〔𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 ; 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘦𝘯〕
〔𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴.〕
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TODAY'S THE DAY. Five new employees and one familiar employee were going to have their first day as employees for Dunder Mifflin Scranton.
Willow buzzed with excitement at the prospect of the new day. Since she heard the news about the Stamford branch closing down, her recent negative demeanor turned more cheerful at the idea of her brother finally coming back to work and not having to solely rely on phone calls and texting to communicate with each other. Sure, she was grateful that she had the capability to communicate easily, but nothing beats being with people in person.
Michael asked the Scranton employees to come in a half hour early so everyone could greet the new employees and prepare for a (to quote Michael) "orienta-feast." Whatever that means.
Willow entered the office and said a quick hello to Pam and Michael.
"Oh, Willow! Wanna see what the Party Planning Committee arranged for the newcomers?" Michael exclaimed.
"Okay!" the brunette replied as she placed her purse onto her desk. She followed Michael in the conference room, where the table was decked out with a plethora of fancy foods and champagne. She saw Phyllis placing down mini plates and plastic cutlery and Angela straightening out the blue table cloth.
"Very nice." Willow commented.
"Willow, get that banner off the floor for me." Angela asked, quite stern.
'Don't talk to me like that.' Willow thought as she handed the blonde the folded banner. She gave a small smile to Phyllis before exiting the conference room.
♡
Nine o'clock rolled around before Willow knew it. Slowly, in addition to her familiar coworkers, new people came in, with Michael presenting them with cute little goodie bags filled with supplies. So far, Willow met a Hannah Smoterich-Barr and a Tony Gardener. She was eager to see her brother come through the door.
Willow rose from her desk and walked over to the kitchen to make herself her second cup of coffee. Her stomach churned with excitement and nervousness in anticipation for what was to happen. Without realizing, she chugged the entire cup of coffee while staring out of the blinds. She placed her mug into the sink and washed it.
When finished with the mug, Willow looked out and saw Pam engaged in conversation with none other than Jim Halpert.
Running out of the kitchen, Willow called to her brother and engulfed him into her arms.
"Hi!" she squealed. Jim embraced the hug, overjoyed to see both her and Pam again.
"Hi!" he responded. The siblings broke the hug, an enormous smile present on Willow's face.
"I'm so glad my favorite duo's finally back together!" Willow brought Jim and Pam together into a group hug. Jim walked over to his old desk and began putting his stuff down.
'Shit, I should have told him Ryan's sitting there now. Whatever.' Willow thought to herself.
"Well, well, well. Look what the cat dragged in from Stamford." Dwight sneered as he went over to the siblings.
"Hey, Dwight." Jim responded.
"Fact: I am older. I am wiser. Do not mess with me."
"Okay, sounds good." Jim proceeded to look up at Dwight's forehead, a faux scared expression present on his face. Willow smirked to herself, glad things were slowly getting back to normal.
"What are you doing?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." Jim responded as he continued to look at Dwight's forehead.
"I have a smudge on my forehead?"
"No. Looks good."
"Why are you looking at my forehead?"
"I'm not."
"Meet my eye line, Jim! Stop acting like an idiot!" Dwight scolded. He began slowly walking away before tripping over something on the ground. Willow let out a giggle as she began her work.
"Hey buddy, welcome back." Willow looked over and saw Ryan putting his stuff at the desk.
"Hey! How are you man? Good to see you." Jim responded.
"I'm good, how are you? So..."
"Oh, I'm sorry. Are you sitting here now?"
"Yeah. Unless you really, really want it back."
"You know what, man? Yeah. I'd like the desk back."
"Oh, okay. Um... I'll go ask Michael for another desk." Ryan took his stuff back and walked into Michael's office. Jim let out a sigh and sat back at his desk.
"Great to have you back." Willow said.
"Good to be back." Jim responded as the siblings high-fived.
♡
While Willow worked on a couple of expense reports, one of the new employees walked over to the desk clump.
"Yo, Tuna. Lovin' the new office." Willow immediately recognized the man who Jim has consistently complained about over the phone; Andy Bernard.
"Uh huh." Jim responded. Willow looked up at the men and made a perplexed expression to herself. She felt Andy look over at her, a weird feeling of unpleasantness washing over her.
"And who is this lovely lady sitting over here?" Andy asked, walking over to Willow's desk. Willow looked up from her expense report and gave him a slight smile.
"Uh, I'm Willow Halpert, Jim's sister." she responded, holding her hand out for him to shake. Instead, he lifted it and placed a small kiss on top of it. The gesture made Willow's skin crawl. Little did she know, across from her, Dwight was staring absolute daggers at Andy.
"No way, Tuna! That's your sister? Anyways, I'm Andy. But you can call me 'Nard Dog.' And your brother's Big Tuna."
"I can see that." Willow took her hand away and discretely wiped it on her skirt. She gave Jim a look, aware of how much he despised the nickname.
"Well, it was an absolute pleasure to meet you, Willow. Or should I say, Little Tuna?"
"Um, you too, Andy. See you 'round." Andy walked back over to his desk. Willow looked over at Dwight, who was angrily working on his expense reports. Raising an eyebrow, Willow wondered to herself if Dwight was... jealous? When he was in a relationship? Smiling to herself, Willow saw this as an opportunity to mess with him and 'get back' at him for rejecting her.
♡
Michael called everyone into the conference room for the new employees' orientation. Willow noticed that the table was decked out with different bottles of champagne, smoked salmon and other foods and plastic utensils. He consistently scolded the Scranton employees not to eat the food, as it was for the Stamford employees.
Willow followed Jim inside the conference room and sat in between him and Dwight. She gave a small wave to Karen Fillipelli, whom she met earlier in the day. She introduced herself to Martin Nash and turned to face Michael.
