Actions

Work Header

Rating:
Archive Warning:
Category:
Fandom:
Character:
Language:
English
Stats:
Published:
2010-04-22
Words:
439
Chapters:
1/1
Kudos:
29
Bookmarks:
4
Hits:
599

If You Were Gone

Summary:

So many things in his life would be better if Michael were stuck at home in a full body cast.

Work Text:

Hope had never treated Toby particularly well.

Hope led to him buying a new surfboard the day he found out about the branch closing. Hope had left him sitting by the phone every night for weeks after his divorce. Hope made him buy play tickets for a date he hoped to ask Pam out on the day before she got back together with Roy.

Hope had flared brightly when he saw the inflatable castle where Michael planned to jump.

It wasn't that Toby wanted Michael dead. That would have been a cruel and immoral thing to wish for. It was more that Toby wanted Michael to have a serious and career ending injury. He wasn't particularly proud of that impulse, it was just that so many things in his life would be better if Michael were stuck at home in a full body cast.

They'd need to find a new branch manager and Toby might even have some say in it as the branch's HR representative. Even if he didn't have any say, a new manager would improve his quality of life exponentially.

A new branch manager would probably let Toby move to a new desk, or at least move either Kelly or Ryan so that Toby wouldn't have to listen to them endlessly fighting and then making up. A new manager would probably let Toby give policy refresher talks without running commentary and intense criticism. A new manager would probably be able to refrain from listing all of Toby's failings as a person and an employee before Toby had even had his first cup of coffee.

A new manager would probably be less offensive than Michael which would dramatically reduce Toby's workload. Gone would be the daily strategy sessions with the corporate head of HR about how to deal with Michael's horrifying offensiveness. Gone would be the endless hours of documenting everything Michael said to or about Oscar, Kelly, Stanley, Angela, Pam, Karen and Phyllis in case such notes were required in a lawsuit. The amount of time and paper saved would be immense.

Toby let himself hope, for just a moment, that Michael would be out of his life and that hope had been brutally crushed when Darryl successfully talked Michael down from the ledge. He was morose for the next few days.

The thing that finally pulled him out of his funk was the thought of how much paperwork would have been involved if Michael had actually jumped. Not to mention the fact that the inevitable PTSD for at least some of the staff would have been a nightmare to navigate with their sub-par health plan.