bright idea for this episode that we ran on to the set that we set it to Greg Daniels. Same as you he pulled BJ aside and BJ's like oh my gosh what is this episode idea and we said here's what it is. The idea is that Jan comes in and has a woman in the workplace seminar and then Michael gets jealous and he says I want a man in the workplace seminar and BJ's like I love it what happens next and we're like we don't know. That's it that's all we got. He's like that's that's it that's hope. Yeah and he's like okay I have a lot of work to do and BJ filled in all the blame. All the rest. Fast fact number two another

fan question from Elani Swentzel. One of my favorite things is watching you read people's Twitter or Instagram handles. Elani asked were the scenes in the warehouse and the scenes in the conference room filmed at separate times? If so where were the other cast members during that time? We got a lot of questions about this. People wanted to know did we have two different film crews? How did this work? No one film crew. There were a couple of days where all of the women came to work and we shot our scenes and then there were a couple of days where all the men came to work. I don't know what I did but I had

the day off and I remember it was glorious this was rare. Yeah no I remember being really excited. First of all there was just a day where it was just all the scales and it was really fun. I wrote about that in my diary as well and I think part of the inspiration for this episode came from our desire to do more scenes together and be with the other women in the office doing scenes and so it was a really fun week not just because we got to hang out with the gals but also we did have half the week off which was really cool and then we had one day where we were all together to film the scenes where the boys and

girls are all together. I know and I remember we were kind of excited to see everybody we're like hey! What happened down there? We'd been on summer vacation or something. Okay. Fast fact number three this episode is Jim and Pam's first fight. It's a real fight. Yeah this is a real fight. Now they got into a little bit of a what would you call it a disagreement in the episode the fight when Jim picks her up at the dojo. Well they've had a few bumpy moments. This is a fight it's not resolved we'll get into it. Yeah but it's a yeah there they had some harsh words at each other. This is also another episode where Jim and Pam

are basically separated the entire episode so now we've had two episodes in a row where they're physically separated. In the last episode you know Pam and Roy were really getting along and now in this episode Jim and Pam get in a fight. I mean we're building tension. We're building tension we don't know what's happening with Dwight and Angela they probably found a part of the day to sneak off and hook up. I think that that's probably true. Well those are the end of my fast facts. Why are you holding Angela Sass still? Okay I'm waiting. Are you gonna Angela Sass me first? I'm gonna Angela Sass you before break. What? Oh my

gosh guys Angela Sass coming your way. I got a hot Angela Sass card to play right away seven seconds. Angela is giving side eye to Jan right out of the gate. It's true. There's gonna be a lot of Angela's snarky looks in this episode. Seven seconds look for some classic side eye and when we we'll go to break and then I'm gonna come back I got some more Angela Sass. I'm glad you could get that off your chest. What? Out of your hand. Seven seconds into the episode I'm already like. You're sassing it out. I'm sassing it out. I'm throwing shade. Isn't that what the kids say? I think throwing shade. Do you throw shade or do you give shade? I

think you throw it. We throw. Do you chunk shade? You chunk shade. All right let's go to break. The cold open of boys and girls let's jump in. Okay. We open on the conference room. The women in the office are seated with Jan. Pam has side eye from Angela. Pam has a talking head where she explains it's women in the workplace seminar day and that Michael is not invited because Jan said that five times. Five times. He's not invited. Yeah. But Michael comes in any way and interrupts the meeting. Angela you are wearing light pink. I'm wearing light pink. Is this because you're in love with Dwight? Maybe. Love. This might be my

love outfit. I am sporting that really low severe ponytail which I hated as much as the bun. Yeah. Because it pulls right at the like back of your neck. I hated that ponytail. So I think in the Valentine's Day episode you are gray but in this episode you wear pink. I wore like beige on beige kind of. Yeah. Valentine's. All right at 54 seconds. I screen grabbed it and Jenna I'm gonna show it to you. I looked dead inside. What? Michael is talking about the Ally McBeal woman. Right. Oh yeah. And it cuts over to my expression and I'm gonna show you what I'm doing. This like cracked me up. Oh my gosh. Is that your resting bitch face? I

think that's my RBF. My resting well my resting Angela Martin face. I think this is the face I make as I walk through the grocery store and people are like it's gonna be okay. Yeah. What? I'm happy. I'm having a great day. I think that is. Did you watch Ally McBeal? Were you an Ally McBeal fan? I don't think I did watch it. I don't have a big memory of watching it. I mean maybe I caught an episode or two but I didn't you know. Yeah. I didn't know it. I mean when Michael says he's talking about the Ally McBeal woman and her sort of like journey I was like well I don't really know what that means so I'm gonna Google Ally McBeal. Oh dear. Here

is the description of Ally McBeal. Okay. Ally McBeal is a young attorney who joins a prestigious law firm with a highly sexual environment and whose staff includes Ally's ex-boyfriend. The series contains fantasy sequences, flashbacks, and voiceovers to reveal what Ally is really thinking. I was like curious when Michael said Ally McBeal. I'm like well I gotta look that up. I mean I know it was a big hit show and Clista Flockhart and all that but that's Clista Flockhart is adorable. She's adorable. Okay. Next we get into the episode the men are in the bullpen. Michael decides since he's been kicked

