Office Ladies - New Leads

Episode Date: June 15, 2022

This week we’re breaking down “New Leads.” Sabre’s no cap on commission policy has gone to the sales team’s heads, and to get them under control, Michael hides the new leads which accidentally end up in the Scranton dump. Writer and director of the episode, Brent Forrester, sends in clips about working on this episode, Jenna breaks down how they made and shot the landfill scenes, and Angela gives Jenna and Sam a garbage quiz. So enjoy this episode, and may it make you believe that just as there can be hope in a frame, there can be hope in a dump.

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. Hi, ladies. Hi.

I'm sitting in a different seat today, getting sassy, mixing it up. Is it going to bring a new energy to the pod? Probably. We'll see. Is it going to give me a crick in my neck? Maybe. I know. Why did I sit here?

Well, guys, things are going to be crazy today. We're sitting in new spots. Today we're breaking down new leads, which is season six, episode 20. Lady, there's only six more episodes before we head into season seven. I can't believe it. But I want to point out we did 26 episodes in season six. That is a huge number of episodes for a television season. I know.

We all got sick at the end. I know. We all caught a cold bug. I have a little bit of trivia for you before we even start. Really? What is it? I looked in my digital clutter. And?

The original title for this episode was Scavenger Hunt. Really? Yes. The table read, it was called Scavenger Hunt. Hmm. Hmm. I'm telling you, sitting in new spots, trivia right at the top. What's next?

Well, I'll tell you this episode was written by Brent Forrester and directed by Brent Forrester. I'm going to hit you with a summary now for new leads, formerly known as Scavenger Hunt. Saber's new policies favoring the sales team have caused them to become obnoxious toward their coworkers. Michael attempts to check their egos and teach humility by refusing to hand out the new sales leads. Instead, Michael gives them to the non-sales staff who hide them around the office.

A bunch of them end up in a dump where Michael and Dwight and Aaron and Andy further their respective relationships. He basically hid $50,000 around the office. Yeah. Oh my gosh. How is he not fired? How is he not fired? Fast fact number one is a fan question from Alexandra in Huntsville, Alabama, who said,

What exactly are leads? Alexandra, I think this is a really good thing to start with because if we aren't clear on what a lead is, this episode is going to fall apart. It will, not to mention I counted, and we say the word leads 33 times in this episode. Wow. We really need to know what that is. I will tell you, according to Investopedia, a sales lead is a person or business who may eventually become a client.

Businesses gain access to sales leads through advertising, trade shows, direct mailings, third parties, and other marketing efforts. Sales people then use those leads to send sales pitch emails or direct marketing materials and to make cold calls. Now, several factors determine the quality of a sales lead, such as whether or not the individual or business had an incentive to offer their contact information. You know, like when they say, get a free steak dinner, if you listen to this sales pitch about a time share and fill out an information card.

Those information cards would be considered leads that then a person will follow up on and try to sell you that time share. But if you got something in return, you might have just been there for the free steak dinner. So those are kind of bum leads. You know, when you take an online survey, that'll generate a sales lead. I always do the online survey. You do. You love an online survey?

I do. Oh, well, this explains my spam mail. It's very full. I was going to say, nowadays, they create sales lead by tracking your purchases online, and then you get targeted ads to watch. I'm a real sucker for those. Lady, let me tell you, I watched an episode of John Oliver about third party tracking that blew my mind.

Oh, no. Oh, yeah. So when you go on a website, when you look at something, when you fill out your information, and sometimes you get a little disclaimer, like, are you okay to accept this or fill out this and you click it, if you don't read all of it, and it's a ton of tiny little words and they say a lot in there somewhere, it's like that they can then give that information, the site that you're actually interested in, like hummingbird feeders, can then give your information to maybe someone who makes mattresses, who then can give your information to someone

who makes tires, and then who knows where your information is going. And all of a sudden, a third party that you don't even know has your information. Wow. It was fascinating. So there's a setting on your phone and on your computer where you can turn off that tracking. Yeah. So I went in and I did that.

Oh, well, you teach me how to do that when we get done doing this podcast. Yeah. Well, I've bought a ton of stuff from ads. Instagram. You're a big shopper, like an ad will pop up and you're like, I got a dress on Instagram today. I've bought shoes. I bought that earwax cleaner.

I know. It didn't work. I know. Don't buy it, everybody. But I did buy that countertop composter. And you love it. I love it. I got in on that early.

I watched that ad before they were even available and I was one of the people who bought it when it was like at a discount because you were helping them as part of their startup. I waited seven months for that thing. Well, you were a lead and it worked. It worked. I have a thing that keeps popping up in my Instagram, you guys, and I took a screen grab because I told Josh I want it for my birthday. It's a little tiny camera that goes in your bird feeder.

I sent that to you. Yes. Yeah. I want it. Yeah. And then you can like learn all about your birds and you can watch your birds. I saw that in an ad and I sent it to you. I know.

Well, anyway, these leads from Saber are businesses that have been predetermined to want new printers, which should make it way easier than just making cold calls. You know, I worked as a telemarketer, Angela, for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. And you had to make cold calls? I had to make cold calls, but I had leads. They were people who had expressed an interest in having a subscription to the paper. Or they were people who got the Sunday paper and I was calling them to see if they wanted to get it every day.

You would have called me because I get the Sunday paper and someone reached out to me and were like, would you like to also get the Tuesday to support the paper? Exactly. That's what I did. I said, okay, fine. So now I get it on Tuesday and Sunday. Really? Yeah.

