Michael's compulsive need to give people good news has led him to make a promise to pay the college tuition for a group of third-graders if they graduate from high school. This is bad enough, but the even worse news is that that was ten years ago, and now it's their senior year. So Michael has to go to the school and confess it's not going to happen. It's painful and embarrassing and he ends up footing the bill for one kid's books, in a painful and embarrassing way. But at least he learns that his promise, empty though it was, helped raise the graduation rate. And this in turn helps him appreciate Erin, who apparently he's been hating for a while, unbeknownst to anyone.
Meanwhile, back at the office, Dwight's latest scheme to sabotage Jim is an Employee of the Month program, which Dwight engineers to recognize first Jim and then Pam, triggering a rebellion. It fails to get Jim fired, but it's not a total loss; Dwight ends up scoring a silent partner in his diabolical plan: Ryan Howard. Okay, so it's a total loss. [Still, it's only a matter of time before Toby makes it a trio. An awesome, inept trio. - Zach]
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Michael calls Andy into his office to take him to task for his reported pattern of lapsing into baby-talk around the office. Andy protests at first, but then turns it around by saying that some people think Michael's Elvis voice is equally annoying. Not Andy, though, who thinks it's great. "Thank you," Michael drawls in an Elvis voice that makes a liar of Andy. "Thank you a lot." He even returns the compliment with regard to Andy's baby voice. "Thank you, Mistew Ewvis," Andy baby-talks. "You're welcome, behbeh," Michael Elvises. And they didn't even need Toby.
On a different day (you can tell because Andy's wearing a different preppie outfit), Andy bursts into Jim's office to dramatically report that the whole office has a case of the Mondays, calling for an immediate morale transplant. Andy's idea? Employee of the Month. "Every awesome place I've worked had one," he tells Jim, and than talking-heads, "Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, AIG, my summer at Enron." Jim says that's not such a bad idea.
Michael has Erin cleaning out his e-mail, and they're both learning something. She's learning that "sent mail" shows what mail has been sent, and he's "learning" that "hackers" have been sending him a lot of "nip slip" alerts. Jim enters, and Michael asks if Jim would still want to be his friend if he did the worst thing ever. "Did you murder someone?" Jim asks. Michael says it's worse than that, and rudely dismisses Erin when she gasps in horror. "I miss Pam," Michael complains. Jim floats the employee of the month idea, and Michael seems to only like the idea inasmuch as he would be eligible for it. Which Jim says neither of them would be, what with being co-managers and all.
In the elevator lobby, Andy and Dwight high-five about what is actually Dwight's idea taking flight. "I just need Andy to think it's his idea so it won't get traced back to me," Dwight THs. "In approximately six hours, Jim will get a phone call from David Wallace. He will be fired."
A much larger Pam is asked by Erin to look over an itinerary by Erin. Michael comes in, asking for more inbox help, and Phyllis, looking over Pam's shoulder, asks, "What's Scott's Tots?" Behind them, Stanley cracks up. "Has it really been ten years?" he asks, and in a TH, holds up a news article with the headline, "Local Businessman Pledges College Tuition to Third Graders." The "local businessman" being Michael. Byline: Randy Shemanski, who either actually exists or the prop department has gone even more above and beyond than they did in mocking up this slightly yellowed ten-year-old news article. Sample paragraph:"Scott's Tot's' [sic] may have been started impulsively, but Scott doesn't regret it. "Just seeing the sunshine spurting out of those kids' and parents' faces," he said, "is enough for me to keep the program going for years. I bet if colleges saw that, they'd let them in for free. Hmm, maybe I should make some phone calls."
There's also a photo of a younger Michael surrounded by a small group of happy young "urban" faces. I bet they partied like it was 1999. Stanley continues cackling.
Back in the break room, Pam asks Michael why he made such a promise. He tries to cancel, but Erin points out they've already rescheduled seven times. Pam's opinion of this situation uses the word "terrible" four times, and she says it'll get worse the longer he puts it off. Michael THs about the promise he made ten years ago to pay college tuition for the kids if they graduated from high school, and shows off some homemade thank-you cards they sent him. "I've made some empty promises in my life, but hands-down that was the most generous," he says. In the break room, Michael asks Pam to lie to him and say it'll be all right, but she refuses. In fact she might be about to hit him again. Michael still wants her to come along instead of Erin, who he suddenly hates this week for no reason. Pam refuses. Michael doesn't hate Pam right now, also for no reason.