out of Jan's meeting that he's gonna tell the men to circle up at two minutes 33 seconds. There's a fan question from Lauren and Derek. Who is the woman walking in the background over Dwight's shoulder? Why isn't she in the meeting with Jan? Is it Luann? It's Luann. It's Luann. Luann was like Creed, a background person slash stand-in for the female actors and I guess I don't know why it's a good point. Why is she crossing in the background? They should have told her to stand down. Good catch. I want to talk about Michael's talking head at a minute 16 seconds because this really cracked me up. He says that women in the

workplace basically means I have been banned from my own conference room so Jan can talk in secret to all the girls sorry women. Yeah and then he says I don't know what they're gonna talk about and do you know what the two things he lists that they're probably gonna talk about? What? Clothes and me. He's like I don't know what they're gonna talk about probably clothes maybe me like that's not wrong. We do end up talking about clothes and him so I mean he nailed it. He nailed it. So during this circle up oh wait there's such a classic Creed moment. There's such a classic Creed moment at two minutes 48 seconds. You

guys you have to watch this. This is just Creed being Creed okay no one told him to do this. They wanted the men to circle up. How does Creed get there? He does this rolly thing on his chair. He like speeds by like shoving himself along in his rolly chair and it's just hilarious and that is all Creed. So also in this time Dwight makes a comment about how if the women stay in the conference room long enough all of our periods are going to sync up. I know where you're going with this because Jenna texted me at 11 o'clock last night. Yeah I was like what are you doing up and she was like I'm researching whether or not women's

periods really sync up if they spend a long period of time together. Here's what I found out. This theory is based on a study by a woman named Dr. Martha McClintock back in 1971. You guys welcome to office ladies. We're gonna read to you who Allie McBill is and talk about administration. She studied a group of college students living in a dorm together and what she found was that syncing did happen between roommates and close friends but not random pairings of women. Okay many studies have been done since to either prove or disprove her study and for the most part none of them have been able to prove her study.

They've all yielded sort of random results. Okay. There are a lot of mathematical charts that show how every woman will sync with another woman at some period of time in their lives just because of statistics. Okay. But this idea that like four women who live in a house together for three years are for three years going to have their periods synced seems to be debunked. Well you heard it here everybody. Yeah. You heard it here. To give you more information because I know that's what you're craving there is a theory that there's something called an alpha womb and a beta womb. What? And I really feel like Dwight

should have talked about this. And this does sound like a Dwight talking head like here's the thing about the alpha womb. Yeah. The idea is that the cycle that they all sync to is the alpha womb and the beta wombs sync to that womb. And so one of the reasons why two women might not sync is because they're both alphas or both betas. You're welcome. I don't I you're welcome. I don't know how to yeah. Okay. Well yeah. What are you guys an alpha or a beta womb? I don't know. So now Michael wants to do his own workplace seminar. Yeah. Because he's like a little kid and he's like well I can't be in there. I'm gonna do my own thing and he

makes the guys clap loud. He's just being annoying. Yeah. So Jan is going to kick him out. But guys there's something we have to discuss at three minutes 11 seconds. Did we just find out how Michael pees? I think this is kind of a big sitting down. Does he pee sitting down? He says why does society force us to use urinals when sitting down is far more comfortable? I think Michael sits down to pee. I don't understand why more men don't. I think we found out that he sits down to pee. I think since the invention of iPhones more men do sit down to pee because they check their phones. Is that true guys? Is that true? I would say yeah

that and the invention of squatty potties. Squatty potties. There you go. You know a squatty potty right? I know a squatty potty. Yeah. Because I listened to Howard Stern and he talks about his squatty potty. Jan wants to kick the guys out. Michael says they have nowhere to go. Dwight suggests the warehouse. Oh it's Dwight that suggests the warehouse. Well then they all walk out the front door. Many people pointed out that Toby didn't go in the warehouse and I loved this. I felt like this was because they've been listening to office ladies. A lot of people wondered if it was so he could be in the writer's room. Yes guys. Yes. Exactly

why. Yes you're with us. You're with us. Guys I did you catch that Michael refers to the warehouse as the bowels of the office. Did you guys catch that? Speaking of squatty potties. Guess who looked up the definition of the word bowels last night. What happened to you? I don't know. What happened to you? Alpha womb? We're both looking up crazy shiitake last night. I loved Jenna when they go to the warehouse at four minutes 13 seconds. All the guys, seven guys are all crammed at the top of that stairwell that you and I both know leads nowhere. Yes I noted this as well. It's basically a broom closet that they just had to pile out of. That's

why they're all just standing on the landing in front of the door because there's that's just a little broom closet there. You can't fit that many people in there. Then we have this amazing shot of the guys all coming down into the warehouse. I don't know how they got this. Was there a camera on a crane or something? No. Where they're going down and Dwight says remember and lost when they meet the others and then it just pans down. How did they get that shot? I don't know. I thought it was impressive. It's a really beautiful shot. Don't tell me. Don't tell me you watched Lost. I loved Lost. Did you watch Lost? Oh

yeah when it was on originally. I didn't watch it last night. Oh yeah I watched originally. I might have watched a few trailers and episode clips last night just to remind myself but were you Sawyer or Dr. Jack Shepherd? Oh boy. Right? I went back and forth. I did too. So Michael goes down to the warehouse and he starts introducing the warehouse crew which I thought was really interesting sort of as if everyone doesn't know one another but they do. Maybe this is for our audience to remind them. Or maybe it's Michael's like nod to the camera. Yes. Because he's very aware of the camera. And then he is talking to Roy and

he refers to Pam and Roy as the Brangelina of the office. David Dynman looks legitimately confused. He does. He looks like Roy in this moment doesn't look like he's the sharpest tool in the shed. He's like why? Why? Huh? And then Michael says you're Ram. Mm-hmm. Ram. Ram. Now here's a question. I've seen debate online. Some people refer to Jim and Pam as jam. Yeah. And some people refer to them as PB and J, Pam Beasley and Jim. Yeah. What do you think is right? Because I'm a jam person. I like jam because it's just easier to say. Yeah. I like jam. I like Dwayne Angela. Yeah. I guess Ram or they could have been Poi. I hope not. Poi.

