Rainn Wilson (Dwight) has been all over the place lately promoting his new movie and the new season of The Office. One of his more interesting appearances in the media was a Business Week article in which he was interviewed about “office jobs from hell.” It was interesting to learn that Rainn used to work at an insurance broker’s office and as an assistant to the assistant special events coordinator at a charity before becoming famous.

Rainn talked about the cruelty of fluorescent lights (suggesting that we send prisoners of war to a 60-hour workweek at an insurance company in Omaha) and a particularly “toxic” boss he had. Oddly, Rainn raised a good point, not about bear attacks like his alter ego Dwight would do, but about the dangers of a poisonous environment at work.

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There is no question that Michael Scott wants all his employees at The Office to like him. He even fessed up to it in the episode where he hit Meredith with his car. Well, sort of — Michael said, “I enjoy being liked. I have to be liked. But it’s not like this compulsive need to be liked. Like my need to be praised.”

The problem with this character trait in the workplace is that it can lead to favoritism, inequitable treatment, and in Michael’s case, just bad decision-making. Whether he’s wanting to hang out with the cool kids or stopping work altogether so the office can do any number of nonwork-related activities (the fun run, the basketball game, the Survivor games, etc.), Michael is always getting into trouble because of his need to be liked.

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The world is fully in Olympics mode, including our friends in Scranton, who are surely reliving their own Games of the First Dunder-Mifflin Olympiad.

In the episode from the second season, Jim and Pam entertain themselves (while Dwight and Michael are away buying Michael’s condo) by throwing objects into Dwight’s coffee mug. They discover that others around the office have their own games, and the Dunder-Mifflin Olympiad is born.

Not surprisingly, this episode was based on the writers’ personal experience. Surely, we’ve all participated in our own office games of some sort, although hopefully we haven’t played a lot of Oscar’s and Kevin’s “hateball” (or Kevin’s “who can put the most M&Ms in their mouth” game, for totally different reasons, of course). And this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

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Much like I wondered whether Santa was real as a kid, I often wonder if there is a real-life Michael Scott out there somewhere. This week, I think that I found the answer!

When sales took a slump for a Provo, Utah, company, a supervisor came up with the idea of “waterboarding” one of the salespeople to motivate the workforce. The supervisor — let’s just call him “Real-Life Michael” — had coworkers hold an employee down. Then, Real-Life Michael poured a gallon of water over the salesperson’s head and face. Real-Life Michael then told his workers that they should work as hard at making sales as their tortured coworker did at trying to breathe. It is Michael!

Of course, unlike in Scranton — where I don’t think they have a courthouse — the employee filed a lawsuit against the company. He is going to make some money.

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