"Okay. Do not worry. All of your questions are about to be answered. Cell phones and pagers off, please." Michael announced.
"Oh, this looks promising." Jim quipped.
"You won't be disappointed." Pam replied. Willow laughed a bit, unaware of what Michael was about to do.
"Let's face it. Moving to a new job can be very stressful. So I have made an orientation video especially for you newcomers. But it's not like any orientation video that any of you have ever seen. It's funny. It's got a little bit of a zing to it and I hope that it gives you a flavor of what we're all about here at Dunder Mifflin. And what we're all about here in Scranton. So let's just all laugh together and watch... 'Lazy Scranton.'" Michael turned on the TV in the center of the conference room.
The screen displayed Michael in a gray beanie. Rapping. "Sittin' in my office with a plate of grilled bacon, call my man Dwight just to see what was shakin'!"
The video cut to Dwight in an orange beanie. Rapping as well. "Yo Mike, our town is dope and pretty."
"So check out how we live,"
"In the Electric City!"
Willow's jaw dropped at the sight in front of her. She had no thoughts, no quips or any comments. She was just in awe of how strange this video was. Dwight looked cute in his beanie, but otherwise, no comments.
♡
"I have no words. It's not as bizarre as the one he showed me on my first day; which was centered around the movie Jumanji." Willow said.
♡
The video continued, consisting basically of awkward rapping and the constant loop of the instrumental version of Lonely Island's Lazy Sunday, which this was based on. Willow felt as if she was staring at a car crash, she couldn't look away.
Eventually, the video (finally) ended. The conference room erupted in minimal applause as Michael ejected the tape from the TV.
"Thank you! Wasn't that lovely? Thank you for attending our orientation. Now, back to work!" Michael announced. Everyone stood and began making their way out of the conference room.
"That was a fantastic waste of time." Willow heard Karen whisper to Jim.
"Welcome to Scranton." Willow replied.
♡
Willow sat back at her desk, letting out a sigh. She reached to pick up her phone to make some cold calls before she saw Andy sauntering to her desk. Glancing over at Dwight, who was already sort of scowling, she fixed her hair a bit.
"Heeey, Willow. How goes it?" Andy awkwardly asked the woman.
"I'm alright, Andy. You alright?"
"Yeah. Can I just say, you look really pretty today."
"Oh, thank you." Willow smiled and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. She saw him look over at Dwight before returning to his desk to talk to Angela.
Dwight was staring daggers at the perky male while Jim looked over at his sister, quite confused. Willow looked over at Jim, saying a quick "what?" before returning to her work.
♡
"I never knew Andy was gonna flirt with my sister today." Jim shrugged as he made his signature face to the camera.
♡
"Yes, I disapprove of Andy's inappropriate behavior toward Willow Halpert." Dwight scowled.
♡
"I'm just playing along with him. To be honest, I'm not interested in him at all. I just like messing with people every now and again." Willow smirked.
♡
Throughout the day, many of the Scranton and Stamford employees have had some petty quarrels with each other, much to Michael's dismay. So, he called everyone in for the second conference room meeting of the day, much to Willow's dismay.
The chaos of the meeting began with Andy and Michael singing Haddaway's What is Love while jumping around with Tony in between them. Willow face-palmed at the sight, feeling incredibly bad for Tony.
Next, Michael moved the conference room table and had Karen, Andy, Martin and Hannah sit on chairs atop said table.
"Why are the new people on the table? To show them that we are not above them." Michael announced.
"Shouldn't we be equals?" Karen interjected.
"Not today, no. Tony! Please join your cohorts on the table if you would." Michael looked over to Tony, who already looked visibly uncomfortable.
"Uh, this is difficult for me." Tony answered.
"I understand, we're all friends.
"No, I mean I can't physically. I can't get on the table."
"Oh, well. Just use the momentum of your lower half to hoist yourself up."
Tony began attempting to get onto the table, which Michael responded to by recruiting Dwight to try and help him up. Willow had to cover her eyes as the scene unfolded in front of everyone. Michael and Dwight ignored Tony's consistent cries for them to stop as the continued to try to help him.
"I've had enough! Put me down right now or else!" Tony screamed.
"Whoa Whoa Whoa! Okay, easy." Michael said.
"I'm sorry! It's just not going to work for me. I have to go."
"I don't understand."
"I was on the fence about this and it's just not a good fit."
"Well, we'll squeeze you in."
"I can't work here. I have to quit."
There was a pause while Michael tried to process Tony's statement. Willow silently sympathized with Tony as the chaos continued to unfold.
"You can't quit! On the first day. That's... heresy, my friend! Okay, let's talk about this. What happened? I mean, was it Toby? Did he say something? Cause he's..."
"No. Toby was helpful. He was very kind. It's just your management style."
"My management style? So... didn't you think 'Lazy Scranton' was funny?"
"No. Was it supposed to be funny?"
'Fair.' Willow thought to herself.
"Okay. Well, don't bother quitting because you're fired."
"Excuse me?"
"You are fired! I'm sorry, but we don't have quitters on this team! Just clean out your desk!"
"I can't take this anymore." Willow muttered as she exited the conference room and sat back at her desk.
♡
The end of the day could not come any slower for Willow. From Michael staging a "rouse" for everyone to "band together" and "defeat Vance Refrigeration" to even more vexatious flirting from Andy, she was grateful to be invited by Jim and Karen to come to Poor Richard's with them.
As much as Karen was nice and shared similar humor to her and Jim, the fact that Jim was seeing her sort of rubbed Willow the wrong way. Aware of Pam's feelings for her brother, all Willow had to do was pretend to be happy for them.
And with Dwight, she was happy to mess with him by pretending to flirt with Andy. But little did she know, he was actually gaining feelings for her.