Hey. I was a lead. Well, you know what? You helped that person bump up their sales record, too, so got persons happy. Good. So we got it, right? We know what leads are. I think we all got it.

Good. Fast fact number two. This was a fan mail flurry. We got a lot of mail, including from Soul C in Berkeley, California, Janine R from Mackenzie River Valley, Oregon, and Rala B from Toronto, Canada. They would all like to know what's up with the dump. They would like a location breakdown on the dump because they said the dumpster really looks like it was green screened.

How much of it is real? How large was this set? And how did they get all the garbage that Dwight and Michael threw at each other? You are right. It was a green screen. Faky dump. Faky dump. That sounds wrong.

I like that. Faky dump. We built our version of the Scranton dump on our warehouse stage. In front of a massive green screen, Randy told me it's called a cyclorama. It actually curved around the entire periphery of the interior of our stage, too. Prior to shooting, we actually did an enormous amount of research about what the actual landfill in Scranton, Pennsylvania looked like. I believe it.

Remember Mary Potis from the Scranton Chamber of Commerce? Of course. She sent pictures of the Scranton dump. Mary, you're the best. She's amazing. She started by taking a picture of a patch on a firefighters uniform and now she's taking pictures of a dump. She had no idea what she was signing up for.

She really didn't. So Michael Gallenberg was in charge of designing the dump, but the making of all the fake trash that Dwight and Michael throw at one another that fell under the jurisdiction of Steve Rothstein, our set decorator. Randy told us that he met with a local recycling firm and purchased literally hundreds of bales of sanitized recycled waste. It was mostly plastic corrugated cardboard and paper, but he added a little bit of household trash.

He also threw in items that they could throw at each other like the big cable spool, the big sink, a tennis racket. He found the big bathtub, the purple beanbag chair, all that stuff. They took our visual effects company Stargate Studios International to a local landfill in Eagle Rock, California, and they shot a bunch of video. And that's what's playing on the green screen. They got the bulldozers and that flock of birds that flies through. I thought that was a nice touch.

They took all those videos. That went on the green screen. The total budget from Stargate to create that landfill behind our piles of trash was $52,000. Wow. Yeah. And that is how you get a fakey dump. Fakey dump? That's pricy.

Yeah. Not cheap. Well, finally, fast fact number three. I mentioned earlier that this episode was both written and directed by Brent Forrester. You know we love Brent. He's always so awesome. He's the best. Well, I reached out to him to see if he wanted to send in any audio clips for this because

he always is so generous with the audio. Here's what he wrote back. He said, quote, I have been dreading new leads. Oh, no, Brent. Dredding it. He said, the acting is great. Of course, you guys never waver, but the script got so mangled. He said he was also shooting a pilot for Ron Howard while we were doing this episode, crazy.

He said he just didn't feel like it turned out how he wanted. And then he said, oh my god, those special effects, they are just hilariously bad. But he did still send in some audio clips. Here's what he had to say about this episode. Hi, I'm Brent Forrester, the writer and director of New Leads. There are two big problems with this episode, the writing and the directing. The story has a fundamental flaw in it, and there's a fundamental lesson in it for all you writers.

The secret of storytelling in the half hour medium is to center the story around two characters in conflict. Let that conflict build to a crisis and then resolve. That's the right story for half hour TV. Look at New Leads. Who are the two characters in conflict? It's Michael and who? Well, it's the whole office.

It's kind of vague. It doesn't center in on Michael versus Dwight until the third act, and by then it's too late. It's so obvious to me now, but I totally miss it at the time because I was so focused on doing a terrible job of directing this episode. Brent, stop it. I absolutely enjoyed this episode. You're being way too critical of yourself.

Just stop. Let that go. Can you tell that he teaches screenwriting comedy? Yes. Because he always breaks it down from that intellectual level, which I love. I always love hearing that perspective. I know. He's so smart.

Brent sent in one more audio clip. We'll play it later because he does have a favorite scene from this episode. Oh, good. Well, listen, before we go to break, I have a fun little detail about this episode. What? If you do a re-watch of this episode, look for the people wearing the little Bluetooth headphones and typing on their phones during meetings. There was a lot of old tech.

Yeah. These little headphones and this bits of business, these were things that were sprinkled into the show to kind of amplify the status of the sales team. We did not normally see these. It's kind of exclusive to this episode, and I had a good time spotting them. I'm going to point them out. Good. No one wears a headset like Phyllis.

I know. All right. Well, we'll take a break and we'll be back with a cold open that I'm titling My Bad. We are back, and let's get into this cold open, which I'm calling My Bad. You guys, many of you reached out and reminded us that this Johnny Depp cold open that we talked about in double date. I had said I found this deleted scene that was going to be a cold open for that episode, and lady, this is a direct quote of us from the double date podcast.

You're going to quote us. I'm quoting us. I say it's a really funny scene, and we shot it. It also includes Michael's impression of Jack Sparrow. That exists somewhere. It does exist somewhere. It's called New Leads. You responded, and you said, you know, this is crazy.

This is unlocking a memory for me. When we read that at the table read, we all thought it was so funny, amazing. You guys, clearly, we are rewatching this for the first time in a very long time. In real time. As it turns out, and many of you knew this and wrote in, that cold open was salvaged. It was repurposed for this episode, New Leads. And thank you for all of you who pointed that out. I'm going to try to redeem us here for a moment, Jenna.