Oh my gosh. I ship Poi. Well you know what Roy's last name is. This is gonna come up in a later episode. Roy's last name is Anderson. So when she marries Roy her name is going to be Pamela Anderson. Did you know that? Yes. I just remembered that. That makes me laugh. So now we have a scene between Kevin and Jim and Kevin comes up to Jim and says I bet Roy is gonna beat you up because he heard about your feelings for Pam. Mm-hmm. And this is true. This is the first time that Jim and Roy are gonna be in close proximity since it was revealed that Jim quote unquote used to have a crush on Pam. There's gonna be a lot of tension now

for Jim down in the warehouse. But Kevin says he's got his back but just try not to get into it. Yeah. Exactly. Try not to go there. Wait I have a question for you. Yeah. I have a performance question. Yeah. So when we cut back to the conference room where the women are. Sure. Pam is has a notepad and Jan looks at her and goes are you okay with taking notes? Can you do that? Thank you very much. Can you take notes? Yeah. And you have this expression as Pam. I don't know. For me, Jenna, in that moment to me it was like oh my god here it's not Michael but once again I'm just the secretary. It's so interesting you point this out because we got a lot

of mail about this. We did. A lot of people point it out this moment. Yeah. About my reaction. I guess at being asked to take notes. And I think yes. I think I thought that this was a women in the workplace seminar and now I guess really am I participating in the seminar or am I taking notes for the seminar? And to be fair you look busy the whole time but you're just drawing a picture. I'm just drawing a picture. I'm not actually taking any notes. Well Jan also suggests that everyone say something they're good at. Yes. So Meredith says supplier relations. Phyllis says she's good at computers which causes Angela to sass

out. Oh yeah. I have it. And complain. I say at 6 minutes 24 seconds I say really and then an improv line is where we sort of have chatter after that and I'm like because I've seen some of your spreadsheets and that sort of mumble part was improvised. And the camera pushes it on my face over you laying into Phyllis. Yeah. I did not know that that was gonna happen. That's I'm calling this GIF alert. Six minutes 27 seconds. This slow push on my face where I listen to you complain and I'm sort of giving you some side-eye. I see this GIF constantly. This is. I know I have a few GIFs from this episode too that are out

there. I want to point out something much the way that Toby did the shh and he backed away into the office and we know it's because Paul is going to the writer's room. In this scene when Phyllis is saying she's good at computer stuff look to her left. There's no Mindy. There's no Mindy. She's not even sitting there because she's in the writer's room. So they would frame her out. Yeah they would frame her out but there's one moment where that kind of pulls just a little wide the camera does and you can see that she is not sitting there. She doesn't have any lines in this part that's why. And they needed her back in

the writer's room. So later on she's there but right in that moment she's not there. We had a fan question from Jacob Hibbs when Jan asked all the women in the office what they know they're good at. How much of the answers were improvised? None. Well I mean you improvised your sass to Phyllis but the things we say we're good at were not improvised. No that was all scripted. So now we go back down to the warehouse and Roy is going to confront Jim. Yes. And ooh I was on the edge of my seat for this. I know. I know. But Roy says hey we're cool. And he's glad. He's glad because you know he's glad Pam has

someone to talk to during the day so that she doesn't come home and like yep yep yep yep to where Jim I think that I think he throws shade. He says yeah I love talking to her too. I just thought it was an honest moment like Jim does like talking to her but. But he couldn't help it. Like that's so passive aggressive. I know I know. Well I wrote during the scene I wrote Jenna you are my Jim. You're who I yep yep yep to at work. And I'm probably Josh when I get home is like so happy that I've sort of journaled out loud to you all day. It's probably true. I've sorted out you know all my issues and I get home to him and then I just hang

out. I've had moments where Lee has said to me have you not talked to Angela in a while because I'm getting a lot. Lee. All right Daryl suggests that everyone go up to the office. Well he wants to switch places right. He said let's experience what the office is like. The warehouse guys go up you guys stay here and load trucks. Yeah but instead the sales guys start unloading the truck and there he doesn't want people in his space because as you're going to see it doesn't go well. Well he says Michael's like what's your biggest fear and he goes um that someone will come down here and distract us and mess with our stuff and we won't

get anything done. Yeah. Well Michael finds the blow-up doll from the sexual harassment episode. With his face on it. Yep. Which brings me to a question Jenna. Yes. I saw that you have a face of yourself that's being sold on Amazon. People can buy your face. Yeah. As a mask. As a mask. Just my face. But but not only that there were only 15 left. That's almost only 15. Why did you make 15? Is there that big of a demand? I when I saw that there were 15 left I was like you should just print these for order. I mean you don't need a stockpile of these. Well buying these. Maybe people have office parties. I don't know they have

office themed parties. It's also a photo of you with like your hair up in a butt. Like an updo. Yeah it's from a here. Now here's what I don't understand. Legally no one asked my permission. I'm not getting any money for that. Yeah. Are you allowed to sell someone's face? I guess so. Maybe not. Lawyer cease and desist. I don't know. I mean they I guess they have to pay the photographer for the rights. I don't know. I am a. I'm not a lawyer but I did go to pre-law. I bought the remaining 15 of your face. You didn't. And. Oh my god that would be so scary. I came to your house and you're all wearing that. I wallpapered my bathroom with it. Anyway okay where are we? Well I have a fan question. Vicki

