On Two Continents, A Paper Partnership Unfolds
SCRANTON, Penn., March 31 — Michael Scott has a large banner hung across the Dunder-Mifflin branch office he manages here, emblazoned with the colors of the Union Flag: WELCOME BRITISH INVADERS.
“It’s like the British Invasion,” Mr. Scott cheerfully explains. “Dunder-Mifflin and Wernham-Hogg, we’re going to be like the Beatles! The Beatles with Elvis. Because Elvis is American, and the Beatles are not. And actually, Elvis would probably get top billing. You know what? We should change the banner.”
Increasingly threatened by ruthless competition from major office suppliers like Staples, U.S. paper company Dunder-Mifflin announced last week that it will merge with U.K.-based paper supplier Wernham-Hogg, which faces similar competitive trials in Europe. The $250 million deal is expected to close by the end of May, after which the companies hope to increase efficiency and expand opportunities for cross-selling their products.
Curiously, both firms have been the subject of TV documentaries in their respective countries. A BBC crew followed a Wernham-Hogg office in Slough from 2001 to 2003, while a team of documentarians from NBC has chronicled the lives of Scranton’s Dunder-Mifflin branch since 2005.
With both firms pledging no further layoffs, employees on either side of the Atlantic have greeted the merger with varying degrees of optimism.
“I’m very excited,” Mr. Scott said. “It’s going to be a partnership. Two equal partners. Except that our side will be better. Because we’re from America. America is a bigger country, so of course we’re just naturally going to be better. Plus, we’re not sitting around all day, you know, drinking tea. We’re more productive. Hey, anyone up for a Starbucks run? Coffee? Anyone?”
“Michael seems very enthusiastic about the merger,” said salesman Jim Halpert. “Very enthusiastic. I think he found some kind of British slang site on the Internet, but I’m not sure how much of it he read. He keeps going around saying he’s going to ‘take a butcher’s’ at the ‘apples and pears.’ Just those two phrases, over and over. He had to apologize to Angela [Martin, a fellow employee], because I think she got the wrong idea about what he meant.”
In rainy Slough, Berkshire, Mr. Scott’s British counterpart is also looking forward to his firm’s new era of trans-Atlantic cooperation.
“I see it like World War II, yeah?” said Wernham-Hogg regional manager Gareth Keenan. “The British and the Americans, fighting together, side by side, united against a common enemy. Except that no one’s dropping bombs on us, I guess. Which is good. Because I wouldn’t want to come in to work, and be, like, ‘Oh, I can’t use the copier, because someone’s dropped a bomb on it. And, like, Keith and them over there in accounting were caught in the explosion. And now Keith’s guts are all jammed in the machine, and it doesn’t work, and I need to make copies.’ That would be bad.”
Mr. Keenan then looked at the copier for a long while, making what sounded like explosion noises under his breath.
“I think it’s brilliant, yeah,” said David Brent, the previous manager of Wernham-Hogg’s Slough branch, now a freelance business consultant. “Mergers. Synergies. Meeting of the minds. It’s like, each company is a sandwich, right? And you take half of one sandwich, and half of the other, and you put them together to make a new sandwich. A better sandwich. Delicious. Novel. Unless it’s peanut butter and ham, because that would be disgusting. But they’re both paper companies, so I guess that would be like a ham sandwich and… another ham sandwich. Maybe a fattier kind of ham. Not that I’m saying Americans are fat. But they are, you know. Bloody porkers, the whole lot of them.”
Not every employee of each company seems quite so upbeat about the merger, however.
“I’ve gone from being a salesman at a company struggling to sell paper to people who don’t want it, to a salesman at an even larger company, struggling to sell even greater amounts of paper to even more people who don’t want it,” said Tim Canterbury of Wernham-Hogg, absentmindedly rubbing the wedding band on his finger. “Which, on their part, is an absolutely brilliant business move. Textbook, really.”
“I don’t trust them,” said Dwight Schrute, Mr. Scott’s assistant, from his desk at the Scranton branch of Dunder-Mifflin. “The British, I mean. Can I go off the record? I want to go off the record here. I’ve been receiving faxes from … let’s just say, very highly placed sources, regarding certain … transactions made through Wernham-Hogg by certain internationally notorious figures.” Upon hearing this, Mr. Halpert, at the neighboring desk, suddenly became very absorbed in Dunder-Mifflin’s latest catalog, while receptionist Pam Beasley appeared to be attempting to stifle a laugh.
“I don’t want to name names,” Mr. Schrute continued, “but … Saddam. Hussein. You heard me.” He nodded solemnly. “I’ll be keeping a very close eye on them, I can tell you that. Is that still off the record? Because you can put that on the record. That last part.”
“I’ve always wanted to go to England,” Ms. Beasley said, smiling shyly. “But, you know, I never had the money. So I guess it’s nice that we’ll be getting a little bit of England here. It’s funny, you know. You get so wrapped up in your life, and you never stop to think that way across the ocean, there are people just like you, in an office just like yours. You know, the same sort of desks. Same kind of coworkers. Same relationships.” She seemed to briefly glance at Mr. Halpert. “Friendly relationships. Friendly working relationships. Friendships. I meant to say ‘friendships.’”
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