I would like to share with you guys what the original cold open was for New Leads. Oh, what was it? I went to the table read, the original cold open for this was where everyone is doing push-ups, and Michael says, if you can reach 15 push-ups, you get to go home early and Stanley wins. That is now going to be the cold open of happy hour. Coming up next week. Coming up next week.

There you go. That ends my segment called My Bad. Well, what should be very clear to everyone was that we would move around these cold opens. Yes. That was the point of them, that they stood alone, that they didn't have to lead any particular episode, they were one little joke in and of themselves, and they were moved often.

Yeah, they got scooched. Well, we had a great fan catch from Maddie B. in North Adams, Massachusetts. She noticed that Jim is wearing his sport coat in this cold open with Michael. She said now, he only wore that sport coat when he was a co-manager. When he returns to sales, he goes back to his simple shirt and tie and rolled up sleeves. She said, I think this cold open was filmed during one of the episodes when Jim was the manager. Yes, Maddie, you are correct.

This was shot five months before this episode when Jim was still a co-manager during double date. Great catch, Maddie. We also had a fan catch from Catlin C. in Iowa who says, old tech alert. In the cold open, when Michael shows Jim a picture of Johnny Depp that he took at his condo, it is a physical photo that he took with a camera and had to get developed. Catlin says it cracks me up that he printed out the pictures. Yeah.

Yes, today he would just show his phone. Yeah, this happened a lot for Jen and I when we were working on our book because we would bring ye oldie cameras to the set and we'd go to the mall to the little photo kiosk. So we'd bring in our pictures and we found so many just like that. Well I have some more old tech alerts for this episode. I love an old tech alert. I know you do. Well, this episode actually starts in the conference room.

Michael has called a meeting. He starts by telling everyone that the lost and found is lost. This really cracked me up. And I loved Creed's face. I loved his giant circle black framed glasses. Who lost those? What is Jackie Kennedy here? Who's wearing those?

I don't know. Stanley and Dwight, they just want to talk about sales. That's it. They don't want any of this other nonsense. And what they want to know is there any word on the new leads from corporate? Saber spent $50,000 on these leads and they haven't gotten them yet. And they're not going to sit around in this conference room. They're busy.

They're real busy. Did you notice the dry erase board? I did. But I didn't zoom in on it. Did you? Oh, you know I did. And I got some dry erase board stats for you. All right.

They don't quite match up with the storyline. Really? Dwight is not in the lead. So I zoomed in and I was able to see all of the paper sales. I couldn't see the printer sales, but the paper sales, here's the stats. Andy has sold 18. Whatever that means. Dwight has sold 21.

Pam has sold 19. Pam has sold 2. Oh boy. Phyllis has sold 25 and Stanley has sold 16. So Phyllis is in the lead. Phyllis is in the lead according to the dry erase board. According to the paper sales of the dry erase board. Exactly.

Printers might be another story. Maybe Dwight is selling a lot of printers. Yeah, they were in green and they were way just tiny in the margin there and I couldn't see them. Well, at two minutes and six seconds Phyllis has her Bluetooth and Jim is texting on his blackberry. So you've got some busy sales business going on. Lots of business.

We also had a fan question from Alexis J and Santa Barbara, California and KDH from Ohio. In the conference room scene, Michael mentions Pet Day. I know, I heard that, I was like ding, ding, ding, oh. Yes, they said is this a reference based on the unreleased episode or script about Pet Day? We have talked about this before, there was an unproduced script called Pet Day and we always said maybe that's how we all come back together. We do this lost episode Pet Day.

As if no time has passed, even though we all look much older. Right. That would be so crazy. By the way, did you know that there is a national take your dog to work day? Oh, I would love that. It is the Monday after Father's Day this year on June 24th. What? I feel like I remember one year before the pandemic, we came into Ear Wolf and everyone's

dogs were here. There was a dog that always hung out here by front reception. But Sam, has there been like a bring your dog to Ear Wolf day? No, there hasn't. It, it bums me out very much. Well June 24th is coming up, maybe we need to get on it. I would really like that. All right.

June 24th is a Friday, put it on your calendar. Listen, Biscuit is not good with other people. She doesn't like anyone or anything, except for me. I look forward to Biscuit coming in for Buster, though, I could just hide in my sweatshirt. No one would ever see him. Well, if you need someone to herd the other animals, Maggie can do that for you. Yeah. Yeah.

She'll keep things in order. There would have been a joint Stanley Phyllis talking head here. It's in deleted scenes and we learn a little bit of Stanley's history. Let's hear it. I've been here a long time, 31 years, and for the first time things have been done right. And all that time. I just think our new bosses realize what I've been thinking all along.

The sales business is the whole business. It's the whole thing. Okay. This is why Stanley and Phyllis get along. Yeah. I love their dynamic. I do too. And we found out that Stanley has worked there for 31 years.

Any wonder he is so over the BS. Wow. So true. Gosh. Well, Michael has a talking head where he explains that things are changing around here. And during this talking head, we see the sales staff getting all their swag. I mean, they are getting just packages of stuff, a robe, fancy coffee containers. A travel bag, like a jacket.

Yeah. This was all courtesy of our graphics designer, Henry Sane, and made by Phil Shea. Do I just going to go up to Michael and say, have you gotten the leads? Do you need to let me know when you get the leads? Let's him know how to contact him. This cracks me up. Can we hear it? You got any news on leads?