Siskie at 8 minutes 34 seconds noted behind white there is something written on the truck's walls. Does it have any meaning? Well Vicki I screen grabbed it. I zoomed in on it. It looks like what is written on the wall is Coego C-O-A-E-G-O. I googled it and I couldn't find a meaning. So I think it doesn't mean anything. I wonder if it's like something kind of like how OSHA you know like when I worked at 1-800-DENIS I have to be like our DENIS meet OSHA strict standards for Occupational Safety and Health Administration or whatever it was. But I think if you googled OSHA something would come up. Yes. But Coego

nothing. Well but I tried. She tried Vicki. Sometimes I just want you guys to know I tried. Yes and that's and this is one of those moments. If anyone else would like to screen grab and maybe has better insight will you email us at what Coego means? Yeah. Alright at 8 minutes 13 seconds we're in the conference room guess who's back? All of a sudden Kelly. Kelly is there and this is what we like to call Full Mindy now. She has her hair down. She has a clip in her hair. She has purple nail polish, a purple blouse. She has makeup on. But it's Paisley blouse again. I know. Again where are they finding all this Paisley? I don't know. I feel like

if I wanted to buy a Paisley blouse I couldn't find one. I know. I know. Well and she has a big speech about how she doesn't want just you know to schlep her kids around some minivan. She wants an SUV with three rows. This is the important conversation that's happening. Well listen I get it. Yes Jan asks everyone to go around and say what their goals are. Yes. Meredith says in five years I'd like to be five years sober. I mean four and a half. Four four and a half. Kelly wants an SUV not a minivan. Phyllis would really love a nice big walk-in closet which everyone is an agreement on. Everyone's like oh yeah yeah. Yeah.

Fan question from Laura Lynn. This is to us Angela. Okay. What is something that both you and Angela know you're good at and what are your goals? Oh my gosh. Way to get deep lady. I know. What comes to mind? What springs to mind? What are you good at? Well I know something you're good at. One time when I was really young we were in church and the minister was like saying you guys what are you what are your strengths? How could you help? And my friend turned to me and goes well you're very verbal. You're very verbal. So maybe maybe I'm good at chatty. Alright. I'm gonna do better than your friend in church. What? I'll tell you what you're

good at. You are very good at bringing people together. You're very good at collecting people. Aw. But this is I mean like this is a true gift. So you know like how Angela told you the story about how she did this movie with Ken Jong and they were across the hall and she took him down to PF Chang's for his 40th birthday. That is Angela right there. But what happens is then you have so endear yourself to people that they're with you for life and you stick with people through thick and thin and when you go to a party at Angela's house it is the strangest hodgepodge of people you will ever meet in your life and they

are all the nicest warmest most lovely people and this is a true talent. Your judge of character is excellent. Aw lady. Thanks for sticking with me by the way. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I guess I sort of that sounded like I gave myself a compliment. And I'm in your group. Well I am. But that is that is you. You're really really good at that. Well thanks for saying that. I you know I sort of have a hodgepodge of people in my life. It's like people stew. You know people stew. Yes. I know some people and I have very good friends that are like this that they definitely need their friends from work and one component of their life and then they have

their lifelong family friends from growing up and then they have so it's like their work people their friend people their family people. They keep it compartmentalized as Ed Truck would suggest. Yes. Yes. And maybe I'm more Michael Scott. I just want them all together. Yeah. And so if you do come to my house you might meet my neighbor Scott and then like a friend of mine from high school who happened to be in town. Yep. It's just a little mix of everything. Yeah. It's true. Well that was very sweet Jenna. And then a goal. Yeah. What are your goals. Gosh. I really really just wanted to have a job where I could be there to

take my daughter to school and pick her up and be there for every soccer practice and everything. My I think my goal is just really I just want to be there for my family. This podcast is our goals. Yeah. We're living our goals. We're living our goals. Jenna what about you. You know what I think something I'm really good at is achieving goals. I have always been that way. Even if it was like from the time I was 10 years old and I said one day I'll go to Paris one day I'll go to Paris. I didn't go to Paris until I was 36 years old but I went. Yeah. And I keep a little journal with my goals and I daydream about them

and if I set my mind to it I find a way to make it work. I don't know how I do it but I become sort of unstoppable. You are. I think you're a force. One of the things I have said many many times to people I was like listen if the shiitake goes down and I need someone to go into battle with I'll tell you right now it's Jenna Fisher because she would have a very organized army. She would have thought out her strategy. We're gonna win. I think this is why I like movies like The Edge survivalist movies. I just saw 1917. I saw 1917. I loved it. It's no one told me that it's a movie about a goal and a guy just breaching a single

