The Leads – A Rant

This is a rant.

Before I begin, though, I disclaim the following: I hope one day to author a work enjoyable enough to induce ranting.

Let the rant begin.

I read an (old) article in my news feed last week about things that don’t make sense in The Office. The article listed some obvious ones, like why Dwight wasn’t fired for… well, for a number of things. And how Kevin managed to function as an accountant… and a human being. And why Ryan was rehired after committing fraud against the company. And it mentioned several items I didn’t think warranted inclusion (mostly things related to production, like swapped or reused actors).

I clicked on the article because its title brought to mind my single biggest point of contention with The Office, and I wanted to see where it fell on the list. To my complete shock, it didn’t appear at all. By the way, it turns out there’s a lot of these lists about: here, here, here, here, and here. And these just scratch the surface, because there are entire threads of discussion dedicated to the topic on sites like Reddit. Suspension of disbelief, it seems, breaks down after the fourteenth watching of a series.

The point I expected to be on all the lists comes from the 20th episode of Season 6, titled New Leads. As a refresher on the episode, Dunder Mifflin’s new owners have a ‘salesman is king’ policy, and the sales staff (Jim, Dwight, Phyllis, Stanley, Andy) let the preferential treatment go to their heads. When Corporate sends a batch of new leads to the office, Michael gives them to the likes of Kevin, Kelly, Erin, Angela, etc., who use the leads as leverage/revenge against their uppity colleagues.

What’s my big problem? THE LEADS!

First, the leads are physically shipped to the office, a la 1982. Not emailed, even though the episode is set in 2010. Shipped. And not shipped by UPS or FedEx, where the ‘expensive new leads’ could be insured and tracked. Someone at Corporate stuffed them in an envelope—which, I must admit, appears padded—slapped some stamps in the upper right corner, and shoved them in a mailbox.

Second, the leads are affixed to blue index cards, a la 1956. Not entered into a customer relationship management system like salesforce.com (used by most companies to keep track of such information), but cut out by third graders and pasted to notecards with those cool twistable glue sticks we all used in elementary school.

Third, the leads—affixed to index cards and mailed to the Dunder Mifflin Scranton via USPS like the Sears Catalogue—appear to be the single master copy of said information, a la 1875. You heard it right! I don’t feel like this point needs additional commentary, I just don’t feel the quantity of words I’ve used adequately reflects my irritation, so I will continue this paragraph until the grammar becomes untenable, which is right about now.

The combination of the above is too much for me to handle. The episode is set in 2010. Unless I missed it, Oscar isn’t tabulating commissions on an abacus. The rational solution for this situation is for the sales staff to log into their CRM and view the leads, but I supposed there’s no plot in that type of resolution. It’s more fun to have Dwight lick the inside of a garbage sack to test whether it’s clean, have the entire office rush to the parking lot, and have Michael and Dwight set out on a quest to the municipal dump to try to find fifty pieces of paper amongst the refuse. 

I’ve never bought into the dogma of Write What You Know, but this episode of The Office demonstrates what happens if you don’t do enough research. Then again, I seem to be the only one tilting at this particular windmill, so maybe I’m off base.

Either way, this rant is over. I need to go check my mailbox to see if I’ve received any blue notecards…