Okay. I tell you what. I'm going out on a very important sales call. If you get any news about the leads, you try me. All of my numbers. All six of my numbers. Okay? Including the car phone.

All right. Dwight out. Dwight out. You know what I wrote down in my document? What are his six phone numbers? Does he have like burner phones? He says, and the car phone. Where is Michael calling him?

I don't know. But that tells me he has seven phone numbers. If he has six plus the car phone, right? Is Michael calling him at home? What are these numbers? I don't know. But I wish someone would call them all at the same time. Why has Jim not thought of that?

I know. That's a good Jim prank. In Dwight's talking head, he says salesman is king at three minutes, 21 seconds. He's also wearing his Bluetooth headset. Hey. Pointing it out. You thought I wouldn't, but I am. No.

Please don't stop. Dwight had an alternate talking head, and here it is. It's how he's going to spend his commission money. I love these new rules. I no longer have to deal with paperwork. And because of this new pay structure, there is literally no limit to the amount of money I can make. It is possible.

Stay with me here. It is possible I can make over $100,000 this year. I can only be able to put in that pool, Mos and I have been dreaming of, to drown pigs you mainly. Oh my gosh. That took a turn. That took a turn. Wait.

And he also said, and to cross train. Oh my gosh. I know. I couldn't wait. I couldn't wait to see your face because I did the same thing. I was like, oh, they want a swimming pool. Oh my God. Oh my.

Coming up, we have some sass, some major sass. Angela has emailed Phyllis four times asking her to come over to her desk. Four times. Phyllis says, if I don't have time to read your emails, I don't have time to walk over to your desk. Yeah. Phyllis sass. I mean, she is the busiest beaver.

This is true. Well, this scene was much longer. I yelled at the TV when I was watching it in deleted scenes because Andy is going to like Angela to a type of bird. You have to hear it. Here is your expense report, which you signed, but you did not fill out. I was busy. That's the reason.

We're all busy. Hey, Ange, do you mind if I handle this? If a company does not move forward, it will die like a shark. If it stays still, it gets no oxygen. If we stay still, we get no sales and the money is our oxygen. So it's really a pretty good metaphor if you think about it. For God's sakes. No, seriously, you're trying to hover like a bird and birds can't do that unless you're

a hummingbird. A hummingbird. Like a hummingbird. You guys, I'm such a dork, I was like, all of my world's colliding, the office and hummingbirds. I want to point out also that Ed Helms, who calls me Ange in real life, who has called me Ange as Andy once before. No one else at Dunder Mifflin calls me Ange. Once again, I feel like he slipped more into Ed than Andy and he called me Ange.

Wow. That just made me happy. So I wanted to share it. Well, speaking of Andy at four minutes and 17 seconds, he's got his Bluetooth headphone in his ear. He does and he needs a pencil really bad. Yeah. He asked Daryl if he can just have the pencil that Daryl is using.

Daryl was like, oh no, this was hilarious to me. So funny. We got a fan question from Gretchen S. in Holland. When Andy is wrestling Daryl for a pencil, how much of that was scripted because that scene was great. You know what? None of that was in the script. When they wrestle and go to the ground?

Yeah. In the script, it just says Andy makes the gimme gesture as the camera pushes in on Daryl in disbelief and then it ended. So all of him like trying to take it from his hand and then them falling. And I think you can see at the end of that scene, you can see Craig. I see him breaking. I also see him breaking. I see him starting to laugh.

And then he tries to grab Ed. So he doesn't bonk his head and fall. Yeah. I think he has to kind of do a bit of a crotch grab there and they cut away at the very last minute if you check it out. I would like to point out at four minutes, 22 seconds behind Daryl on the wall is a sign that says nobody talks, everybody walks. A lot of people wanted this sign and I saw on the internet that NBC actually sold it in

an auction they had of all the set pieces from the show. Wow. So somebody bought it. Someone has it. Wait a second. Here's what I don't understand. Remember when they said I couldn't have my watercolor because they had to log it and put it in a warehouse in case we ever revived the show or something?

I think they just wanted to sell everything. I mean, what happens if we ever want to revive the show? I mean, they've sold everything. They sold our clothes. I know. I know. What happens? I don't know.

Maybe that's why we're not reviving it because it would cost too much to go get the stuff back. There was like a fire sale of all the set pieces. There really was. Yeah. So I found that interesting that that particular sign was sold and someone has it. We also had a fan catch from Eleanor in France for this scene. Bonjour.

Bonjour. Well, Eleanor said at around four minutes, 15 seconds, when Andy is walking past Daryl's office, I swear he says, Eddie, nice. But then later on he says, hang on, Teddy. So did he say the wrong name on one of those? Was this supposed to happen? Eleanor, I went to the script. There were no names in the script.

I think this was Ed just kind of riffing at the top of this scene. I pulled an audio clip because I think Eleanor is right. Let's listen to it. Oh, is this going to be like, is the dress blue or black? Yeah. Okay. So we're listening for... We're listening for Eddie first and then Teddy.

Got it. Eddie, nice. Let me just... Let me write that down real quick. Pencil. Give me a pencil. Hang on, Teddy. Right?

He totally says Eddie and then Teddy. I think so too. Yeah. Good catch, Eleanor. Yeah. Sable. Magnifique. That is all the French I know, unless I'm at a fruit stand and it comes pouring out

of me. Right. Daryl finds Michael in the kitchen. Michael's really sad because his honey and jelly sandwich has been smushed and Daryl says, you know what? It was the sales team. It was. He didn't have to see him to know it.