goal. He's like take this letter over here and deliver this letter. Good luck. Just exactly. Yeah. I forgot to tell you you're gonna literally climb over dead bodies to do it but I love seeing goals realized. I love it. Okay. Where are we? Thank you for that question. I'm sorry if we like totally got off on a tangent but that was a that was those are some big thought-provoking questions. Yeah. I think y'all could go to your journals tonight and write down what are you good at? What are you good at? Pump yourself up. Yeah. All right. Now we go down back into the warehouse and Michael is on the forklift. LQ slash LN

asked was Steve really driving crashing the forklift or was it a stunt driver? It was Steve. It was Steve. That was a hundred percent Steve. That was a hundred percent Steve. I don't think he wasn't having a good time. Oh yeah. And I sort of recall that he had to go down. They gave him a little tutorial on it. Yeah. Anyone like lessons. Yeah. Anyone that ever had to drive it as part of the show got a little safety lesson and a tutorial on it. We did have a stunt coordinator. That was a planned event. Yes. To have all the things and I believe they practiced not in the moment and not with things on the shelves but the idea

of how all that would work. That was a choreograph moment. Yeah. It was not improvised or anything. It was not improvised. Two rows of supplies fell but it was very thought out what was on those shelves and how it was gonna fall and how Steve would hit it and it would fall a certain way. So that was a very thought out moment. There's a deleted scene that was not included but you can find it in the deleted scenes where in addition to Michael knocking down all the shelves Dwight gets his spud gun. Yes. Out of his car. Well Dwight and Roy have a whole bonding moment over their different guns that they have. Yes. And that is also a

deleted scene. So Dwight gets his spud gun and then he breaks the window of Darrell's office. Yeah. And I noticed that they cut that out and then for the rest of the episode I kept looking to see if there was ever a shot of this broken window and I couldn't see one. They really avoided it. Well I think it was one thing too many right? It's like they cannot completely destroy company property although they do a pretty good job of it and oh my gosh Darrell is ticked off and Lonnie yells damn it Michael. Yeah. Like they are mad. I was really glad that they had that reaction. I needed like as an audience like viewer

I needed someone to be like what the hell are you doing? Yeah. So Michael gets everyone to circle up now down in the warehouse and at 9 minutes 13 seconds you might notice that his shirt is unbuttoned. He has taken his jacket off his tie off his shirt is very unbuttoned. He wants to have this guys gripe session. Yes. Fan question from Jeff the tweeter. Did they ask Steve to unbutton his shirt so that Lonnie could call him Hasselhoff or was that improvised? That was scripted. Yes. And we're missing a scene and it is not in the deleted scenes and I could not find my shooting draft for this episode. If any of you guys know

yeah because sometimes you guys know more than we do. We are not the experts. We do our best to find out information from all of our sources but this one I couldn't figure it out but I know that the Hasselhoff moment was scripted. It was not improvised and so there's a riff on it though. There's a riff on the Hasselhoff joke that's not there. Yeah and I mean you reached out to a few people so we did. I know so guys out there I could not get the answer to is there a missing scene but I think there must be a scene where Michael for whatever reason unbutton his shirt. I love so much that at 9 minutes 27 seconds

Madge is like hey do you want me to go because they're having a guy gripe session and Madge is sitting there and they're just griping about women. I know. So back upstairs the women are still discussing their dreams and Pam says that her dream is to have a house with a terrace upstairs to plant flowers, a husband that she loves, Roy. She felt like she had to say it. But then she also says that she loves to draw and she'd like to do graphic design and Jan's face just lights up. Finally Jan perks up because she said that one of the whole purposes of this is that corporate was looking for women who might have like a

job position in corporate. Yes so Jan tells her we have a program and it's just on the weekends and then there's a couple weeks in New York but I'm sure I can make arrangements for you to go. Pam just keeps making excuses and then Jan says there are always a million reasons not to do something. So fan question from Mother of Cats. Pam says she did a little drawing in college where did she go to college and for what and Stephanie said how did Pam become a receptionist if she went to college? Well first of all I went to college and I was a receptionist for seven years while I was pursuing you know what I went to

college for. So I think it's pretty common. I also in my Pam essay that I wrote I had written that Pam went to a couple of years of community college but that she did not graduate. This is my personal backstory and she ended up getting a job in my backstory that was meant to be a placeholder where she kind of talked herself in to the fact that she needed to you know maybe earn some money. I think a lot of people have this conversation with themselves. I had this conversation with myself. It's how I became a secretary for seven years. Yeah I said oh it's just temporary I'm just a temp and then I found myself working 50

hours a week as the executive secretary to a vice president of a big company. Right and sort of ignoring my dreams and that is exactly what's happening to Pam right now. She's become so entrenched in her kind of everyday choices that she's lost sight of the big picture. Yeah and that's very very easy to do. Yeah and sometimes there's comfort in that too you know. I have at 11 minutes 18 seconds I'm calling it an adorable Phyllis moment. I love adorable Phyllis. She is so excited and she has this talking head that she's just really excited about today because she loves girl talk. She loves girl talk. I just thought Phyllis

was so cute in that moment I couldn't take it. And Jan says let's talk about clothing. Yeah. And how can we dress like where we want to go. Right. And then Angela. Yeah well judging from her outfit Jan inspires to be a whore. Do you not have a card? This is like the biggest sass ever. Look at this. Look at this Angela sass. I roll when Jan says dress for the job you want. There is an eye roll that I get sent to me. Oh that's your gift moment. Yeah that's my gift moment. And then I have this talking head that I'm a professional woman. I'm in the healthiest relationship of my life. You guys I want you to if you have an opportunity to re-listen to

that. I did this talking head a few times because I guess whenever I said my life I would sound really southern. My life. So I said I'm a professional woman. I'm in the healthiest relationship of my life. So I had to really think about it. And I can hear it ever so slightly. And then of course we have this awkward Dwayne Angela like avoiding the you know like each other as she says that which I loved. I love that little moment. But yeah I mean Angela thanks Jan is dressed kind of skanky. Well speaking of Angela and Dwight when we go back down to the warehouse Roy is complaining about how women want men to pay for everything. And

