In all of the chaos that goes on in The Office, a lot of stuff gets destroyed. Between pranks, revenge missions, parties, and more, Dunder Mifflin must have had some serious repair bills.
In celebration of this special aspect of the beloved NBC sitcom, we’ve put together this list of 32 times something got majorly destroyed on The Office.
Andy Punching The Wall (Twice) (“The Return”/“Angry Andy”)
Andy Dwyer has some serious anger issues, and while that is demonstrated many different ways in The Office, the signature moment of his rage is punching through the wall that stands between Michael Scott’s office and the conference room. It’s something that he does not do just once over the course of the show, but twice.
Angela Smashes Christmas Tree Ornaments After Seeing Kelly Flirting With Dwight (“Christmas Party”)
We could do a 32-part list dedicated exclusively to Angela Martin’s issues, but for now we’ll just highlight one: extreme jealousy. When she witnesses Kelly Kapoor casually flirting with Dwight Schrute at a Christmas party, her chosen outlet is going outside and smashing ornaments on the ground.
Michael’s New Fur Coat Gets Splashed With Paint (“The Surplus”)
Poor choices were made on Michael Scott's part in "The Surplus." After he believed his team wouldn't be able to come to an agreement on how to spend the surplus money in the budget, he spent bonus money he would not end up receiving on a fur coat that didn't survive his exit from the store, as someone splashed paint all over it.
Oscar And Others Rip Up The Carpet (“Suit Warehouse”)
Productivity becomes a serious problem for Dunder Mifflin in “Suit Warehouse” – specifically due to the co-workers getting a new espresso machine and making a mission out of trying every flavor they have available. The Scranton branch is filled with chaotic energy, and things escalate to the point where Oscar Martinez and others start ripping up the carpet to expose the hardwood floors underneath.
Kevin Spills His Famous Chili (“Casual Friday”)
In the cold open of “Casual Friday,” Kevin Malone expresses so much pride in the homemade chili he brings to the office… but then oh so much gets destroyed. He ruins the carefully cooked food, for starters, when he drops the pot containing it on the floor of The Office… which also ruins the carpet. He then ruins a couple file folders trying to scoop the stew back into container, and then also stains his suit slipping in the sloppy puddle.
Packer Ruins The Carpet In Michael’s Office (“The Carpet”)
There are a lot of pranks depicted in the history of film and television, but Todd Packer leaving a “package” in Michael’s office is easily one of the worst. It creates a vile smell that spoils all of the air in the room (thankfully there is a door), and Roy and fellow warehouse workers have to cut up the carpet when the mess can’t be cleaned.
Kevin Smashes The Vending Machine During The Fire (“Stress Relief”)
There is a lot of destruction that goes down when Dwight attempts to run an extreme fire drill in “Stress Relief” (like Oscar crashing down through the ceiling along with Angela’s cat, Bandit), but Kevin gets special notice here for using the chaos of the moment to smash the vending machine and liberate some free snacks.
Andy Destroys His Computer In Hopes Of Getting A New One (“Todd Packer”)
Most of the destruction highlighted on this feature is accidental, but this one is totally willful. When Pam Beesley tells Andy that the only way he can get a new computer is if his old one stops working, he goes to town making every effort to jam up his machine’s inner workings. He goes the extra mile making sure the thing isn’t repairable – messing with both software and hardware.
Jim Breaks A Window Hurling A Snowball With A Lacrosse Stick (“Classy Christmas”)
Some of the Jim vs. Dwight conflicts on The Office get a little out of hand, and one perfect example of this is the snowball battle that ends up seeing Jim smash a window when he uses a lacrosse stick to try and to hurl a chunk of ice at his co-worker. It’s not Halpert’s finest moment.
Big Christmas Tree Smashes Through Ceiling Tiles (“Christmas Party”)
A big Christmas tree is generally better than a small Christmas tree, but there are limits: when the tree is taller than the room in which it’s supposed to sit, it’s definitely too big. Michael and Dwight learn this the hard way in “Christmas Party”… though the silver lining is that they cut off the top and end up with a mini tree that they can “sell to charity.”
Creed Ruins Debbie Brown’s Life To Save His Job (“Product Recall”)
As the head of quality control at Dunder Mifflin, it’s entirely Creed Bratton’s fault when a shipment of paper goes out to clients with an obscene watermark – but Creed is a survivor and not the type of person to let a single mistake ruin his life. So what does he do? He destroys someone else’s life. He finds Debbie Brown, a paper mill employee, to be his ideal scapegoat, and adding insult to injury, he collects cash for her benefit after getting her fired and steals the money for himself.
Michael Smashes A Watermelon On Stanley’s Car (“Safety Training”)
Plotting a fake suicide to demonstrate the dangers of depression is one of the stupidest things that Michael does on The Office, but at the very least he does test the safety the stunt. He throws a watermelon off the roof to see if a trampoline is enough to stop him from dying, but the dumb consequence of this acting is smashing the fruit all over Stanley Hudson’s car.