They're out of control and Michael needs to get back on top of this. That's what she said. Yeah. Yeah. That's what she said was not in the script. What? After get back on top? Yes.

Can you believe that Brent wrote the line, you need to get back on top, and he did not follow that with a scripted. That's what she said. Oh, man. Brent, you were distracted. Yeah. You were. This is the proof.

This is all the proof you need. You know, also in the script, there wasn't just one sandwich. Michael reveals that there were eight sandwiches and that he brings them all to work at the same time and that they were all smashed. Just so you know, I thought that was so strange quirk that Michael brings, like, all of his sandwiches for the week. For the whole week. Yeah.

How did they all get smashed? I don't know. I'm going to say creed. I don't know. Were they just like muscling all the food in the refrigerator, just like pounding it to the sides? Somebody. Michael is finally going to receive the new leads, Phyllis demands that he hand them over.

She calls them numb nuts. I know. I mean, that's out of line, Phyllis. But Michael says he's not going to give them the leads. And the accounting department applauds, Angela. You are applauding over there in the corner. Yeah, we've had it. Did you notice that the leads arrived by snail mail?

And they're on, like, little blue cards? Yeah. That's my other old tech alert. And we had a fan question from Fiona in Melbourne, Australia, who said, wouldn't these very valuable leads have been emailed or provided digitally because putting them on index cards and only index cards seems unlikely and maybe like a forced device for this episode. Is there a sales business thing that I'm missing here? I thought deeply about this, Fiona, because I don't disagree with you.

I thought about Christians later. The wolf. Oh. Yeah. Remember? Yeah. Have you ever tasted a rainbow? How could we forget?

Well, I thought about computer hackers. You know, maybe they don't want these going around digitally because of hackers. But here's the thing, they had to be on a computer at some point in order to print them out. Unless the company who generates the leads sends them in physical form only, I don't know. I guess in my mind, Fiona, it made sense because this company that's giving them the information, it's like giving currency.

It's like giving money. And they would almost probably want like a, like sign upon receipt, you know, that you received these, they're very valuable, it's $50,000. And they might not want to exchange that type of currency over the internet, especially if you think about when this episode took place. I believed that they could come by mail, like via signature. Yeah, this was in the past. I mean, remember, Michael had to print out his pictures earlier.

Yeah. People still faxed things. Yeah. I have two background catches during this scene at five minutes, 49 seconds. You can see Kate Flannery's screen. She had been playing solitaire. She's always playing solitaire. Always playing solitaire.

I mean, you know what we need is to catch her screen doing something else. I know. And Meredith has a nice callback to Kelly's American Idol party with her star party favor mug. Mm-hmm. Very nice. Listen, Gabe tells Michael, we spent a lot of money on these leads, you have to hand them out.

You have to. And Michael says, you know what? I will do exactly that. Yes. Because Gabe says, you are required to hand out those leads, Michael. Mm-hmm. Well, he can hand them out. Doesn't say who he has to hand them out to.

Yeah. So it turns out he's going to hand them out to King Creed and King Meredith and King Angela because today we are all Kings and Queens. Mm-hmm. Everyone is delighted. I mean, not the sales staff, but everyone else is loving this turn of events. Right. But listen, lady, before we keep going, do you want to take a break?

Yeah, let's take a break. And when we come back, I heard a little St. Louis. Ooh, from Miss Phyllis. Mm-hmm. Very good. Jim is confronting Michael. He says, Michael, no one is going to go along with this move. But you knew that.

Right. Michael said, you know what? You're right. You want me to hand you the leads? Jim's like, yeah. He's like, OK, here you go. And he hands them some index cards, but they're not the leads. They're like clues.

Mm-hmm. I do love the scene with Jim and Pam on the phone, and she's like breaking down Michael's clues. Yes, because one of the clues is check in Michael's Mopi place. But Pam quickly says he means his Mopi place. Yeah. But basically, this sets off this same dynamic with all of the non-sales people. They are going to make the salespeople do crazy things to get these leads.

Yeah. Angela says to Phyllis, you have to do all this clerical work to get the leads. I heard a little bit of St. Louis at 8 minutes 57 seconds. Oh, really? Mm-hmm. When Angela hands her the stack of papers, Phyllis goes, what are these for? Ah! I love it.

Go to 8 minutes 57 seconds. You'll hear it. Well, Angela says she has to fill out all that paperwork, and when she's done, then Phyllis can watch Angela shred it. Oh, so mean. Gosh, she's given the sass back. Angela and Phyllis, man. All right, this next scene delighted me.

The Stanley, like, sitting between Kelly and Ryan arguing. And Kelly is saying that she wants to watch Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and Stanley's like, yeah, yeah, so Kelly hands him a lead for taking her side. And then I had to rewind it a couple of times to hear what Kelly was saying. I could only catch the word board at first, but what Kelly is saying is she does not want to watch Board to Death. Oh, is that Ryan's show? Yes!

I looked it up. It's an HBO sitcom that starred Jason Schwartzman. Yes. Did you watch it when it was on? I remember I watched, like, the pilot episode and thought it was so funny, and I was like, oh, I'll get back to it. It had Ted Danson. Yes, yeah.

And Zach Galifianakis, Kristen Wiig has a big guest star, Parker Posey, a lot of funny people. I found a trailer for it. Ooh. There's something I've been meaning to tell you. Oh, sh**. I hate when people say that. What?

