In my humble opinion, NBC’s The Office is the world’s #1 employment law training aid.  All you have to do is (1) watch it and (2) do the exact opposite of everything you see.

To help enhance your viewing experience, each week I provide a critique of the action from an employment lawyer’s perspective.  Here’s this week’s review . . .

Episode Title:  ”Customer Survey”

The Plot:  Dwight and Jim suspect a conspiracy when their annual customer survey results are shockingly low.

My Analysis:

1. Issue:  Defamation Suit #1
   Description:  To retaliate against Dwight and Jim for blowing off her party, Kelly alters their client survey results to make them look bad.  Those false results are then reported to Michael and blabbed throughout the office (and probably externally), potentially harming Dwight’s and Jim’s reputations.  Rather than take appropriate disciplinary action against Kelly, Michael completely lets her off the hook.
   Risk:  $$$
2. Issue:  Defamation Suit #2 (and Emotional Distress)
   Description:  Michael tells all the employees that he and former HR Rep Holly are engaged when in fact she dumped him.  Untruthful public statements about being romantically linked in any way to Michael Scott could obviously cause severe and perhaps irreparable reputational and emotional damage.
   Risk:  $$$
3. Issue:  Workplace Violence
   Description:  Dwight punches Michael (hard) and threatens (creepily) to “find and punish” the suspected survey saboteur.  After the identify of the saboteur is revealed, Dwight does a celebratory mid-air karate kick, barely missing Phyllis’ face.  In addition, management continues its pattern of attempting to incite violence-prone Andy to snap.  Jim intentionally drinks out of Andy’s coffee mug and Dwight continues his evil plan to sabotage Andy’s wedding to Angela (Dwight’s former flame).  Coupled with all the prior incidents that went unaddressed, the potential risk in this area continues to climb.
   Risk:  $$$
4. Issue:  Harassment
   Description:  As indicated above, Michael’s relationship with HR Rep Holly finally appears to be 100% over.  While it seems unlikely that Holly will sue, the fact that the company chose to relocate her rather than Michael could provide a solid foundation for a suit.  Moreover, virtually every employee makes an inappropriate sexual, racial or gender-based comment.  While stray comments by themselves typically are not enough to state a claim, the sheer volume of comments plus the fact that management ignores/encourages them could fuel several potential employee claims.
   Risk:  $$$$
5. Issue:  Excessive Personal Time
   Description:  As in prior weeks, lots of employees spend lots of time doing everything but working.  Jim spends the entire day on a personal call with Pam.  Dwight holds a meeting for his bed and breakfast business in the conference room.  Andy and Angela continue to plan their wedding on company time.  Each is a violation of company policy.  If management does nothing, it could face a disparate treatment suit if it attempts to enforce the policy in the future.
   Risk:  $$

As always, anyone who spots an employment law issue I missed will be entitled to a valuable prize.  If you think I missed something, either leave a comment below or shoot me an e-mail at blawg@manpower.com.

If you missed the episode, you can view it on NBC’s official web site here.

Join us next week for our lawyerly look at Episode #7, entitled “Business Trip,” in which Michael takes Andy and Oscar on a business trip to Canada.  Should be fun.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 7th, 2008 at 11:21 am and is filed under Office, The, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.