Dwight says yeah they make you drive them to church the next morning. I mean gas ain't free. But you know what I envision is that he drives her there but he doesn't go in. So there's just this like muscle car that pulls up in front of the church. And then Angela gets out and walks in and Dwight is like later. Well this is when Daryl says we need a union. Oh yes. And I love Craig Robinson's performance in this so much. I was texting with Craig because I really wanted him to come on this episode to talk about this moment because he's so good in it. He's so good in it but he's filming. He's a busy guy. But he's

gonna come on in the future so don't worry. And we actually get a lot of questions from people. Are you planning to have everybody on? Yes. Yes we would love that. Everyone. Yes. We're reaching out. We have multiple times. Don't worry. We have a few episodes ahead of us. That's right. We'll get a lot of people on. At 13 minutes 23 seconds during this whole scene about unions, Craig is reading a newspaper. Mm-hmm. You guys it's The Scranton Times. That would be nice. Because Phil would get The Scranton Times delivered to us. Phil Shay. Phil Shay. Prop Master. Mm-hmm. And so whenever there was a newspaper anywhere it was The

Scranton Times. And I loved that detail then and I love it now. I loved it. I remember reading one one time in the back of a scene and there had been a really big snow storm. Mm-hmm. And I was reading about the snow in Pennsylvania. Yeah. All right. Well things are about to really heat up. There's gonna be some some tension. Yeah. Should we take a break? Let's take a break and then we're gonna get into it. All right. We are back. But I'm the only one talking because Angela is being silent. Angela, I need to talk about your hair today. I'm sorry. It is a hot mess. What

happened to you? I showered this morning before I took Isabel to school. Yeah. And my goal was to show up here clean. You are clean. That's as far as I got. So I got Isabel to school on time. I was really happy about that. And I drove here with wet hair and I was like, oh, I'll freeze. I will freeze there. It's so cold. So I kind of put my window down and I let the wind kind of dry my hair. This is explaining it all. And now I have this wind dried hair from the freeway. Yeah. You do. I do. I do, guys. And you know what? I feel fantastic. I, you know, I love it. You know, I love it. I look like Medusa a little bit. You know. But it's dry

and I'm not cold and I'm clean. And I got Isabel to school on time. Goals. Okay. When we come back, Michael busts into the women's meeting to tell Jan that the warehouse wants to start a union. And Jan is like, Michael, no, there cannot be a union. You didn't agree to this, right, Michael? Like the men in the warehouse weren't chanting Michael, Michael just two minutes ago, right? And he's like, no, I definitely. He says something that would have made me go nuts. He says, okay, don't, don't be hysterical. Oh, yeah. And then you need to calm down. That's like one of those kind of phrases. Yeah, that's a trigger. Oh, that's a trigger for

sure. And Pam, you're like, your reaction is hilarious. Once again, you have all of these facial reactions. I had so much fun during this episode. Well, when we go down to the warehouse again, I loved this moment, the scene when the sales guys are unpacking the truck and Ryan says, you guys, we could get this job quicker if we form an assembly line and Stanley cuts them off and says, this is a run out the clock situation just like upstairs. I'm going to break it down to you, kid. This is how we're doing this. We are not going to hypothesize on how to be more efficient. This is just what gets done, gets done, run out the clock, run out the

clock situation. I was watching this with my daughter and she goes, mom, what does he mean? And I said, Isabel, he wants to do the bare minimum. Yeah, bare minimum. She was like, I kind of get that. I get it. I've been in a lot of run out the clock situations. So when we go back upstairs, Jan starts explaining sports terms, sports metaphors to the women. Women might be left out in the workplace. I'm like, is this the 1950s? I know. It was so dated. It felt like a little bit like it was out of like some manual like from 1953 or something. Well, at this point, Kelly pretends like she doesn't know what second base means. She says,

okay, well, Michael said he got to second base with you. Does that mean you closed a sale? Guess what second base means? Guess what happened? And this is a real rare thing. This is like seeing an albino rhino in the wild. What? Angela laughs. Yes. 15 minutes, 10 seconds. Fan question from Jeff Ackerman. He pointed it out. There is a cutaway shot of Pam and Angela after Kelly plays dumb and asked Jan what second base means. Was that scripted? Or was it so funny you couldn't keep a straight face? That is me and Angela laughing. We're laughing. We're laughing. But I also knew that my character really thought that Jan was

just like, well, she says she looks horish. She clearly doesn't think highly of Jan and judges her. And so for Kelly to call her out. Yeah. Angela thoroughly enjoyed that moment. I have an observation about this episode. Oh, yes. And I'm going to get right up on my soapbox. Here we go. Here we go. While rewatching this episode, I noticed that the people who are hardest on Jan and her ambition are other women. Yeah. Other women. Angela calls her a slut for the way she dresses. Pam is constantly rolling her eyes at her. And then Kelly shames her slash embarrasses her for making out with Michael. Then they lay