I've been moonlighting as a private detective. I thought you'd be older. Well, I got into the business at a young age. I have been reading so many of these detective novels that I know what to do. This is all very insane and illegal, isn't it? It is illegal and insane. I like insane. I believe you're a detective, not a licensed detective.

No. I'm a writer. It sounds like your heart's in the right place. You cannot mess with other people's lives that you can barely lead your own life. I can help people. Are you delusional? Lady, I watched the first episode. I was so intrigued.

I mean, it's kind of like mom detective, except he lives in New York and he's a struggling writer. I know. I know. It is like mom detectives, but I feel like his is more like serious cases. Like ours is going to be like, where did that stray construction cone go? Yes. Yes.

He also, I think he's going to be solving the cases. Oh, well, we're never going to find the construction cone. We won't. Yes. So there's differences. There's still room for mom detectives. I won't be worried. Yeah.

Now we have the scene that is writer-director Brent Forrester's favorite scene. It is the scene where Andy approaches Aaron for his leads and she's hidden them. And she's like, colder, warmer, warmer. Oh, we used to do that as kids. And then if you were really going the wrong way, you'd be like, freezing, you're frostbite. Now you're a block of ice. Yes. But in this case, as he's approaching her chest, she's like, warmer, warmer.

And he's like, really? And then she's like, lower. And he's like, ah. And then they're under her keyboard. She's such an odd bird. Well Brent sent in an audio clip breaking down the comedy elements of this scene. My favorite bit of comedy in the episode is Andy and Aaron doing the hotter, colder game at the reception desk.

Why is it funny? Well, first of all, it's physical comedy, which so often is more powerful than the clever dialogue we try to create in the writer's room. There's also this very interesting dynamic, something I sometimes call unintentional self-revelation. OK, whenever a character reveals something that they'd rather hide, it's funny. So Andy misinterprets Aaron saying, hotter, hotter. As a sexual come on, he's revealing that he has sexual feelings towards Aaron. That's what's funny about it.

Notice also, though, that Aaron, by not understanding that she's doing double entendre, reveals unintentionally that she's a bit dumb and clueless. So it's a double unintentional self-revelation with physical comedy, guaranteed to be funny. It's comedy science. There you go. He should teach a course called comedy science. He should name his class comedy science. Comedy science.

Yes, Brent, because you just sort of spilled out that scene like in an equation, but it makes perfect sense. I think we just changed the name of Brent's class. Welcome to comedy science. I like it. Dwight is finally back from his very important sales call, and Jim is looking for a lead under a Lincoln town car. Because of a clue Michael gave him, Dwight thinks it's hilarious, he thinks Jim is the

butt of a joke, until he realizes the leads are here, and Michael didn't tell him. And let me tell you, he's going to go into that office hot. He sure is. Mm-hmm. He's going to try to get his leads from Kevin. He chokes Kevin. I know the scene. I mean, the scene.

They sold it so well. And then he's going to realize Kevin threw away the leads. He's going to look in the trash. It's empty. He's going to lick the trash bag. It's a brand new trash bag. Brand new. He knows from licking it.

Mm-hmm. So he's going to have to run down to the dumpster and dive in. He does like talk about parkour. He does like a whole flip into it. Well, according to Randy, they completely steam cleaned and fully sanitized that dumpster, and they put like, you know, something soft in there for him to land on. For him to land on, but that's rain, just jumping into that dumpster. I was so impressed.

There's nothing in the dumpster, and he's like, ah, what day is it? And Kevin says, wait a second. It's Ghost Whisperer. Oh, yeah. So it's Friday. Trash day. Trash day. Jenna, this is sort of how, like, I feel like I give directions or no dates.

I'm kind of like Kevin. I'm like, oh, you turn left at the tree. The tree, you know, the one that has the wonky limb. Mm. I don't know what the street's called, but look for the wonky limb tree. And also Friday is Ghost Whisperer. Ghost Whisperer, for those of you who don't know, was an American supernatural television series which ran on CBS from 2005 to 2010.

I didn't know the show, but here is the summary. Okay. It stars Jennifer Love-Hewitt. That's right. She plays Melinda Gordon. The series follows her. She has the ability to see and communicate with ghosts while trying to live as normal a life as possible.

She is married and owns an antique store called, same as it never was. And Melinda helps the earthbound spirits resolve their problems and cross over into the light. But her tasks are sometimes difficult. It was very popular. This I know. It had a lot of big names in it. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Well, it's apparently one of Kevin's favorite shows. Well, when they realize it's Friday, they realize that's the day that the trash truck comes. Michael's going to try to run after the truck as it goes down the street. We had a fan question from Maria B in New York. Did you have to rent that garbage truck that Michael ran after? Good question.

Randy said yes. Our transportation coordinator rented a trash truck from Cinema Vehicle Services. And the driver of the trash truck was Mike Stork, who you remember was our limo driver in shareholders meeting. Yep. He's driving stuff for us. He is. Did you notice at 13 minutes, 41 seconds, when Michael is trying to recruit everyone,

you know, we got to go to the dumpster now, guys. Who's with me? Yeah. Right? His suit jacket, when the sun hits it just right, looks purple. No. Yes. Look at this.

I took a screen grab. Purple sun suit. It looked navy to me for the rest of the episode. But when the sun hit it just right, wait till you see this, it has a little, a little sheen to it. I couldn't help but laugh because I thought to our costume department and how they put such detail that Michael's suits were like a certain material. Mm-hmm.

