Times Michael Scott Surprised Us With His Genius
For seven seasons, Michael Scott (Steve Carell) was the lovable idiot manager of Dunder Mifflin’s Scranton branch on the NBC smash The Office. He had an uncanny ability to make any situation about himself, while also being one of the business’s biggest empaths, who supported all of his employees at various times throughout the seasons. He was an idiot not because he was dumb or lacked intelligence, but because of his crazy, wild antics that left everyone scratching their heads.
Continually undervalued by his superiors — and many of his subordinates — Michael’s “genius” was often overlooked not just by his colleagues, but even a viewer or two. Sure, he had some truly stupid moments that we can’t forget, including raiding the Utica office and breaking their industrial copier, trying to frame Toby Flenderson (Paul Lieberstein) with marijuana (which just turned out to be Caprese salad), and holding a pizza delivery driver hostage in the office.
His insanely ridiculous moments definitely overshadow his smarter ones, but they shouldn’t be counted out. There were many times when Michael was actually the smartest person in the room, and times when his wisdom outshone all those around him.
Michael Scott cleans up Jim Halpert’s mess in the pilot
The first scene in the pilot episode of The Office gives us many different viewpoints of Michael. We see his cocky idiocy, his bizarre leadership style, and his incredible ability to sell all within the first few minutes of the series. How great Michael is at sales should have been evident to the viewers from the second they saw Season 1, Episode 1. It begins with him sitting down with Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) in his office. Michael asks Jim if he was able to close the library account, to which the latter admits he just wasn’t able to seal the deal.
Michael picks up the phone, and within minutes the library is now a client of Dunder Mifflin. We all know Jim isn’t passionate about his job, but he’s proven to be a good salesman, so the fact that he couldn’t close this account but his boss could says a lot about Michael’s techniques. Unfortunately, we viewers were not privy to the entire conversation Michael had on the phone with the rep from the library, as we only caught the tail end when he mistook the woman he was speaking with for a man. It might have been the first, but it also wasn’t the last time Michael had to come in and save Jim’s behind on a sale.
He worked a potential customer like a pro in “The Client”
In Season 2, Episode 7 (“The Client”), we were treated to one of the greatest scenes filmed outside of the office in the entire series. Michael and Jen Levinson (Melora Hardin) team up to try and close a deal with a rep from Lackawanna County, meaning they would be the paper supplier to all the government businesses within the county. Jan decided to join Michael given how high the stakes were, and she found herself being undercut by him throughout the entire evening.
