It’s a true wonder that Scranton becomes Dunder Mifflin’s most successful branch over the course of The Office. Afterall, the majority of the show has the gang participating in useless meetings, creating complicated pranks, and constantly goofing around.
Despite their antics, someone had to be doing something right for Scranton to hold up so well. This makes us wonder, who was doing something right? That’s what we’re about to find out.
Dunder Mifflin cycles through lots of employees, so to make it more simplified, we’re focusing only on the employees that have been working upstairs at the Scranton branch from the beginning of Season 1. Even with this narrowed pool, we're sure we have the winner. Let’s be honest: Andy, Erin, and Gabe were never going to top the list.
Cue that theme music; Here is a ranking of Dunder Mifflin Scranton’s best “original” employees.
Kevin Malone
Kevin’s position at the bottom of the list is pretty simple: He made up a number called “kelevin” to fix his accounting errors.
None of Dunder Mifflin’s employees could think of a good reason to save Kevin when Dwight fires him in the finale. Sure, he’s loveable. But is he anywhere close to Dunder Mifflin’s best employee? Nope.
While Kevin has never come off as bright, with Holly even believing he is mentally challenged when she first meets him, he’s also done some downright illegal things. In “The Convict” (S3E9), he admits that some of his activities sound an awful lot like the insider training Martin was previously incarcerated for.
You’re getting nowhere near the top, Kevin.
Michael Scott
There are a lot of things Michael has done wrong — a lot. That being said, he was always around to boost company morale and turn the workplace into a second home. He genuinely cared about his employees and (usually) showed strong devotion toward the company.
Now that we’ve covered what he did right, let’s cover what he did wrong. He emailed sensitive pictures of Jan to the entire company, framed Toby for using marijuana, hosted the world’s most disastrous diversity training session, kissed one of his employees against his will, made false promises to shareholders, and held a pizza delivery boy hostage on company property. These instances only cover a few episodes. There are hundreds of others featuring Michael's even bigger blunders.
Jim Halpert
Balancing his good and his bad, Jim is an average employee. He gets through his work, isn’t involved in any major scandals, and cares about his customer on sale calls. That being said, he’s not that passionate about his work. To him, a job is a job. We find out from the beginning that he can’t picture himself at Dunder Mifflin forever, and he eventually leaves to join Athlead.
Jim is also pretty lazy at times, using large amounts of company time to prank Dwight rather than do his work. He also doesn’t know how to keep his work life and romantic life separate, constantly flirting with the receptionist — eventually getting involved with Karen — and ultimately going back to Pam.
Angela Martin
Angela is a good accountant. Unlike Kevin, she knows how to do her job without the use of “kelevins.” She’s known to be somewhat of a perfectionist, which is likely reflective in her work.
Although she does her job well, she’s not the easiest to work with. She also spends too much company time lurking around with Dwight, and let’s be honest — is the party planning committee really that necessary?
Her hypocrisies are a little hard to swallow and she’s not always working. But when she does, it’s consistent.
Pam Beesly
What does Pam have going for her? Well, she worked hard to move up from reception to sales, does what needs to get done, and is always attentive to Michael. On the downside, she created a fake office administrator position, isn’t always doing her job (remember when she used to play solitaire at reception?), and isn’t by any means an incredible salesperson.
Her sweet personality made her pretty easy to work with, and she ended up forming a friendship with Karen, even when she was dating the guy she had a crush on.
So overall, she’s not that bad of a contribution to Dunder Mifflin.
Dwight Schrute
Dwight is arguably Dunder Mifflin’s most passionate employee. He’s an incredible salesman and would practically give up his life for the company. His world is fulfilled when he finally becomes regional manager of Scranton in The Office’s final season.
Despite this, we can’t overlook the fact that he fired a gun in the office, started a fire on purpose, has hidden weapons everywhere, schemed to get Jim fired, tried to steal Michael’s job, and snuck around with Angela all the darn time.
While his excitement is there, it’s not without many, many flaws.
Phyliss Vance
Phyllis has some snark, but generally, she is a sweet and an easy-to-get-along-with co-worker. Let’s not ignore that time she was seriously blackmailing Angela, though — or the time she kept bringing up Jan’s affair with Michael during the women in the workplace meeting — or the time she thought it was okay to read Fifty Shades of Grey in the office. Okay, so Phyliss was not the most professional.
But was she a good saleswoman? Yes. Remember when Phyllis took Karen to a beauty parlor to get a makeover before their sales call? Remember when they came out looking like the client's wife? Remember how it helped them score a sale? Yeah, Phyllis!
Oscar Martinez
Oscar once called in sick when he wasn’t and admitted to taking extra long lunches — but outside of these couple of flaws, was there anything to complain about?
Oscar’s easy to get along with and is a consistent accountant. Of course, his affair with Angela’s husband in Season 9 couldn’t have been a good look for him at the workplace, but outside of this occurrence toward the end of the series, he did a good job at staying out of the drama.
He was intuitive, likable, and smart. Go Oscar!
Stanley Hudson
Although it’s rare to see Stanley not doing his crossword puzzles, he’s still one of Dunder Mifflin’s most successful employees. It’s revealed in Season 8 that Stanley has the most consistently high sales numbers at the Scranton branch.
Additionally, while Stanley is cordial to his co-workers, he also doesn’t mess around. He knows how he should be treated and sticks to it!
While Stanley doesn’t respect his boss and believes he’s paid too little for a job he doesn’t care much about, he still gets his work done and usually doesn’t cause much drama. His personal life does get dragged into the workplace in later seasons, but he’s definitely not the one who’s flaunting it.
Toby Flenderson
We hate to say it as much as you hate to read it, but Toby is undeniably Dunder Mifflin’s best employee. Sure, he dragged the mood down at times — but isn’t that part of his job?
Toby is softs-poken and handles all of Michael’s antics with maturity and balance. He keeps everyone in check, and despite his co-workers throwing hate his way on multiple occasions, he manages to keep his cool.
He boasts about his place on the Scranton Strangler jury a bit much, but it doesn’t really affect his job performance.
Congrats, Toby. You’re not that bad after all.