The Office - "Business Ethics" (Episode 502)

Pam is talking to Jim on the phone. She doesn't feel the need to say "hi" to the Scranton crew because no one congratulated them on their engagement. Jim says they wouldn't have as he never told them. He puts Pam on speaker phone and makes the big announcement. Oscar said he thought they were already engaged. Angela tells him that he was confused because Pam was once engaged - to Roy. Kevin said he bought a gift for Pam and Roy and asked if he now had to buy she and Jim a gift. Andy thought Jim was trying to steal the spotlight from he and Angela's big news. Michael entered and wanted to know what was going on. Pam said "nothing" and Creed volunteered that "the tall guy got engaged." Michael was so overcome with emotion that he pinned Jim to the ground in a big bear hug.

It's ethics day at Dunder Miflin. Holly is going to be running her first meeting in Scranton after the staff fill out some questionnaires. She promises that her seminar is going to be "insane" - well, not really, she has to "read from the binder." She already seems to have adopted Michael's awful presentational style, starting off the meeting singing "Let's Get Ethical" (to the tune of Olivia Newton John's "Physical") with Michael (and they're wearing matching headbands.) Michael answers the question "What are you helping her, you're not even dating her?" He says that she's his friend and his ultimate strategy is to "merge this into a relationship without her even knowing."  Holly says the seminar has been conducted because of some recent "misconduct" at corporate. She's not naming names, but everyone knows she's referring to Ryan. To his credit, Ryan admits he's the "elephant in the room" and regrets what he did - even though it was a great ride. He says that because he hooked up with a girl who "looked exactly like" Joanna from season six of "Survivor."

Holly went over the results of the questionnaires. Holly says that hanging around the water cooler for 30 minutes is like stealing from the company. She calls it "time theft." She asks the staff if they knew of any other "over the line time wasters." Stanley said "this meeting" fit the bill (to which Michael told Holly "You can't set him up like that.") Kelly wanted to know why smokers could take breaks every hour and said "I'll take up smoking...I don't care." Meredith volunteered to take up the habit with her, saying "I have a bag of cigars in my purse." When Holly gets into the portion of her talk about the theft of office supplies, Michael asks if he can have a moment to talk to her. He told her people expected "a lot from these meetings" like "laughter, sudden twists and sudden endings. He told her she needed to be like Robin Williams and M. Night Shyamalan ("Robin Shyamalan.") Michael talked Holly into going "off the binder" and set up asituation where she was a fictional employee named "Lauren" who stole a pencil from the workplace. Oscar said the theft of the pencil wasn't really ethics. He said ethics was a "discussion of competing conceptions of the good" and not just the comany's stand on office supply theft. Andy threw down an ehtical bomb, asking if anyone would steal bread to feed their family. Dwight said it was a trick question because the bread was poisoned and it wasn't his actual family because he had "been cuckolded by a stronger, smarter male." Holly tried to get the conversation back on track and asked if anyone faced any ethical dilemmas in the workplace. When there was no response, Michael told his staff that they could coinfess without threat of repercussion. Michael said that when he discovered YouTube, he didn't work for five days. He viewed "Cookie Monster Sings 'Chocolate Rain'" about a thousand times. His dilemma was whether or not he should admit this to Holly. Michael again promises the staff immunity if they spill the beans. Oscar admitted that on occasion, he's taken a longer lunch than usual. Dwight calls him a "time thief" and tells Michael to fire him on the spot. Jim asks Dwight if he's ever "stolen" any company time and Dwight says he never did. Michael calls him a "thief of joy." Kelly said she sometimes downloaded pirated music onto her work computer and Angela once reported Oscar to INS (he was clean.) Meredith then dropped a bombshell and said she has been sleeping with one of their reps for a discount on supplies and Outback gift certificates. Holly said that was not only a conflict of interest but an exchange of goods. (Meredith corrected her and said it was an "exchange of steak.") Michael decided to end the meeting right then and there. Michael told Holly it was a "classic" meeting (that it was) and that they should go celebrate. Holly said there were some "serious issues" with Meredith. Michael responded with "What are you going to do?"  

