Lovin’ on the Job

By: Nicole Baillargeon
Posted In: Opinion

It’s Thursday. It’s 8:30. It’s a prime night for going out and doing what normal college kids call “partying”. But, instead, I am sprawled out on my bed in my blue fleece penguin pajamas, wrapped in a blanket with the remote control in one hand and a box of animal crackers by my side (my snack of choice). I’m taking a well needed rest from homework and equipped to watch my favorite show, Emmy Award winning, The Office: An American Workplace.

To say I have an obsession with this show would be putting it lightly. The premise of this half hour comedy is this: it is a parody “docu-reality” show poking fun at modern American office life. It was actually developed from the award winning BBC version of The Office, by Ricky Gervais.

I feel deeply involved with the lives of these highly entertaining characters. So deeply involved, that I wish I lived in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and worked for

Dunder-Mifflin Paper Products. To be more exact I am captivated with the fictional love lives of Pam Beesly and Jim Halpert, played by Jenna Fischer and John Krasinski, more affectionately known as “Jam” to devoted Office fans such as myself.

Not since the Ross and Rachel days of Friends have I been more enamored with a fictional couple on television. There is only one slight problem, they aren’t actually even a couple; at least not yet. If I had it my way they would be together right now. Since I’m not a big shot television producer or have any connections in the television biz, I don’t get much of a say in the matter and every Thursday night on NBC when 8:30 passes, I am left heartbroken and longing for more.

Will the writers of The Office: An American Workplace, which rakes in between 4 to 8 million viewers weekly according to the Nielsen Ratings, ever allow Pam and Jim to be together? I don’t know how much more of this agony I can take every week.

I am sure that the writers and producers of the show would say that Pam and Jim can’t be together because it leaves the viewers wanting more. The wait is the most exciting part. Once they are together then what? One of the greatest things about the show is watching the interactions between Pam and Jim and I am sure that the writers are worried about changing that formula.

But, I beg to differ. These two need to be together, the sooner the better. In fact I think they need to take a look at the 500 plus YouTube videos with various love songs edited in, dedicated to Pam and Jim. Or perhaps the multiple fan sites devoted to this adorable duo, one being called, “More than That: The Original Source for Everything Jim and Pam.” Most of the fans of The Office or “Dunder-Heads” as they are called want them to be together. Why not grant us our wishes?

Both Pam and Jim deserve to be happy, and it is quite obvious that they make each other happy, especially when they are pulling pranks together on their co-workers.

Well, on one certain eccentric and egotistical co-worker to be exact. That would be Assistant to the Regional Manager, Dwight Schrute, who is played by Rainn Wilson. Their chemistry is evident in all of these scenes.

Another reason Pam should be with Jim and not her idiotic ex-fianc