The Office Couldn’t Decide If Pam Or Jim Worked At Dunder Mifflin First

The Office isn’t free from any plot holes or continuity errors when discussing the characters’ backgrounds, with one example being whether Jim Halpert or Pam Beesley started working at Dunder Mifflin first. Jim and Pam are The Office’s biggest will-they-won’t-they couple that turns endgame in season 4. The early seasons deal with Jim hiding his crush that he’s had on Pam the entire time both have been at Dunder Mifflin, while Pam finally comes around to admitting her long-harbored feelings for Jim in season 3.

Aside from Ryan and Kelly, Pam and Jim are known as the younger employees of The Office for the first few seasons. The series reveals that Stanley, Phyllis, and Michael worked at Dunder Mifflin for over a decade before the first season, while the timeline of the rest of the branch’s hires is a bit fuzzy. Unless the characters were hired over the course of the show, the only information to go on is the word of the characters themselves, though many of their statements contradict previously disclosed details. Keeping all of the minor character details straight on a show is difficult, but setting up the background of Jim and Pam’s relationship is relatively important, so it’s curious as to why The Office wouldn’t keep a strict timeline for their introductions.

In the season 2 episode “The Secret,” Jim confesses to Pam that he had a crush on her when she started at Dunder Mifflin, implying that he was already working there before she was hired. Alternatively, once Jim and Pam have started dating in season 4, Jim’s recollection of their meeting suggests that she was there first. In the episode “Launch Party,” Pam and Jim go onto the rooftop and discuss when they first realized they liked each other. Jim says he knew on his first day when she showed him to his seat and warned him about his new deskmate Dwight. But those revelations only deepen the mystery of who took a job at Dunder Mifflin first.

The suggestion that one started before the other is never confirmed since The Office never directly mentions their first days in reference to each other again. The only information given to solve the mystery is minor details about the backgrounds of their careers, and how many years they imply they have worked at Dunder Mifflin. In a season 2 episode, Jim shows the camera a picture of a young Jim and Dwight early in his career where Dwight has much longer hair. The detail is minor, but it suggests Jim has been there long enough that Dwight went through a younger phase of having long hair. Jim also makes it seem like Dunder Mifflin is his first big job, implying he got it out of college and has already been there for several years.

In The Office‘s first season, Pam reveals that she has been engaged to Roy for three years, while Jim says that Pam has been engaged the entire time both have been there together. This implies that Jim came second if Pam had been there for longer than three years. Although, Pam could have come after Jim if she started at Dunder Mifflin when she was already engaged to Roy. Pam starting first actually makes more sense because she has never mentioned having another job or going to college, and being a receptionist is a job one can have out of high school. Pam and Roy start at Dunder Mifflin around the same time, and Roy seems to have worked in the warehouse for quite a while before season 1, so they both likely started once they realized they needed steady full-time jobs.

The most likely conclusion is that Jim and Pam started working at Dunder Mifflin around the same time. Jim says in the finale that he spent 12 years pranking Dwight, implying he worked there 3 years before season 1, which seems to be a similar timeline for Pam’s start time. The continuity detail is minor, but The Office’s further background about the couple makes it seem that Pam worked at Dunder Mifflin first, starting just slightly before Jim.

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Jordan Williams
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Jordan Williams is a Movie/TV Feature Senior Staff Writer for Screen Rant. She graduated from the University of Oregon in 2020 with a B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Media Studies.

Jordan is based in Seattle, Washington and enjoys exploring the natural beauty the PNW has to offer. She runs on coffee and classic movies, taking pride in having watched every film on AFI’s 100 Greatest Films list and every Best Picture Oscar winner.

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