Holy Shit! That was worse than Howard Dean's meltdown. I wonder what the reaction was to this from the MS BoD.

How so? While Jim did spend time 'pranking' Dwight, he still did his job. Ryan is just being a lazy shit and trying to get Jim to do his work for him, while he plays games on company time.

I have no problem with Jim as a manager. He may have made some mistakes, but he learns from them.

The MS Paper Company storyline wasn't pointless... it was the way to get Pam into the sales department.

And it gave an opportunity for Ellie Kemper to join the cast.

When are you guys going to learn that MICHAEL DOES NOT KNOW BETTER. He's smart, and he does good business things, but he's also an idiot. The character is a contradiction. Always.

Me too. I loved it.

Am I the only one who thinks you don't have to be laughing out loud the whole time to enjoy an episode of the office?

I don't really see anyones gripes with this episode, I thought it was just fine.

I rarely laugh out loud at dry humor in anything but enjoy the heck out of it.

I don't often laugh at certain gags in the Office but when I watch them again on DVD, sometimes the same gags will make me really laugh out loud. I enjoy them the same each time, but certain times it just hits me in a different way.

Didn't watch this until this morning, in retrospect I should have done something else with that 22 minutes of my life. Just didn't hit the mark at all for me.

This is exactly how I feel, dry humor doesn't really make me burst out in laughter but I still enjoy the hell out of it.

I just don't get some people, I mean there is saying it wasn't that fantastic of an episode and then theres just being melodramatic. I mean honestly, you feel as though you're life has been ripped of that 22 minutes? It couldn't have possibly been that bad. I could understand saying that in some instances but don't flatter yourself, your life isn't so important that a decent 22 minute episode of office has ruined it.

I didn't think this episode was particularly bad. There weren't a lot of laughs, but quite frankly I'm interested in where they take this plot and this episode moved things along and was fairly interesting to me. I wish there were some better payoffs with Jim/Ryan and Michael in NY though as those kind of ended in a lackluster manner.

I don't get the Michael is stupid complaints over this episode. He's done worse, and it should have been obvious to everyone that Michael + Shareholder meeting was going to lead to typical Michael.

Meh, this episode was pretty blah and unmemorable.

Yeah I found Michael to be more idiotic and completely unbelievable (as far as the real world goes) last episode. The whole murder mystery thing was totally idiotic in my opinion.

Sure, he was a moron in this episode too, but how could anybody expect anything different? He was actually more believable in this episode because we know he's a social nitwit and why the higher ups would invite him there is beyond me, but even worse, unless we're to assume they talked to him without us seeing it, nobody briefed him on much of anything. When they walked in to all the boos, Michael seemed totally oblivious as to why. No matter who you invite to something like this, but especially a guy like Michael, you better make damn sure he knows exactly what his purpose there is. Michael's purpose was to wave and not say anything, but of course he didn't do that. Other than the stupid twirl he really didn't do anything THAT stupid, other than speaking when he shouldn't have.

I thought it would've been a little funnier if the stock ticker at the end indicated that DMI stock shot up thanks to the 45 point plan.

Actually, I think the writers are doing a great job of showing that it may not be Michael Scott's fault that he is the way he is. Jim was popular and funny when he was just a saleman and just one of the guys. now that he has been put in a management position, he is the outsider; uncomfortable and ackwardly trying to win the affections of his employees.

I imagine MS was just as "cool" as Jim is/was, once upon a time when he was just another salesman.

That guy just screams "cool."

I was expecting Michael to try and imitate Gordon Gekko's speech from Wall Street. His outfit (blue shirt with white collar) brought that to mind.

I liked how the writers dealt with Green Week by making it part of the cold open and getting it out of the way.

Jim finally getting a win by putting Ryan in the closet was great. By doing that, he shows the rest of the office that he means business and that they need to take him seriously. No more Mr. Nice Guy.

I don't think Jim was ever popular and funny to anyone but Pam (and the audience). It's not like they lost respect for him once he became manager, he never really had their respect.

David Wallace has no one but himself to blame for putting a microphone in front of Michael.

I found it unbelievable that the board didn't have some kind of plan, even if it was a ridiculously ill-conceived one.
Seems this ep had a lot more comic potential than was realized. I guess it's a setup for what is coming...