Meredith was called in to meet with Michael and Holly. Holly asked her how many liasions there had been between she and the supplier. (It was once a month for about six years.) Michael told Meredith to tell Holly that "it's not what she thinks and nothing unethical hapened" - she just likes to sleep around. Meredith asks if she's in trouble and says she wouldn't have slept with the guy if it wasn't for the discopunt, adding that "there wasn't a lot of fruit in those looms." Holly couldn't understand why she was also getting the steak coupons and Meredith said it may have been a "girl thing", but said that after the encounters that she felt good about herself. Too bad for Meredith, immunity doesn't exist in the workplace. Meredith said she wasn't quitting. She may not have to. Poor Meredith!

Meanwhile, Jim, clutching a stopwatch, is accounting for every second Dwight wastes in the office for personal matters (like a four-second yawn.) When Dwight confronts him, he attributes 17 seconds to "personal conversation." Michael went to Holly's desk and said there was no reason that "two attractive, good-looking, intelligent, funny, attractive people" couldn't work the whole Meredith thing out and suggests they discuss matters over lunch. Holly says she already had a lunch, but Michael tossed her salad in the trash and said Dunder Miflin would pick up the tab - but she's not a client, so maybe they could just go dutch? They headed out to Cooper's Seafood House to discuss Meredith's case. Michael calls the nautical and pirate-themed eatery "business romantic" and tried to engage Holly in some personal conversation (he notes that she's from Des Moines and says "that sounds so...warm.") Holly tries to steer the conversation back to Meredith, but Michael wants to share his favorite season with her (it's autumn. He finds it the most "contemplative" of seasons.) Holly can't write a report that doesn't end with Meredith being terminated. Jim talks to Andy about "Battlestar Galactica" - complete with oodles of misinformation ("Klingons and wookies and all that") - deliberately trying to enrage Dwight and pull him into the  conversation. Back at the restaurant, Michael tells Holly that he doesn't want his employees to think that their jobs depend on performance. Holly says they have to follow protocol. Michael suggests just punishing Meredith with "no sex for six months" and putting her in a chastity belt (or, according to Michael "more of an underwear garment with spikes made of metal.") Dwight hasn't stopped working for a second since Jim started watching his every move. He even sneezed with this eyes open and peed in a soda bottle under his desk while filling out expense reports. Keeping tabs on Dwight has taken up Jim's workday and he says "I'll probably have to go home early today." Michael and Holly haven't come to an understanding on how to treat Meredith's situation. Holly is just not ready to accept the discount and sweep the whole matter under the carpet, which is exactly what Michael would do. Holly says Meredith's actions are unethical and a "little icky" and she doesn;t think she can work in an environment where that behavior is tolerated. Michael says he can tolerate it because that's what a family does. Holly reminds him that DM is not a family, it's a workplace. Michael visibly disagrees.

Holly and Michael had a silent drive back to the office after lunch. Michael doesn't even want to take the elevator up with her. He's pissed - and throws her leftovers into the trash. Oooh! Jim clocks Dwight as being away from his desk for 19:48. When asked what he was up to, Dwight tells him it's "none of your business." He was indeed off on "personal business"...with Angela. Jim is glad to know that he's not completely ethical after all. Michael was pouring coffee into his mug and when Holly asked for a fill-up, he walked off with the pot. Holly knew that being the "morality police" didn't make her popular - and she should know. When she was a hall monitor in middle school, her classmates stuffed egg salad into ther locker. She was just hoping that middle school was over. No such luck. Ryan told Michael that Kendall from corporate was on the line for a conference call with he and Holly. Michael asked Ryan "What's worse than one HR rep?" (The obvious answer: two HR reps.) Kendall thinks Meredith's actions shoudn't be punished. He thinks it's a "grey area" because the company is getting a discount during a tough time and shouldn't turn their nose up at it. Holly is not happy about the way they're getting the discount. Kendall then starts to chew Holly out, telling her that all she neede were the signatures from the employees simply affirming that they went through the ethics seminar. Michael later pondered, "How do you tell somebody that you care about deeply 'I told you so'? Gently, with a rose? In a funny way, like it's a hilarious joke? Or do you just let it go, because saying it would just make things worse?" Micheal concludes that the funny way would be best. Holly asks everyone to meet up on the conference room so they could finish up the seminar. No one trusts her anymore. Michael yelled at everyone to "get in there right now or I'm going lose it!" Holly again reads from the binder and smiles at Michael while she wraps up her presentation. Awww....Later, Meredith treated everyone to steak for lunch.