In a collection of ten essays, Shea Serrano provides winsome analysis of one of television’s biggest shows.
I don’t really watch TV.
Now, I know that’s not much of a surprising thing to say given the immense popularity of streaming these days, but I truly have never been much of a TV watcher. Even today, it takes a really good show complemented by some great snacks for me to voluntarily spend precious hours of my ever-so-fleeting life sitting in front of a screen watching a fictitious plot that has little to no bearing on the real world.
To avoid you, dear reader, from thinking I am suffering from some abject existential crisis, I would like to comment that “The Office” is indeed a show that has had significant effects on American culture. On my university campus, I come across multiple students a week that have meme stickers of “Prison Mike” plastered onto their laptops or Hydroflasks. References to the show’s classic “That’s what she said” joke abound even in comedic bits today. Needless to say, “The Office” is a pretty big deal; so, I, too, have spent a great deal of time watching it.
When Shea Serrano, author of New York Times Bestsellers “The Rap Year Book” and “Basketball and Movies,” released a supposedly limited time pdf file of “Conference Room,” fans of his work and “The Office” were downloading it as if it were digitized food rations—and after indulging in it myself, I can see why.
Serrano commences his series of ten essays in an irreverent way that may very well render him irreconcilable to God (it’s pretty hilarious). After submitting to the reader through the voice of God that their family and friends may go to heaven if the reader performs some sort of action, Serrano leaves his audience in suspense. “What is this action that I must perform to gain my friends’ eternal life?” the reader is prompted to ask.
God takes a while to finish his query, leaving the reader in awful suspense. After the audience stresses over the possibilities of what God may propose, he simply says, “ … or you can shove it up your butt.”
Serrano proceeds to break the fourth wall via a subtle footnote, calling his audience out for desiring some sort of introduction when the book’s title and subtitle should suffice to inform them.
From this blunt start, readers know what kind of work they are getting themselves into.
Plot Summary
Though I have watched much of “The Office,” some of the episodes are archived somewhere deep inside my brain, so I don’t remember a lot of the scenes depicted in the book. However, Serrano’s writing helps readers who have not watched the series in years understand the given scene he is writing on.
For instance, in the second essay, Serrano provides exposition for the whole bit of the episode (an episode that was not even titled “Prison Mike” but is instead colloquially called that).
“Early on in the Prison Mike episode of the Office, Michael, Pam, Angela, and Kevin are on a conference call with Jan. Or, rather: Did you know that the Prison Mike episode of The Office isn’t even titled ‘Prison Mike’? It’s actually titled ‘The Convict.’ In the episode prior, the Scranton branch received six new employees because the Dundler Mifflin branch in Stamford, CT was shut down,” he writes.
Though a relatively simple explanation, this manner of introduction frames the context of the episode well, permitting Serrano to then analyze it with his whimsical tone.
Humor
This series of essays is pretty hilarious—just like the show it covers.
“Welcome to Dwight Club,” Serrano states at beginning of his fourth essay, “Dwight Club.”
“The first rule of Dwight Club is: You do not talk about Dwight Club. The second rule of Dwight Club is: You do not. Talk. About. Dwight Club.”
The repetition of his writing mimics the humor of the show’s lovable yet annoying character, Dwight Kurt Schrute III, who is briefly found at the center of attention in other essays such as “Meeting 8: Pam Has an Art Show.”
Elsewhere, Serrano writes about Jim Halpert’s odd attractiveness as a man. “I’m so confident in declaring that Jim is hot,” he sanctimoniously asserts. Apparently, John Krasinski is the type of man other men look at and just go, “YES. HOT. DEFINITELY.”
While I cannot concur with his opinion, I can say that Serrano conveys his point effectively.
Overall Thoughts
Should you give this collection a read? Yes. I think you should.
As a matter of fact, I will go so far as to say that if you are even a tangential “Office” admirer you would do yourself a great favor by downloading Serrano’s free pdf. It can’t hurt you much. Unless, of course, you’d rather spend a few hours of your precious life doing something other than reading about a fictional show.
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