Look at, like, tell me you see purple. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That has some purple undertones. And when the sun hit it, for sure. Mm-hmm. So here's the thing. The only person who's willing to go to the dump with Michael is Dwight.

Yeah. Dwight says, you know what? I'm going to go with you because you'll probably mess it up. Yeah. So we go to our dump that's really in our warehouse. And I have to say, I loved all these scenes with Michael and Dwight at the dump. I did too. I loved it when they said, well, this place is really gone to hell.

Yeah. Like, what did it start out like? Yes. Well, while they're at the dump, Michael says, Dwight, you've changed. You suddenly care so much about money. Yeah. And I love this runner where Dwight says, you know, he'd be doing so much better without Michael.

He could have taken that job at Home Depot where he could be number two at Home Depot. But instead, he went with Michael and now look where they are. They start throwing trash at each other, so much trash. Big trash. Big spool. Mm-hmm. That's my favorite part of the scene is all of the spool, quote unquote, throwing. We actually had a fan catch from Michelle G in Oregon.

Hi, office ladies, every time I watch this episode, I am oddly fascinated by the giant spool at the dump. Was this in the script? No. The spool was not in the script. It just specified that they would throw trash. I want you to know it's 17 minutes and 23 seconds. There is a second spool.

What? There were two spools. There's two spools, guys, one that they're throwing at each other and one, if you look behind Dwight, spool number two. Second spool. Mm-hmm. Well, Jenna, have you ever been to a dump? I have not ever toured a dump.

My uncle Carl used to drive a dump truck. Okay. And my sisters and I would love to ride in it with him as a big old truck. Mm-hmm. And we went to the local dump many times. I have questions before you even get to the dump. Okay. Was it a trash truck that automatically put the trash in the back or did he have to get

out and do it manually, because like when I was a kid, they didn't have the ones that had the little arm. No, no, no. You had to get out and throw the trash in. This was like old school. You're correct. This was before the fancy trucks that have the arm that comes out and picks something up.

Okay. Yeah. See, I was curious because I think if you were a kid, it would be fun if he let you operate the little arm. Oh, yeah. Right? That would have been really cool. No, this truck didn't have that.

Okay. Predates that. I was fascinated by trash and I guess I always have been and for this episode, I have some trash facts for you. I love trash facts. So according to the internet, and I looked on a few different sites and most of these surveys were done between 2019 and 2020. Okay.

Okay. So the average American produces 4.5 pounds of waste every single day. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Every day? Every day. Four and a half pounds. That's the average American. However, the amount of trash that is going into our dumps right now is at its lowest

level since 1960. Oh, do we know why that is? I think there's- Is it recycling? I think we have these initiatives now for recycling and reusing. Here are the three things that make up more than half of the garbage in all of the United States landfills. Okay. Food waste, plastics, and paper products.

Michigan is the state with the most trash per capita, with Indiana and Illinois ranking second and third. That's per capita, right? California has more landfills than any other state in the nation, more than twice as many in fact as every other state except Texas. Wow. Yeah. The largest landfill currently in America is the Apex Regional Las Vegas, Nevada landfill

with 2,200 acres. Wow. I'm not done. That's me turning my paper. I hope you're still with me. I'm on the edge of my seat. All right. Jenna, the next part is a little bit of a quiz.

I'm going to ask you how long it takes different types of garbage to decompose. Okay. Okay. Should we get our quiz music? Oh. I'm not going to get any of these right. Sam, you're welcome to play. All right.

First question, you guys. How long do you think it takes paper to decompose since we are the people's paper people? I'll say two years. I'll say, I like that answer, two years. Two to six weeks. Oh. Okay. Two to six weeks.

The pessimists in both of us are coming out early. Second question, how long would it take a cigarette butt or a wool sock to decompose? Well, first of all, I am surprised that cigarette butt and wool sock decompose at the same rate. I know. They're lumped together here in this survey. But I'm going to say five years. This time I'll join you. I'll say five years.

One to five years. Yay. I got that one. Very nice. Learning curve. Okay. Batteries. Oh.

Oh. Aren't we not supposed to even throw those away? Yeah. 10 years? I'm going to go big and say 20. 100 years. 100 years. Yep.

How about a leather shoe? These seem so specific to the person that wrote this. I'm going to say, first of all, leather is an animal. Uh-huh. It's been treated. Seven years. I'm going to go big again. It's a 15.

25 to 40 years. Uh-huh. For a leather shoe. Uh-huh. Styrofoam cup. 100 years. Yeah. I'm going to go big and say that one.

It's 100 years as well. 50 years. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. A disposable diaper or a plastic bottle. Same category.

If that was the other one, 150? 75 years. 450 years. For every diaper and every plastic bottle is 400 years. 450 years. Good God. Uh-huh. All right.

A credit card. Just a credit card. Your bank card. 200. I know. Are we just moving up the ladder? I'm saying 60 years on the credit card. 1000 years.

No. What? What? That's what it says. My credit card decomposes more slowly than my leather shoe? Yes. Oh my gosh. And then a glass bottle.

A glass bottle shouldn't be in the trash. You should have recycled that. Yeah. A glass bottle takes one million years. Oh my gosh. I know. I believe you. This is according to this survey.

