Michael Scott (Steve Carrell) is widely considered the worst regional manager in Dunder Mifflin. In fact, there are multiple moments where employees from other branches reveal they've heard stories of the infamous regional manager. Still, the Scranton branch went from being one of the worst in the company to the best, and he received a lot of praise for their doing so.
Yet, that might not be completely deserved. If anything, actually, he should have been fired. So, we're going to look at 10 times he definitely should have been given his walking papers.
The Golden Ticket
This one ended up working out for the best, but in reality, Michael's "Golden Ticket" concept was a bad one. Essentially, his plan was to place five tickets that give Dunder Mifflin customers a ten percent discount. The idea seems simple enough, but he's unaware how the whole shipping process works. Instead, he sends all of the tickets to Blue Cross of Pennsylvania, thinking each pallet was going out to different companies.
The only thing that saves Michael here is the fact that Blue Cross was so happy they made Dunder Mifflin their exclusive office supply provider.To make matters worse, he tried to pass the blame off on Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson) when he thought he was in trouble.
Emailing Sensitive Picture Of Jan To Entire Company
For some reason, a recently divorced Jan Levinson (Melora Hardin) decided to go on a sun-kissed vacation with Michael — a move she would quickly regret. While bragging to his pal, Todd Packer (David Koechner), Michael sends him a photo of the two relaxing on the beach together while Jan is sunbathing topless.
Unfortunately, the image wasn't sent to Packer — it was sent to packaging. Darryl Philbin (Craig Robinson) — the head of the warehouse— then sent it to everyone in the office. While Darryl is definitely in the wrong here too, sending a risqué photo of your boss to anyone in the office is a fire-able offence.
Leaks Buffalo Branch's Closing
When Dunder Mifflin holds a company-wide picnic, David Wallace (Andy Buckley) allows Michael and Holly Flax (Amy Ryan) to perform in front of everyone. The two decide to do a spoof of the hit movie Slumdog Millionaire, but the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire portions featured questions regarding Dunder Mifflin.
For some reason, despite the entire branch and their families being present, the two decided to spill that the Buffalo wing will close. This obviously is a huge faux pas, and it makes the company look horrible. Not only that, but the fact that the regional manager of another branch knew about the impending closing before the actual office that will be shut down is a bad look for Dunder Mifflin, and David Wallace.
Hired A Stripper For The Office
To celebrate Phyllis Lapin's (Phyllis Smith) upcoming wedding to Bob Vance (Robert R. Shafer) of Vance Refrigeration, Michael arranges to have strippers come to the office. Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) was left in charge of finding a male exotic dancer for the women, so they ended up with a Benjamin Franklin impersonator. But the men were treated to the real thing.
Michael even got a bit of a lap dance before stopping the celebrations out of guilt. To make matters worse, his girlfriend at the time was none other than Jan Levinson (Melora Hardin) — his superior. It should be obvious, but hiring an exotic dancer for the office is a huge no-no, and if he were anyone else, he'd surely be fired.
Losing Sabre's Leads
When Dunder Mifflin's parent company, Sabre, starts investing more into the sales team, they have a new attitude and the rest of the office hates it. To make sales more humble, Michael decides to hide some new leads around the office. The only problem is, some of them were thrown out. So, instead of making a call to corporate, Michael decides to take a trip to the local landfill to find them.
There's a lot to break down here, but this series of events should have lead to a firing. To start, Michael is the manager of the branch and failed to keep his employees acting civil. But more importantly, he lost a lot of leads Sabre spent money on finding. That's definitely a fireable offense.
Tried To Frame Toby
When Michael finds out Toby Flenderson (Paul Lieberstein) is back from Costa Rica, he's not happy. So, in an attempt to get the HR rep to leave again, Michael buys what he thinks is marijuana to place in Toby's desk. He then calls the police, telling them Toby is selling drugs. They arrive and search his desk, only to find a bag of caprese salad.
To our knowledge, Toby doesn't take the matter fUrther, only telling Michael that its a waste of Police resources, but if he told corporate, there is no doubt Michael would be fired. With that in mind, there are a few things he does to Toby that, at the very least, would give him a stern talking to.
Diversity Day Meeting
The Office could have been a short series if corporate found out about Michael's Diversity Day presentation, but before we get there, let's get to how this happened first. After impersonating a Chris Rock routine, Michael is forced to sit through a sensitivity training seminar, but he thinks he can do better. So, he has everyone place cards on their heads and guess the race they were given based on clues their coworkers give.
To make matters even worse, when Kelly Kapoor walked into the conference room (where the meeting was held), Michael started talking with an offensive Indian accent.
Kisses Oscar
When Michael discovers Oscar Martinez (Oscar Nunez) is gay, he makes the situation even worse. He hosts a seminar on homosexuality and it goes off poorly. So poorly, in fact, Oscar threatens to quit after Michael forces him to come out to the entire office. The accountant is talked around, though, and the two hug it out.
Unfortunately, Michael takes it one step farther and slowly goes in for a kiss. It is not reciprocated whatsoever, and we think there was a little tooth contact. The whole situation was extremely awkward, but at least Oscar got a prolonged vacation as long as he didn't sue.
Promises To Shareholders
When Dunder Mifflin's business is going downhill, they hold a shareholder meeting and they bring Michael, the manager of their most successful branch, to be their special guest. The whole event goes sideways after the upset shareholders demand answers. Michael, who only wants to please, responds to the anger by telling everyone he and the company big-wigs will head to the back and develop a 45-day plan to get back on track and they'll go carbon neutral.
Lying to shareholders is a serious misdeed, and when no-one expected it, that's even worse. We're surprised Michael left the event with his job.
Locking A Pizza Delivery Boy In The Conference Room
When Michael's coupon to Pizza By Alfredo is refused by a teenage pizza boy (Kevin McHale), Michael decides to keep the child locked in the conference room until he accepts the discount. This is obviously not okay at all, and even Michael's subordinates tell him he can't do this.
Eventually, Michael changes his mind and lets the kid go, but we're shocked he didn't get fired for this. Aside from Scott's Tots, this might be one of the worst things he's done.