into her for not being a mother. Yeah. Oftentimes it is other women who make ambition hardest for women. I wondered if BJ intended to point this out or if it was a happy accident. Because you know what? Jan is so excited to help Pam. She wants to help these other women rise up. She is so excited. Now listen, I think that it is totally valid when Phyllis says, I'm happy with my choices. Yeah. We don't all need to be you. Not all women or all people need to be ambitious or share ambitions. But they are really hard on her and unaccepting of her for wanting to be her. Like Phyllis is like, I'm gonna be me. But then they're kind of

hard on Jan for being Jan. Well, I think Phyllis is probably the most fair of everyone. True. She's really happy with her life choices and stands by them and is unapologetic and has a very happy life. And I don't think that she wishes for Jan not to have anything. I think Phyllis is happy that Jan has chosen her path. But everyone else in the room is snarky towards Jan. Yeah. They are. And I think one of the things I love about our friendship and you and I both have like a group of female friends who are really about supporting one another and building each other up and encouraging each other. And you really need those

women in your life. Yeah. You really do. Yeah. Because that really the momentum that women give one another is really the momentum that moves us forward. Mostly. All right, Jenna, step on down. Stepping down. Step down. I like it. I like what you had to say. All right. I'm off my soapbox. Well, here, here, here's a juxtaposition to your soapbox moment, which I thought was really just well said. Thanks. Here's, here's at 15 minutes, 59 seconds. Yeah. Michael puts packing peanuts into a fan. What a dick. That's what I had to say. That's my deep thought. Oh. Well, Jan gets so annoyed that she goes down to the warehouse. Yeah. And this is when

Jan tells the warehouse that if they unionize, they're all going to lose their jobs. Right. Very, very, very anti-union. Yes. And I read actually that this episode has been used in law classes that deal with companies who have unions and who want to form unions and that it has been used to show the, the pressure and the hard road that they can have in those moments. All right, guys, we're going to get into some sad times now for Jim and Pam. Oh boy. Yeah. Jim comes upstairs to make a phone call. Pam excuses herself from her meeting and she very excitedly tells Jim about this internship opportunity and graphic

design. Jim, adorably, encourages her immediately. He's like, well, what are the details? I think you should do it. I know. And she just lights up. She needed someone to give her permission in a way to go for this. Yeah. And Jim immediately did. Yes. He sees her soulmate. Yes. So you kind of get the sense she's going to go for it, but then you see a scene. It's a spy shot. There's no dialogue. She's holding the pamphlet. She's telling Roy about the program and it's very clear that he is not supportive. He sees it as a waste of time. So we cut to this Pam talking head and she starts talking about this house with a

terrace. Oh, this house with a terrace. This metaphor broke my heart. Yeah. She says she was a little girl and she read this book and there was a house with a terrace with flowers and she describes it in detail and she says, I just always wanted that. But you know, it's just, you know, they don't even have those kind of houses in Scranton. How do I even have those in Scranton? Well, this was based on a story of mine. BJ came up to me on the set. We were working on a different episode. He was writing this episode and he came up to me and he said, Jenna, I've got this moment. I'm trying to write. Was there ever a dream that you had as a

little girl that has gone unrealized because it seemed unrealistic to you? He said, it can be really simple though. It's a little girl's dream. And I said, yes. How smart is that though? I know. BJ is so smart. Isn't that such a great question? It's so wonderful. Writers, most of their job is just asking the right questions. BJ is so smart. Okay. So what your answer was? My answer was yes. When I was younger, I read this book and in the book, there was a girl who moved into a new house with her family and the house had a tower. Sort of like a castle might. It was this tower room on the side of the house and there was one set

of stairs that went up to it. And so there was this one circular room on the third floor of their home. And this was her space that she declared was hers to sit and think and create. And I had such a clear vision of what this tower room was. And I remember thinking to myself, one day, I'm going to have a house with a circular tower room where I will create. And I've never had it and I never got it because who builds houses like that? I think the stream do not let it go. I think maybe one day, one day, maybe, you know, they'll be like, you know, Jenna Fisher, she lives in a tower. She has a very normal looking house. And then

next to it, she has built this tower in Missouri. It's very strange. So BJ ran with that story and that was he adapted it and he made it a terrace with flowers. But I think it's a little bit of collaboration. I think it's such a sweet story and then it broke my heart. Well, Pam then is in the kitchen with Jim. Her talking head is kind of broken up by the scene in the kitchen. And she's saying to Jim, Jim is like, wait, you're not going to take the internship. And she's like, well, you know, like Roy said, there's no guarantee it's going to lead to anything anyway. He's like, Roy said that. And then Pam flips a switch.