Dwight boisterously greets Jim in the break room and compliments him on his beard potential and laugh. Jim, openly creeped out, starts to leave, but Dwight warns him that everyone will be sucking up to him over the Employee of the Month program. He gives Jim a scoring spreadsheet he's put together, with employees listed by number instead of name so it can be anonymous and impartial, and offers to have Toby and Accounting fill stuff in. But Jim says he'll do it himself. Just as Dwight's evil smirk tells us he planned. Oh, Jim. well, at least he didn't agree to Dwight's suggestion to include a cash prize, other than saying it would be nice in an ideal world.
Erin and Michael are walking down the hallway of the school, Erin pulling Michael's giant rolling suitcase-trunk, when they are greeted by a young woman in a Scott's Tots t-shirt, who Michael remembers well. After they pass a plaque on the wall marking a door as "The Michael Gary Scott Reading Room," she leads him on to a classroom, and when they enter, it's full of clapping and cheering students and parents, who start chanting, "Mister Scott! Mister Scott!" Michael walks in like it's his execution. At least he has his trunk, which I think is the same one he brought on his speaking tour. Which is good, because he might need that chainsaw pretty soon.
After the ads, Michael's in one of the classroom desks, surrounded by the kids, as the principal kicks off the festivities from the front of the room. "I know you're a busy man, and your schedule moves around a lot," he says, but the kids wanted to thank him. A bunch of them go into a big hip-hop dance-rap number in his honor. The chorus goes, "Hey, Mr. Scott, what'cha gonna do? What'cha gonna do to make our dreams come true?" What, indeed. Clearly they know that their target audience loves altered song lyrics.
Dwight approaches Kevin with a Kleenex box, saying Jim wanted everyone to kick in $20 for the Employee of the Month thing. Kevin hands a bill right over, once he thinks he has a chance of winning. So does Oscar, without even listening to the pitch. "Five minutes ahead of schedule," Dwight THs smugly. "Right on schedule."
People are taking turns giving speeches about Michael's generosity, and he's getting quite choked up about it, while Erin smiles and claps like it's all real.
Jim announces the Employee of the Month, and according to his spreadsheet, it's "Employee Number Nine." He asks Andy to translate that into a name. Guess what: It's Jim! General consternation. Jim stammers (and Kevin mocks him for it), explaining that he gave it to the anonymous person with the highest score. Angela protests about Jim giving himself a vacation day, his own parking spot, and "a quarter of a thousand dollars." Jim says he's not taking any of it, plus there's no cash prize. Jim asks Dwight to back him up on that, and Dwight reminds Jim that he said in a perfect world there would be. "But in your perfect world, only you get money," Phyllis complains. This is working too well.
The principal calls Michael up to the front of the room to make his speech, and he begins honestly enough, saying he'll never forget today. He asks for a show of hands for whether people have ever made a mistake, and is just about to share his own when suddenly the bell rings. The principal tells him it's a double period, so he's not saved. Michael begins talking about how tuition is valuable, but intuition is even more valuable. "That is the ability to know when something is about to happen." He asks if anyone has that, and going by their expressions, some of them might be starting to. But still he has to spell it out. Calling out more of the Tots' names, he bumps into one who's actually Michaela's younger brother, Zion. Michael jokes that he won't be paying Zion's tuition, and actually gets a laugh. "Which brings me to my main point, and that is that I will not be able to pay for anybody's tuition. I'm so, so sorry." This is met with stony silence. But not for long.
Eventually, he calms them down, saying he expected to be a millionaire by the time he was thirty, and then by the time he was forty, even though he now has less money than he did when he was thirty. "Maybe by my fifties, I don't know." He says it was his dream to pay for their educations, as opposed to other people's selfish, evil, or wet dreams. "You owe this to is," one kid says. Michel tells them to hold on, and Erin takes her cue, rolling out the big suitcase. Michael starts talking about online courses and laptop computers, and they might almost be about to not kill him, but all he has for them is laptop batteries. "Hold on, they're lithium!" Michael says as they protest.
