Breaking Bad meets The Office.
Context: After a successful run as a drug kingpin, Walter White decides to quit while he’s ahead and relocate to Scranton, PA. In looking for a new position, he finds that the paper company Dunder Mifflin is hiring a new manager before the current one leaves for Colorado.
Walter reaches the receptionist’s desk and informs Erin he’s here for an interview. He’s dressed similarly to how he did as a high school chemistry teacher with a grey sweater over a button-down shirt.
“Perfect, you must be…” Erin checks her notes. “Mr. White?”
“Yes.”
“Great!” Erin shouts as she picks up the phone to inform her boss. “Michael, Mr. White is here for—”
“Uck, is that the old bald guy?” Michael asks. The office is quiet enough that Walter can hear every word from the phone.
“Michael, he can—”
“You should see this guy’s resume. A chemistry teacher and car wash owner. Booooooring. He doesn’t stand a chance.”
“Michael,” Erin continues to whisper. “He’s standing right in front of me. He can hear you.”
The phone clicks off and suddenly the door to Michael’s office flies open.
“Mr. White, great to have you!”
Walter reluctantly shakes his hand.
“Hope you enjoyed that phone gag, just a little something we like to do here,” Michael continues.
Walter looks over to the other workers where he makes eye contact with Jim. Jim shakes his head.
“We got you, didn’t we?” Michael continues.
“I suppose so,” Walter says through clenched teeth, knowing full well it wasn’t a joke.
Walter follows Michael into his office and takes a seat.
“So, Mr. White… can I call you Walter?”
“Mr. White is fine.”
Michael frowns.
“Gee, you must be fun at parties,” he mutters under his breath.
“Excuse me?” Walter asks, stone-faced.
“It’s just all teacher-y. But I guess you were one. Chemistry, right?”
“Yes, right up ‘til I turned 50.”
“I never really liked teachers,” Michael says. “No offense.”
“Bad experience?”
“It was really this one teacher. I remember it like it was yesterday. She pulled me over to the side and said, ‘Michael, you will never do anything in life. You’ll never find friends. You’ll never have a good job. I’ll be shocked if you even graduate high school.’”
“Yikes,” Walter says. “Was this an AP class or…”
“Oh, God no,” Michael says. “I was in second grade.”
“What?” Walter asks. “That’s horrible.”
“Yeah, well, she’d promised me I’d be line leader that day and when she didn’t let me I—actually you know what, my therapist told me I shouldn’t tell this story anymore.”
“Um… okay,” Walter says, now noticing the oddities on Michael’s desk including a faux grenade.
“Back to the questions. Where were we? Ah, right, you were a teacher and then you owned the car wash. Sort of an odd career path. What happened?”
“I, uh… well, I was diagnosed with stage 3A lung cancer. Made me rethink things.”
“Huh,” Michael says, before cracking a smile. “I mean my uncle got lung cancer back in the day and he didn’t exactly run to the nearest car wash, you know?”
Michael laughs at his own joke, while Walter forces a polite smile.
As Michael catches his breath he continues, “But he did make a lifestyle change. Gave everyone that old, ‘I’m gonna start living on my own terms’ speech and off he went.”
“Good for him.”
“Yeah well, he was arrested three hours later. Apparently set a county record for amount of crimes committed in a 45-minute window. They found him drunk in a supermarket completely naked. How embarrassing, right?”
“I couldn’t even imagine,” Walter says.
“Anyway, is running a car wash the only experience you have managing a business?”
“I also ran another, uh, small operation,” Walter says, his voice trailing off. “Just on the side. Nothing really worth talking about.”
“Oh… a covert operation, I see. Is this like a James Bond sort of secret agent thing? Because I actually created this film called Threat Level Midnight with the heroic Agent Michael Scarn and he… well I don’t want to spoil it. I got a few extra copies on DVD if you’re interested.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Oh, yeah. Sure. Fine. Great. Yeah. You don’t want to watch it, I get it.”
An awkward silence lingers.
“I mean, if you really want to give me a copy, I guess I—”
“No, no, it’s clear you have no interest,” Michael says, trying to stay calm but failing miserably. “So many big-budget movies in the world, why would you want to watch my little film? No big deal. I’m a grown adult. I can handle it. You probably think my movie’s stupid, I get it. You hate it. You hate my movie. I guess I just thought—”
“Mr. Scott, do you really want me to watch your movie? Because I’ll watch it.”
“No, I don’t want you to watch it.”
“Really? Because it seems like you kind of do.”
“No. I want you to want to watch it.”
“I want to watch it,” Walter says with fake enthusiasm.
“Great!” Michael reaches into his desk as Walter rolls his eyes.