She's like, oh, do you have something to say? I was like, oh, dang, here we go. I know. She's hurt. She's hurt. And it's not Jim's fault. He's speaking truth, you know? But he's holding that. She's like, I'm happy with my choices. He's holding that mirror up. That's what he does to her. Yeah. Oh, I know. This is an interesting fan question. Bernardo noted that Jim has a beard when he's talking to Pam in the kitchen and I looked and he really does. He is like very stubbly. What? So just to break up that beautiful moment. Well, Jim says something that I that really stuck with me, which is he says, you got to take a chance on

something sometime. Yeah. I thought that was like just a good thing to take away. Well, we go back to the talking head and Pam just breaks down. She's talking about the terrorists, but we know what she's really talking about. She says, it's just not practical. You know, you just aren't going to find that. And what she's really saying is, I'm never going to have Jim. I'm never going to have true love. I'm never going to be who I want to be. And that's underneath all of that. And also that my dreams aren't valid. Yeah. I don't get to even try for my dream. That's not my path. A fan question from Adam Falk, he asked, when Roy killed Pam's

dream, the tears were so real. What were you thinking about? Guys, there are times as an actor where your heart just breaks for your character. I just felt her heartbreaking and it made me cry. It's in the same way where it makes you cry when you watch something or talk about it. Yeah. I wasn't thinking about, you know, my dead pet or something like that. I was thinking about how it must feel to have someone not encourage you to feel trapped and to feel so alone. And I thought about how the one person who was trying to help me, I just, I just pushed that person away. And that kind of makes you cry. Well, I think our show had a lot of

like really relatable moments like that. I mean, I know we do these crazy things, like it's gonna cut to the warehouse and Dwight is making a snow angel out of packing peanuts and there's all of that. But then I feel like the heart of our show is also just these people living their lives and relationships. And I love that we have that balance. Me too. Well, speaking of the warehouse, we cut back down to the warehouse and Michael's completely destroyed it. Then he wrecked it, wrecked it. And then he just buys pizza for everyone and leaves. You know why? Because pizza is the great equalizer. That's what he says. It's the

great equalizer. Well, fan question from Tiffany Ironridge and Pickle Dude. How long did it take to clean up the warehouse? And Madeline Albrecht, I feel like this is because she listens to Office Ladies says, was it a hard day for Phil Shea and Michael Gallenberg? Oh, I love you. And I bet they love you too for just even highlighting that. Gina McAdrian said, who cleaned up the mess? Guys, it was. It was Phil Shea, Michael Gallenberg, their crews. Their crew. I don't know how long it took them, but I imagine a long time. And also, I think these kind of shoots were more stressful for them because there were big prop moments that

the whole scene was centered around. Yeah. And they had to have everything ready that when Michael opened up the bag of packing peanuts, they had to have a backup one. Like they had to have all of that ready to go. If you get a chance, watch the deleted scenes. There is one that I loved so much in this. It has nothing to do with this episode, really the story at all. Michael is trying to set his ringtone. Oh, and he's asking Pam to help him pick a ringtone. Yes, and Gem is there too. And it's just these little small ridiculous moments that crack me up. We had a lot of those that we would shoot. They were just office life

moments. Yeah. And so often those were the things that would have to get cut for time. I know. But they're now a treasure living on the DVD extras. At 19 minutes, 52 seconds. I want you to notice, we imply that everyone from the warehouse is walking back upstairs. I want you to notice that just Michael, Kevin and Dwight go into the door at the top of the stairs. That's again, because it's just a closet and that was as many people as they could fit. Right. And that was tight. And then in the next shot, you see them walking into the office. Michael's carrying a pizza. But we shot that on a completely different day. Yeah. So Vada,

our script supervisor, she would have written down which hand Michael was carrying the pizza box in so that she could hand him that pizza box then on the next day and say, all right, here it is. Although sometimes they would have conversations that were like, well, I could believe that you switched hands on the way up. I would have deep conversations. We had deep conversations. Do you think he switched the pizza box from one hand to the other while he was walking? Because maybe you had to use that hand to open the door. Yes, or exactly. Yeah, exactly. You know what? It's fine. You can carry it in either

hand. Well, I was really bummed that at the women in the workplace, there was no food because I was really excited that we might have pizza too. I mean, you know, this was Jan's big fail. If she would have just fed us snacks or something. But you know, Mindy and I, Ed Helms, we love prop food. Well, this episode ends with Pam answering the phone, Dunder Mifflin. This is Pam. And this is really significant because in her fight with Jim, he says to her, what do you really want to be a receptionist your whole life? And so we end with her being a receptionist. And she just looks at him. Yeah. There's

this moment. It's unresolved. Their fight is unresolved. And that's it. That's boys and girls. Now we have a fan request. Let me know what you think. C.G. wrote in to say, I would really love for you guys to keep track because we've been tracking things. Yeah. Of when Jim changes from classic fit to slim fit shirts. Oh, he has such a baggy shirt. I noticed that in this episode. Yeah. There's a shot of him. He's kind of reclined back eating his pizza and his shirts untucked. And I'm like, that shirt, it looks like it's the 90s where everyone's clothes was like three sizes too big for them. Yeah, you're gonna

notice eventually and we'll talk about this. Pam stops wearing her hair in a clip. Jim stops having a shaggy hairdo and he starts getting some like better fitting suits. So we'll be clocking all of that. You guys, we're gonna track it all. We're gonna track it all. Track it. Hashtag track it. Hashtag track it. Okay, next week is the Valentine's episode. You guys, it's a really good one. I can't wait. Thanks for joining us. All right, we'll see you next week. Thank you for listening to Office Ladies. Office Ladies is produced by Ear Wolf, Jenna Fisher, and Angela Kinsey. Our producer is Cody Fisher, our sound engineer is Sam

Peefer. And our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton. For ad-free versions of the show and our bonus episodes Candy Bag, go to StitcherPremium.com. For a free one-month trial of Stitcher Premium, use code Office.