Back at the office, Jim promises to fix the Employee of the Month mistake. "This was your idea anyway," he says gracelessly to Dwight. Andy claims the credit. "My idea," Dwight whispering heads. Back in the bullpen, Creed interject, "Guys, I'm starting to think Pam's not even pregnant" Pam and her maternity dress stand up and suggest Jim pick the highest score. Which turns out to be, as Andy announces, "Son of a bitch -- Pam Halpert." Pam's excited for about half a second, while everyone else wonders what's going on. Pam blows her own horn a bit, saying she doubled her sales last month. "From what, two to four?" Andy asks sarcastically. "Yup," Pam says in the shortest TH ever. Jim is just telling everyone this isn't an elaborate scam (because he somehow hasn't figured out that it is an elaborate scam, just perpetrated by someone else) when a delivery guy comes in with a cake that has a giant photo of Jim on it, and the caption, "It could only be you," like Jim knew all along. Everyone protests some more, except Kelly, who can be heard saying, "I'm gonna have some cake."
From the warehouse, Dwight calls Corporate and leaves David Wallace a bunch of messages in the voices of Kevin, Stanley, and Toby, which is pretty much the high point of the episode. "Tell him I'm mad at Jim, 'cause he's asking us to give money to Payum," says Dwight's version of Kevin.
Erin and Michael have at least escaped the school. But on the front steps, one of the kids catches up with him, and Michael sends Erin on ahead with the trunk. The kid is pretty calm, but wonders who does what Michael did. Michael offers him an extra laptop battery, and then offers to cover the cost of the kid's books if he can pay his own tuition. The kid says that's going to be a thousand dollars a year. Looking pained, Michael writes him four checks for a thousand dollars each, dated a year apart.
Jim gets a call from Wallace, just as Dwight planned. "Jim, what the hell is happening there?" Wallace demands. Jim quickly gets up to close his door and tries to handle this, but Wallace already has the picture that Dwight wants him to have: "You start employee of the month, give it to yourself. When people complain, you give it to your wife. Am I missing something?" Of course he is, and so is Jim, because getting promoted turns you into an idiot. Jim says he doesn't know how it happened. "I know how it happened," Dwight THs, as though he's heard the conversation. Oh, but it turns out he has. We see him retrieve his recording pen from Jim's desk and play it back, and in the rest of the call, Wallace continues chewing Jim out. Jim apologizes, and Wallace apologizes in turn, saying he's taking out his stress on Jim. "You know I think you're doing a great job, right?" Wallace asks. Jim does, and confirms their dinner plans for this weekend. Dwight's frustration is nearly operatic.
In the car on the way back to the office, Erin is quietly singing the song from earlier. "Hey, Mr. Scott, what'cha gonna do? What'cha gonna do to make our dreams come true?" After asking her to stop, Michael says he destroyed fifteen lives. Erin says there's always financial aid and the military. "You're what, like twelve?" Michael snaps at her. Erin absorbs that, and says that the principal told her 90% of Scott's Tots will graduate -- 35% higher than the rest of the school. She thinks that's something to think about. Michael absorbs that, and finally says she's doing a great job. I'm glad to see that he's finally gotten over this antipathy towards her that dates all the way back to the beginning of the episode. He asks her what she wants out of this job, and she says she's always wondered about being an accountant but is terrible at math. Apropos of everything, Michael brings up Kevin, revealing that when he hired him, Kevin was actually applying in the warehouse. But Michael had a feeling about him, and now he has a similar feeling about Erin. Of course he does. So now they both sing the Mister Scott song.
Tag: Jim and Pam leave for the day, Jim saying, "See you tomorrow, Dwight. "Apparently," Dwight growls. Ryan comes up to Dwight, saying, "I know about your diabolical plan." Dwight plays innocent, but then Ryan holds up a copy of a multi-page document with the cover reading "My Diabolical Plan by Dwight K. Schrute" that he found in the copier. He wants in on it. They shake hands. This can't be good.
M. Giant is a Minneapolis-based writer with a wife, a son, and a number of cats that seems to have settled at around two. Learn waaaay too much about him at Velcrometer, follow him on Twitter , or just e-mail him at m.giant[at]gmail.com.