So what I'm hearing is my battery powered leather diapers that I've been throwing away. With the glass insert. That you bought with your credit card. Which every time I make a purchase, you guys throw your credit card away after you make a purchase, right? Always. Always. But think about though, you get a new card, you cut the other one up, you put it in the

trash. Yeah. So, I mean, trash statistics guys, it's mind blowing. Angela, I loved your trash facts. Thank you. I am going to put the link to this article I read in the stories so you can look at it yourself. There's a diagram here with objects and how long it takes for them to decompose.

Wow. I will say this, my trash facts were based on studies in the United States. So I don't know where the biggest landfills are globally, but those are your stats for America. I loved all of them. And I believe if you don't follow this, recyclops comes for you. Yes. That's right.

My goodness. Well, let's see. Where are we? Oh, we're in the break room with Jim and the sales team and they are trying to figure out what can they do to kind of get their coworkers back into their good graces. Maybe they could share their commission. Jim texts Pam, she suggests getting them new iPods, which by the way have been discontinued. You cannot buy iPods anymore.

It was just in the news, which, you know, podcasts are named after the iPod because they were a thing that you could listen to on your iPod, they are no longer going to exist. Craziness. Wow. Yeah. They were such a big deal for so long. Like if you got an iPod for Christmas, yes. Talk about old tech and Phyllis has a super sassy line.

She does. She says if they don't have an iPod by now, they don't really want one. She's not getting people iPods. Andy is going to text Erin and she is going to suggest shells from a far away beach might make everyone happy. Oh, Erin, has she been on a beach vacation? I don't know. She's definitely wanting to go on one and get a shell.

She is. I want to point out more old tech in this episode. We should call this episode old tech. Look at all the cell phones in this scene. There are no smartphones when Jim Tech's Pam and Andy Tech's Erin, they have to flip open their phone. At least they're not texting a beeper. That's true.

That was like the pilot. I know. This episode should be called old tech slash please recycle. It's so true. Well they decide in the end that they are going to share their commissions with the rest of the staff. I can't believe they got Stanley to agree to that. No kidding.

The fight at the dump has finally come to an end. It was real sloppy and messy. The fellas are real tired. Yeah, we had a fan question from Emilyn B and Calgary. What did Michael spill on himself in the dump scene? Oh yeah, that was gross. It was just water. Phew.

They finally start to have some common ground. They sit down, Dwight Marvel's at the trash and says no other animal on earth could do this, except maybe beavers. Yeah. I feel like this should have been NBC's green episode. No kidding. Recycle. Michael and Dwight make up and Michael has a vision.

It's of a single flower sticking up through the trash. And together they come up with a caption. Dwight says hope grows and Michael says in a dump. Hope grows in a dump. So many people have made hope grows in a dump posters, t-shirts, just pages and pages. I was scrolling. They're all wonderful. Hope grows in a dump.

We say hope in a frame. Hope in a frame. But now I'm going to say hope grows in a dump. You know what the message is, you guys? Hope lives in many places. You just have to believe. Yeah. I mean, it's a nice message.

Back at the office, the salespeople have gathered their co-workers in the conference room and they have a bunch of treats. Yeah, like pastries and coffee. They are about to announce their plan to share their commission when Oscar says, you know what? This is really nice, guys. Yeah. Classy move.

And they all realize, oh my gosh, it just took some pastry. And Stanley comes in and he's like, you better print, and they're like, ah-bah-bah-bah-bah-bah-bah-bah. And Phyllis is like, they've accepted our gesture of treats and nothing more, something like that. I can't remember exactly, but it's really good. We had a fan catch from Bethi in Ohio at 19 minutes and 36 seconds. It looks like Phyllis briefly breaks character after Kevin's line. When we walked in here, we were all prepared to tell you to go to hell.

Well, Beth, I looked at this and I don't think Phyllis is breaking. When you all rewatch it, check it out. Let us know what you think. But I think Phyllis is just smiling because she's pleased with herself. Michael and Dwight return triumphant. Even though they haven't found the leads, they have all kinds of stuff from the dump. They've got a giant big purple beanbag. They said they're going to put it in the break room.

Where? Where are they putting it in the break room? There's no room in there. You know, I really wish, though, like in the few episodes after this one, it would have been in the corner. I would have loved to see that call back. It's so true. Well, this episode ends at the dump.

And guess what? Some hope is going to grow there. Erin and Andy kiss at the dump, their first kiss. Hope in a dump. Mm-hmm. Rid it, did it do. I know. It was so sweet.

So how cute is it when Erin gives Andy her coat because Andy's chilly? And it doesn't fit him. At all. Aw, that's new leads. Well, thank you so much to Brent Forrester for sending in audio clips and always being there for us to talk about these episodes with. And to you guys for sending in your questions and comments. Thank you, Randy, for giving me that great location breakdown on the old dump.

Yeah. And guess you guys, you know, recycle and reuse because it takes a long time for things to decompose. And next week, we're going to go to Happy Hour, yeah, which should be fun. Date Mike. Oh, date Mike. He goes and he changes his clothes, he puts on that hat backwards, oh, date Mike. Take care, you guys.

We'll see you next week. Thank you for listening to Office Ladies. Office Ladies is produced by Earwolf, Jenna Fisher, and Angela Kinsey. Our show is executive produced by Cody Fisher. Our producer is Cassie Jerkins, our sound engineer is Sam Kiefer, and our associate producer is Ainsley Bubicoe. Our theme song is Rubber Tree by Creed Bratton. For ad-free versions of Office Ladies, go to StitcherPremium.com.

For a free one month trial at Stitcher Premium, use code, Office.