Work Experience

"Work Experience"
Gareth Keenan Investigates!
Episode no.	Episode 2
Original airdate	16 July 2001
Written by	Ricky Gervais Stephen Merchant
Directed by	Ricky Gervais Stephen Merchant
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Work Experience is the second episode of first series of The Office.

Plot

David continues to promise the employees that there will be no redundancies while he introduces new employee Donna to the office staff. The very attractive Donna wins the attention of many of the male employees, much to the discomfort of David, who is letting Donna live with him as a favour to her parents, who are friends of his.

While David demonstrates to Donna how to use the office's e-mail system, he discovers a pornographic image with his face superimposed on the body of a naked woman. David quickly finds that everyone in the office has seen the image, even the cleaning woman, who doesn't even have access to e-mail. David tries to cover his obvious embarrassment for the prank by instead telling the staff that he's angry because the image "offends women".

David gives Gareth the task of finding the culprit of the prank. Gareth is more than willing to conduct the investigation, excited at the chance to put the experience from his Territorial Army days to the test.

Cock.

Jennifer Taylor-Clarke visits David to see if he's yet made any changes to his branch in an effort to keep it running. After hearing that Neil, rival manager of the Swindon Wernham-Hogg branch, has made several changes, David lies and tells Jennifer that he's already let go of an employee in the warehouse by the name of Julie Anderton. After visiting the warehouse and being undermined by warehouse workers, Jennifer catches David in his lie.

After returning from the warehouse, Gareth interrupts David and Jennifer's sour meeting to tell David that it was Tim who created the pornographic image. Already frustrated with David, Jennifer tells him that if he can't handle the responsibility of his job, she'll relieve him of his duties. In an effort to prove himself, David reprimands Tim about the image. However, Tim reveals to David that it was in fact David's good friend Chris Finch who created the image. David's attitude about the prank changes entirely once he realises Chris Finch is responsible, calling it "bloody hilarious". When Jennifer suggests that David apologise to Tim and fire Finch instead, David dials a telephone and stages a firing. Jennifer foils his ruse by pressing the speakerphone button on the telephone, revealing that he has rung the speaking clock instead of Finch.

Quotes

• David Brent: "Dutch girls must be punished for having big boobs." Now you do not punish someone, Dutch or otherwise for having big boobs.
  Gareth: If anything they should be rewarded.
  David: They should be equal.
  Gareth: Women are equal.
  David: I've always said that.

• Gareth Keenan: I could catch a monkey. If I was starving I could. I’d make poison darts out of the poison of the deadly frogs. One milligram of that poison can kill a monkey. Or a man. Prick yourself and you’d be dead within a day. Or longer. Different frogs, different times.

• David Brent: When people say to me: would you rather be thought of as a funny man or a great boss? My answer's always the same, to me, they're not mutually exclusive.

• David Brent: Chris Finch was in an argument once and he went, 'How can I hate women, my mum's one.'... Yeah? There's a lot of truth in that

• David Brent: I’m angry, and not because I’m in it, but because it degrades women. Which I hate.

• David Brent: If you were to ask me to name three geniuses, I probably wouldn’t say Einstein, Newton... I’d go Milligan, Cleese, Everett. Sessions.

• David Brent: Get out. Get out, I mean it.

• Gareth Keenan: People look at me, they say he’s tough, he was in the army he’s gonna be hard, by the book. But I am caring, and sensitive. Isn’t Schindler’s List a brilliant film?

• Jennifer: Have you made any redundancies?
  David: I gave a speech, only this morning, to my staff, assuring them there would not be cutbacks at this branch, and that there certainly wouldn’t be redundancies.
  Jennifer: Well why on earth would you do that?
  David: Why? Ooh, a little word that I think’s important in management called morale.
  Jennifer: Well surely it’s gonna be worse for morale in the long run when there are going to be redundancies and you’ve told people there won’t be.
  David: ... they won’t remember.

Cultural References

Spot on.

• Dirty Harry - Famous crime movie from the early 70s. Lead role played by Clint Eastwood. One of the popular quotes was used by David when holding Gareth's phone. Original quote is "I know what you're thinking. 'Did he fire six shots or only five?' Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I've kind of lost track myself. But being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well do ya, punk?"

• Territorial Army (TA) - Formed in 1907 to better organise the Volunteer Army and remaining militias. It's main purpose is home defence of Britain. Most members work regular jobs and are only required to go to 27 training days a year. It is a completely volunteer reserve force of the British Army.

• Michael Jackson - Popular American singer and self proclaimed King of Pop. Thriller is one of his most famous songs and the video for the song was unique that it was more of a mini-film than a typical musical video. His stage performances lead to the popularity of dances like the robot and moonwalk, which David attempts to perform.

Trivia

• David mentions Donna's parents, who are named Ron and Elaine. These characters were named after the parents of series co-creator Stephen Merchant.

• The American version of The Office borrows the premise of Finch's prank in the episode The Carpet.

• The first and last voice mail message on David's phone was Stephen Merchant. The 2nd message was left by Ewen MacIntosh who plays Keith Bishop in the Office.

Gallery

• 

  Invetigation in progress.

• 

  Gareth Keenan Investigates!

• 

  Pathetic.

• 

  Who else seen this filth?

• For more images go to: Gallery:TheOffice_WorkExperience

External links

• BBC episode guide: "Work Experience"