Suddenly the door bursts open and Dwight appears.
“Michael, who is this?”
“This is Mr. White,” Michael replies. He looks at Walter who is clearly perplexed by this rude interruption. “Dwight thinks he’s already the next manager. But we’ve been over this. Several times.”
“No one knows this company better than me. Not Andy. Not Jim. And certainly not some washed-up old man from… where are you from?”
“Albuquerque,” Walter says.
“Oh, great, the hot air balloon capital of America,” Dwight says. He examines Walter further and frowns. “And by the looks of it, balloons aren’t the only things full of hot air over there.”
“That’s enough, Dwight,” Michael says. “Please go back to your desk.”
“I can’t, it’s missing. Jim said he shipped it to a Mexican cartel.”
“Jim!” Michael yells. “Get in here!”
Jim walks in and gives a slight wave to Walter.
“Enjoying yourself?” Jim asks. Walter can only bring himself to give an awkward smile before turning stone-faced once again.
“Jim,” Michael says. “Please do not send Dwight’s desk to foreign drug cartels.”
“Well, first of all, it’s down in the warehouse, not with the cartel,” Jim says, biting his lip to avoid completely cracking up. “How would that even work? It’s not like anyone here can just dial up the cartel on their phone.”
Walter can’t help but softly chuckle to himself.
“See, Mr. White thinks it’s funny,” Jim says. Dwight is still visibly disgusted.
“Cartels are not a joke, Jim!” Dwight says. “Do you know what happened to a DEA informant a few years back? His head was severed and sent back to the DEA on a turtle. My friend at the sheriff’s office told me all about it.”
Walter tenses up and looks around the room as if he’s disinterested.
“That’s ridiculous,” Michael says. “Sounds like something out of a crappy TV show.”
Jim and Dwight finally head out, and Michael locks the door.
“Sorry about that,” Michael says.
“You sure have some, uh… interesting employees,” Walter says.
“Oh yeah, they’re the best, aren’t they?”
“Is this some kind of test?” Walter asks. “Is this like a ‘what-would-you-do’ situation?”
“Why would you think that?”
“Well, I mean, it seems pretty inappropriate for an employee to steal another’s desk. And to rudely interrupt their boss when he’s in the middle of an interview. Seems unprofessional.”
“Mr. White, I’m beginning to question your attitude towards management,” Michael says, clearly offended. “You have to be their friend. Not the big, scary boss. Because believe me, I’ve had some of those. Haven’t you?”
“I guess some of my past bosses have been… difficult,” Walter admits.
“Not just anyone can manage Dunder Mifflin,” Michael says. “It takes care. Dedication. Hustle. And a whole lot of love. That’s how I turned this place into a well-oiled machine. Just take a look for yourself.”
Walter turns and peers through the window into the main office. Stanley is visibly taking a nap at his desk. Creed has a scuba mask in one hand and appears to be reaching into a bag full of colorful wigs with his other. Just then, Kevin knocks a can of soda all over his keyboard.
“Again, Kevin?” Angela shouts.
“Maybe we’ll just shut these,” Michael says, standing up and closing the window blinds. Walter turns back towards the desk as Michael sits back down.
“Those people would be lost without me,” Michael continues. “When I’m gone… well, I just want to make sure the office is in good hands. Because do you know how they see me?”
“How?”
“The world’s best boss,” Michael says, holding up his famed mug.
“They all got you that?” Walter asks.
“Nope, bought it myself at Spencer Gifts. But I knew they would want me to buy it. They believed in the sentiment.”
“Uh, huh.”
“But if I were to give you the job, where do you think this Dunder Mifflin branch would be in five years?”
“Well, I don’t see this as a paper business,” Walter says. “Or a money business or anything else like that. I’m in the empire business.”
“Whoa, yes! Big goals, I like that! But how would you go about acquiring more business for the company?”
“Well, I know they’re not just going to come knocking looking for a new paper supplier,” Walter says. “That’s why we have to be the ones who knock.”
Suddenly the phone rings and Erin informs Michael that Jan Levinson is on the line. He eagerly puts her on the speaker.
“Michael,” Jan says. “You better not be conducting any interviews. We told you that you will not have a hand in this decision.”
“Jan, don’t be rude. Mr. White is right here with me. You’re on speaker. Say hi!”
“I am so sorry Mr. White. Michael is not in a position to offer you a job. Michael, please take me off speaker.”
As Jan and Michael get into it, Walter awkwardly excuses himself. As he treks back to the parking lot to his black Chrysler 300 SRT, he notices all the tires have been slashed. The camera pans up to Dwight, who is smiling from the roof.
“Maybe a hot air balloon will come pick him up,” Dwight says, breaking into a diabolical grin.