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Angela was furious that day. How bold of him was to assume that she would let him stand in her way? When Angela was just a kid her mother used to say: «This stubbornness of yours is gonna get you in real trouble one day, young lady!» Though so far it only came in handy. Not being able to stand arguing with her over quite ordinary matters for that long, people would usually give up without putting a proper fight. Angela got used to always having her way with things. Never thinking of it as being unbearably stubborn, she viewed it more as an ability to make people think the way she did, to change their minds. The woman proudly won every argument she has happened to come across in life due to her obstinacy, until she met him. Dwight Schrute, that ego-centrical salesman from the office where she worked.
When she joined DM paper company as a head accountant, he has been there for a few years already. She could never forget that hideous day Michael assembled a conference room meeting, then made everyone in the office play “Angela Martin quiz” and shake her hand. Now she would have easily declined and stormed out, but back then she had no idea what a wuss of a person her new boss was. Well, to be fair, all of the people in that room seemed to be just as confused as she was, except for one: Dwight Schrute. He looked a lot like he enjoyed all of it, every word out of Michael’s mouth, every movement of his - Dwight kept looking at their boss with such loyal adoration in his eyes she felt disgusted. Being a kiss-ass was one of her least favorite traits in a character, alongside with being weak and being whorish. So to herself Angela quickly labeled him as a weak-minded person with no self-respect that she had no interest in interacting with in any other manner than out of work-related matters, even the fact that his handshake was the most solid one didn’t change it.
A few months went by as Angela realized none of her co-workers were decent people: Michael was unbelievably annoying and lazy, Oscar from the accounting was thinking too much of himself and the other guy from the accounting, Kevin, was simply dumb as a tree, Pam dressed too revealing for the engaged woman and spent too much time talking to the youngest salesman, Jim, who barely bothered to do any work at all, Meredith was a drunk and Phyllis had an off-putting personality. But still, Dwight Schrute was the worst of all of them. Idolizing Michael and falling for every practical joke Jim played on him, he happened to be a pathetic little man who also liked to play with children’s toys and spoke a made-up language. Considering his nature, she had no idea how the position of safety officer came to belong to this man. Unless Michael, being a self-loathing idiot he was, gave it to Dwight based on the amount of flattery the salesman kept providing him with consistently. Angela couldn’t help but was concerned with the situation so she filed a numerous complaints that were left unaddressed just like basically all of the complaints in this office as she learned pretty soon. All of the times she tried to voice her concerns face to face with Michael, he either made some kind of inappropriate joke and changed the topic or simply avoid having the conversation about it altogether. Angela has been a safety officer in all of the other three offices where she worked before, she was perfectly qualified while Dwight Schrute was not. Soon she decided to take the matter in her own hands and make things go her way just like she has always done. It took her a few minutes to convince Pam that she had to stay after-hours and that the receptionist could have just gone home and left her the keys. It took her about thirty minutes to find at least half of the weapons Dwight kept around the office, it was enough. Sure, he hid them in different well-secured places, though as an ex-safety officer she made a habit out of paying attention to everything that was going on around her at all times. Angela intended to label the weapons to make sure Michael had no doubts in who was the owner but as she found them already labeled, she just smirked to herself. All she had to do was to put those in Dwight's desk cabinet so the next time he would open it, his swords, arbalest, poison darts, star-shaped thingies and other dangerous pieces of weaponry she knew no names of would fall out of it for the whole office to see.
It happened the next morning. A loud crashing sound, Dwight’s eyes widening in shock, Phyllis screaming out, Stanley calling for the boss, Michael coming over and looking down at the pile of weapons of different sizes and purposes, then looking up at the salesman.
- Can I talk to you in my office? - Michael said quietly, which meant he wasn’t kidding this time.
- But it is not my fault! Jim! - Dwight pointed at the younger salesman, but he was just as surprised as anybody in the room.
- Do these - Michael pointed to the floor - belong to you? - Dwight just nodded in reply and wilted under his superior’s gaze. Angela watched him slowly going after his boss, the door shutting behind the two of them. Just a couple of minutes later she heard Michael calling her own name followed by Dwight’s loud “no, no, no”. That’s it, she’s done it. The woman got up from her place, not even trying to hide her excitement as she entered Michael’s office and closed the door behind her. - Angela, would you do all of us here an honor and accept the position of the safety officer? It has just become vacant. - The older man said immediately as she walked in, not looking in her direction. He was staring at Dwight, who stood there, just a few steps away from her: his face all red, arms crossed on the chest, fingernails digging into his jacket right above the elbows. She hesitated only for a second before saying a firm “yes, I would be honored to be a safety officer”. The salesman turned at the sound of her voice, their eyes met.
- This cannot be happening, Michael! There’s no way she’s qualified for this position! - God only knew how badly she wanted to slap the hell out of this face right in front of her. And God only knew how much effort she had to put into calming herself down in that moment. Before Michael could say anything, she took a step in Dwight’s direction. Angela was way smaller than the salesman and could be barely considered as a threat to him, but she could see his whole body tensing.
- I’m more qualified than you are or ever will be. And I’m going to be so much better at this than you. - Angela turned on her heels and walked out of the room, only able to catch a glimpse of surprised expression on Dwight’s face and hear Michael laughing and clapping his hands.
After the work day was over, she got to her car and saw a note on the windshield:
«This is not the end. I’m onto you now. If you fail, I’m there. I don’t give up. Ever. - D.»
She was furious. It was bold of him to stand in her way. It was even bolder to leave such a note out here, where everyone could see it. Obviously, he couldn’t care less. She tore the note and threw the pieces of paper into the closest trash bin. Angela couldn’t help but let a tiny smile linger on her lips on the way home. Probably Dwight, while still being extremely annoying, had some self-respect after all.