The Office: The 10 Saddest Things About Kevin

Dunder Mifflin Scranton’s ex-accountant, Kevin Malone one of The Office’s iconic characters. Unfortunately, he just wasn’t the best employee. He worked under the Accounting department head, Angela Martin, who often berated him in public for negligence and incapacity. Since he was unable to cope with the requirements of a modern-day workplace and often made mistakes, Dwight sadly had to fire him from his job.

Kevin’s compromised work ethic and unmotivated attitude severely limited his life’s trajectory. However, maybe this was the best thing for him as it did seem like his superiors spread malicious gossip and mocked him. Here’s a recollection of unfortunate events and happenings that make Kevin Malone the saddest person on The Office.

10 Left Out Of The Basketball Team

In season 1’s “Basketball,” bossman Michael Scott picked his favorites to play a friendly game of basketball against the warehouse staff. Besides being boisterous, incompetent, and a bad team player himself, Michael refused to give good shooters like Kevin and Oscar a fair chance.

The game could have been a good opportunity for Dunder Mifflin’s underdog, Kevin, to showcase his talent.  After Michael was forced to concede defeat, and everybody walked off the court, Kevin was seen shooting baskets perfectly. He looked disappointed because he wasn’t allowed to represent the office in the game.

9 Don’t Go In There After Me Dundie Award

In Season 2, Michael bestowed the insulting ‘Don’t Go in There After Me’ Dundie trophy to Kevin for the time he stunk up the office bathroom. Frankly, the award was a ruse to humiliate him in front of the office staff, and his fiancée Stacy. Although Michael claimed the Dundies were about the best in every one of his employees, the opposite was true.

The award caused Kevin embarrassment and if that wasn’t bad enough, an inebriated co-worker, Pam Beesly, cheered him on and he was forced to crack a smile.

8 Split From Scrantonicity

Early on in the show, Kevin was the drummer and the lead singer in a little-known band named Scrantonicity. It didn’t play in public very often, so Kevin hoped to perform at Pam and Roy’s wedding. Unfortunately for Scrantonicity, Pam called off her wedding and that was that. Nonetheless, Kevin’s band did get to perform at Phyllis’ wedding to Bob Vance.

However, in the episode, “Money,” Kevin revealed he’d split from Scrantonicity and formed his own band — Scrantonicity II. The exit must have been upsetting for him, considering he got the band deals in the past and was no longer its member.

7 Michael Ruined Beach Day For Him

In “Beach Games,” Michael took the entire office to the beach in order to choose a possible replacement for himself because he was interviewing for a job at corporate. He turned a fun outing into a survivor-like contest and divided his employees into contesting teams.

Kevin wanted to enjoy the beauty of the outdoors and he looked forward to the day. All he wanted to do was lie on the beach and eat hotdogs. Instead, he was forced into a bizarre mustardless hot-dog eating contest and challenged to walk on a bed of hot coals.

6 Dumped By Stacy

In season 5’s “Blood Drive,” Michael got the office singles to share their worst relationship stories on Valentine’s Day. Kevin shared the story of how he was dumped by Stacy on a Sunday morning while reading the newspaper. He had remarked, “Oh my God, I think the Eagles could clinch the NFC East!” and Stacy, in turn, had coldly said, “We’re done.”

Kevin’s breakup was a particularly heartbreaking situation since he valued her enough to include her in his work parties and bring her daughter, Abby, to work on “Take Your Children to Work Day.”

5 Dumbed-Down

At the beginning of The Office, Kevin was an average guy and an excellent basketball player. Although he spoke in a low voice, Kevin provided some interesting insights to conversations and would be relatively concise with his sentences.

However, by the end of the series, Kevin was dumbed down. Kevin Malone’s character possessed great comic potential, but Flanderization for the sake of a few cheap laughs was certainly not one of them.

4 Michael Spread A Terrible Rumor About Him

Michael Scott by no means was an ordinary boss. He violated healthy work boundaries in the episode, “Gossip,” by making up terrible rumors about everyone in the workplace.

After Michael realized he could be ruining Stanley’s life by spreading gossip about his affair, and especially after having it confirmed from the man himself, he decided to fix the problem. To cover up the truth about Stanley, Michael made up rumors about every person in the office so people would eventually dismiss the things they heard.

When Pam and Jim suggested tracing rumors, a disgruntled Kevin volunteered to go first. Turns out, Michael had told Erin there lived another person inside Kevin working him with controls.

Kevin’s anger was justified since it wasn’t a harmless rumor, his entire existence was being called into question because his boss was clearly a man-child notorious for humiliating people who worked under him.

3 Sat Besides A Rude And Condescending Co-Worker

Kevin was quite the hero for sitting right next to a terrible co-worker, Angela Martin. She was rude to everyone, but especially to Kevin because he worked under her in the accounting department. She was often seen berating him in front of other colleagues.

As bad as Kevin’s work performance was, there was a proper mechanism to air those grievances. A yelling boss can be a highly demeaning experience, and Angela should have shown better leadership skills.

2 Fired In A Harsh Manner

Not only did Dwight fire Kevin publicly, but he also did it by handing him a thickly frosted cake with the words ‘get out’ written on it.  He followed up the unprofessional, not to mention cold-hearted action by explaining the words ‘get out’ were a colloquial way of saying Kevin was fired. When people objected, Dwight challenged them to make a case for Kevin based on his merit.

Kevin was humiliated by the very public firing and he even let out a few sobs while eating his chocolate cake.  He was understandably fired for his poor job performance but Dwight could have done it in a private space.

1 Spilled Chili All Over The Floor

Kevin Malone has done pretty questionable things on the show, but his chili spill is the most infamous hands down. Season 5’s “Casual Friday” cold open shows Kevin bringing his famous Malone Chili pot to the office. He’d stayed up all night in preparation of the dish and seemed excited to share it with his colleagues.

Exhausted from sleep deprivation and climbing stairs, Kevin struggled to maintain balance and dropped the humongous pot all over the office floor. The clean-up however was a bigger mess than the spill itself.

Not only did Kevin fail in an embarrassing manner, but he was visibly distressed seeing his precious Malone chili go to waste.

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