Jim Halpert is a Sociopath

When the American version of The Office aired in March, 2005, the employees of Dunder Miffin Paper Company spent much of the first season trying to find out who they really were inside and out. Bad haircuts, unreasonable fashion choices, meaningless changes in job title and responsibility. This ongoing existential crisis, grappling with your career and what you thought you’d be vs who you are undeniably becoming, swimming for your life against the tide in a sea of beige tinted small talk is perhaps the only realistic thing about cubicle life that The Office gets correct.

Think about Day One Michael Scott. Slicked back hair. Itty bitty jeans. He used to be a piece of shit. Two little kids in a trench coat attempting to be Ricky Gervais before the show runners decided, correctly, to ease up on the imitation and lean more into Scott being a lovable idiot. Audiences reacted accordingly. It’s hard to imagine The Office being as successful if Michael Scott never went through a reorg.

Meredith was a sentient cone of vanilla ice cream in accounting before she became a sex and alcohol addict in supply chain management. Meredith’s character arc most closely resembles what happens to most people who spend more than two-three years in that kind of setting. Well-written, actually.

Jan, like Meredith, was initially professional, composed, no-nonsense before falling completely off the rails and entering a toxic romantic relationship with a direct report. This too, happens more than you may think.

Jim Halpert though. Jim Halpert had no character arc to speak of. A straight line. Point A: Jerk. Point B: Jerk. Let me explain something to those of you who have been lucky enough to avoid working in an office. Not a corner office. Not a We-Work where the Clif Bars are free and the cool kids meet for Hard Kombuchas when the clock strikes 4:30 (“Rounding up, I’d say it’s 5pm!” “That’s five by me!” Couple of Shaka hand signals and we’ll do it all again tomorrow). Not a tech startup where the chairs are exercise balls and the desks are live goats. An Office-office. Bullpen style. Clocks that work but twice a day. Windows, if they exist at all, offer a glimpse of a garage that costs you $38 dollars a month to park your Corolla in. Every day is a struggle to get up, find matching socks, sit in traffic, find a spot in the paid garage, silently ride in an elevator with two people who you recognize but do not know, make a coffee with powdered milk, go to your desk, throw out yesterday’s half-empty cup of coffee from the day before that you never even touched because powdered milk, return to your desk, forget your login password, call IT, reset your password, sign in to whatever XForce or SalesWing or GTrance functionality you’re using that month, check your email, check your texts, check Instagram, close Instagram, open Instagram, close Instagram, check the time, 8 more hours to go. Once you’ve made it this far, the rest of the day is a minefield of weather related small talk (“Channel 7 says we’re getting 5–7 inches of snow tonight but Channel 5 says it’s probably just slush.” “Can you imagine if we were wrong as often as those guys? Meanwhile, I forget to format one slide correctly…”), awkward hallway exchanges, (“good morning” becomes a “you again” chuckle, a “you again “chuckle” becomes a head nod, a head nod becomes considering wearing a diaper to work so you don’t have to do it anymore), and coming up with excuses to avoid Slack-y hour on Thursday afternoons (May the best GIF win!). It’s not easy. It’s not fun. All you can do everyday is survive and advance. The only rule is: Don’t be a jerk. Don’t make it harder on anyone else. Don’t ruffle feathers. Don’t make waves. Don’t put a co-workers office supplies in a Jell-o mold and then look off to the camera like he’s the problem.

I don’t believe Jim Halpert was even written as a jerk. It seems to me that Jim Halpert was meant to be seen as a bit of a charming, roguish, ne’er-do-well who did his best to make The Office fun every day. It makes his character all the more infuriating. Let me be clear on this. If Jim Halpert existed in the real world (or even MTV’s The Real World), Jim Halpert would be stuffed inside of a locker, placed on the nearest rocket ship, and sent as quickly as possible into the nearest black hole. Ask yourself: if you were in the scuffed up old dress shoes of a real life office worker who had just sat on the interstate for 41 minutes stressing out about your upcoming 360 degree review and follow-up 1:1 with your middle manager, how would you react upon arrival if your desk was in the bathroom? Seriously. How would you feel about that? If all your belongings were placed in the office vending machine? How would your coworkers feel about not having access to snacks while you plugged away with nickels trying to get your own stuff back. It’s not just about the snacks, either. The very act of getting away from your desk to walk to the vending machine is a miniature act of defiance. Eliminate the snacks, eliminate one more way to pass the time. How would it make you feel watching him manipulate a co-worker into destroying their own cell phone? If he slapped you in the face? If he came up behind you at a Dojo and groped you against your will? If he bragged about forcing his fiance to wear a Bluetooth headset the whole time she was out of town so he could keep tabs on her? Is this your King? Is this America’s floppy haired sweetheart? Everyone is just trying to work and get home to their family and friends. Not Jim Halpert. He doesn’t care about that. He doesn’t have friends. That much is clear when the entire guest list at this wedding is just people from work, who I imagine received hilarious invitations to something they’d all individually be interested in. Crossword-Con, maybe. Beet conventions. Woodstock 2010 maybe.

Given the above, of course it’s no surprise that Jim Halpert mopped the floor with Ramona Singer in Round 1 of the Ringer’s Jerk Battle. Singer may have been a shit-stirring dinner party guest with a penchant for Pinot and Turtle Time, but at least she’s trying to get better. She might be a piece of work, sure, but now? Now she’s a work in progress. Good for her. Working on yourself is a good thing. I hope Jim Halpert is around to mess things up for her.

There’s a clear path here for Jim Halpert to win this whole thing. Next he’s running into Biff Tannen. Biff Tannen is an undeniable bully, sure, but Tannen didn’t have an easy life growing up. He comes from a family of bullies, cutthroats, gangsters, bad apples, and broken dreams. Biff could go to therapy and be OK. Biff’s a bully, but so is Jim. Ask Dwight. Or Michael. Or Roy. Or Andy. Or Pam’s parents. Or Karen. Look me in the eye and tell me exactly what Karen did. What she did was dodge a smug, arrogant bullet. Who else?

Is Ferris Bueller a jerk? Or is he a teenager? The Grinch? His heart grew three sizes in a day and he cut the roast beast. He’s reformed. Loki might be a trickster and a god of mischief and yet even with his godlike status never threw someone’s cell phone in a false ceiling panel or tore off another man’s suit, exposing his underwear to all of their co-workers. Han Solo saved the galaxy. Angelica Pickles is five. If Squidward is a jerk, what the hell does that make Sponge Bob?

Jim Halpert is the jerk. A menace. A probable sociopath. Let’s give him the attention he so desperately needs. It won’t be enough for him. He’ll just look at the camera, shake his sad little head, and let us know how stupid this all is.