by Adam
At the risk of wandering too far off topic, I want to begin our next post analyzing Jim’s career arc in The Office (television series) by drawing an analogy to Office Space (1999 cult-classic movie). You may be aware of this movie. Heck, you may have even watched it (which I do recommend).
But, even if you haven’t watched it, the ideas and classic dialogue embedded in this movie have probably touched your life. In might have happened in a way you noticed and remembered: ever heard someone use the now highly-popularized phrase “case of the Mondays”? Other times, the allusions from this move sound so mundane that they may slip by your conscious awareness, like when Bill Burr used the iconic phrase “TPS report” (which is a euphemism for a largely useless, bureaucratic paperwork exercise) in The Mandalorian.
By the same token, many concepts from professional development literature have permeated culture. Even if you’re not the kind of person that devours leadership and professional development books, there’s a good chance that ideas put forth in the seminal book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey have entered your thoughts, consciously or otherwise.
I want to call out one of those ideas. Or, as Stephen Covey would call it, the second “habit” on his list for highly effective people: Begin with the end in mind.
Now, as I’ve stated in previous posts, Jim has not had the benefit of Kevin’s mentorship program. As viewers progress through the seasons of the Office, it becomes obvious that Jim not only does not begin with the end in mind, but actively rejects the idea of proactively moving toward an end goal at all. Acknowledging that his job at Dunder Mifflin is part of a “career” would require him to face his situation in a way he is clearly uncomfortable with.
In large part, that makes sense. The producers of The Office weren’t trying to produce a narrative conducive to mentoring. They need some element of suspense to keep the audience engaged...which would be tough to keep up if each character practiced methodical self-assessment and planning as Kevin advises.
So, I’m going to propose that we cheat, and stretch Covey’s idea a bit by using it to justify a non-chronological order for our posts. Instead of following along Jim’s career path, from beginning to end, I’m going to jump to the end. By unveiling his journey as it nears its endpoint, we’ll be better able to judge the actions he takes on his journey. We need that context: without knowing where you want to go, how can you know if you’re making the right moves or not? In the final season of The Office, we finally find out, in very clear terms, where Jim really wanted to go.
So, in our next post, we’ll jump all the way to Season 9, to see where Jim’s career ends up. And, before we do, I have to give Kudos to The Office writers for keeping Jim’s arc realistic, and thus useful for our purposes. While the antics of fellow officemates did get a little silly after almost 200 episodes (like Andy taking a multi-week trans-oceanic sailing trip on company time), Jim’s story remains strikingly grounded in reality. While he ultimately reaches his professional goals, as he defines them, it’s not all rainbows and butterflies. As we alluded to in our inaugural post, life is a journey. There is no magical destination where pure bliss is attained, hard work is no longer required, and tough decisions are replaced by moralistically clear-cut paths forward.
So, with that being said, let's get started by beginning with the end in mind!