DeAngelo Digs Into A Cake (“Goodbye, Michael”)
DeAngelo Vickers is a strange fellow who is temporarily put in charge of Dunder Mifflin, and while his reign is short, it’s certainly memorable. We’ll never forget his weird food issues, for one – which was a character trait that reaches its climax when he is presented with a cake and he goes about eating it by grabbing a literal handful.
Dwight Rams The Forklift Through The Warehouse Wall (“Lotto”)
It takes training and practice to properly operate a forklift, but that reality pales in the face of Dwight’s confidence in “Lotto.” He may know his way around farm equipment, but when the warehouse workers quit and he makes efforts to single-handedly get a paper shipment out, he ends up piercing a wall.
Devon Smashes A Pumpkin On Michael’s Car (“Halloween”)
There is no opportune time to be fired, but getting canned on Halloween is definitely not ideal. Devon White discovers this in the episode named for the holiday – but at the very least, a Jack-o'-lantern provides him with a means to get some revenge: when he leaves Dunder Mifflin for the last time, he hits Michael’s car with a pumpkin.
Darryl Drunkenly Passes Out And Destroys The Party Buffet (“Dwight Christmas”)
As the head of the warehouse, Darryl Philbin is more often the victim of destruction on The Office rather than a perpetrator – but there is certainly nobody but him to blame for what happens to the party buffet in “Dwight Christmas.” Thinking that he has been left behind as Jim goes all-in on his new sports marketing job in Philadelphia, Darryl gets viciously drunk at the office Christmas get-together, and then he passes out on top of the food spread in the conference room when Jim proves his assumptions wrong.
Michael And Dwight Try To Steal The Copier At The Utica Branch (“Branch Wars”)
This is a special entry on this list in that it’s destruction that is heard but not seen. When Michael, Dwight and Jim travel to Utica, New York to get revenge on Karen Filippelli for trying to poach Stanley, their big move is to try and steal the Dunder Mifflin branch’s copier. While Jim stays in the car, he listens as Michael and Dwight break said copier trying to get it down a flight of stairs.
The Couch Gets Torn Up Amid The Dunder Code Hunt (“Customer Loyalty”)
One of Jim’s most elaborate pranks on Dwight is the construction of The Dunder Code: a scavenger hunt that is meant to take the bespectacled Dunder Mifflin employee on a hunt for The Holy Grail. In response to one of the clues (“Sedes Introiti”), Dwight takes a knife to the cushions of the sofa by the office’s front door.
Michael Knocks Over Shelves With A Forklift (“Boys And Girls”)
When down in the warehouse, Michael has a long record of being a one-man wrecking crew, and never is that more significant in The Office than in “Boys and Girls.” His version of acting manly is acting like a five-year-old, and while there is a lot of stuff he breaks in the episode, his number one act of destruction is driving around in the forklift knocking over the carefully arranged shelves.
Michael Tears Up Holly’s Counting Crows Tickets (“Weight Loss”)
In “Weight Loss,” Michael makes some exceptional strides in his relationship with Holly Flax, but he is unable to quite stick the landing. When Holly’s date bails on her before a Counting Crows concert, Michael acts like the coolest guy in the world when he offers to buy the tickets… but instead of then inviting her to go to the show with him, he idiotically tears the tickets into shreds and ruins his chance at an amazing first date.
Michael Puts Prince Family Paper Out Of Business Acting As A Corporate Spy (“Prince Family Paper”/”Two Weeks”)
Michael is so proud of himself when he and Dwight act as corporate spies for Dunder Mifflin and get client information from Prince Family Paper, but he almost instantly has regrets it when he realizes that the owners of the company are exceptionally nice and wholesome people. It’s guilt that he definitely deserves given that we learn in “Two Weeks” that Prince Family Paper was driven out of business because of the leak.
Dwight Cuts Up The CPR Dummy To Do A Hannibal Impression (“Stress Relief”)
One can point to many instances on The Office where Dwight acts like a total maniac, but “Stress Relief” has one of his top moments. His interaction with the emergency coach’s CPR dummy reaches about 12 levels of psychotic that peaks when he first tries to harvest its organs for donation and then cuts off its face to wear it Hannibal Lecter-style.
Frank Vandalizes Pam’s Mural In The Warehouse (“Vandalism”)
Pam takes a lot of pride in her artwork, and it’s for that reason that it’s a real bummer when her warehouse mural gets vandalized in the episode appropriately titled “Vandalism.” The painting is ruined, but she does end up getting some solid revenge when she identifies the culprit and draws some obscene imagery on his truck.
Michael Drives His Rental Car Into A Lake (“Dunder Mifflin Infinity”)
Michael has some rough experiences with technology in “Dunder Mifflin Infinity.” First he feels his career threatened when Ryan Howard arrives from corporate to tell him about the company’s new website. Frustrated from that encounter, he then has a bit of a conflict with his GPS and does something very, very dumb: he drives his rental car into Lake Scranton.
Jim Stabs Dwight’s Fitness Orb With Scissors (“Performance Review”)
Jim executes many well-planned pranks in The Office, but some of his best ways of fighting back against the terror of Dwight Schrute arrive with just a moment of thought. When his desk-mate is driving him nuts by bouncing up and down on a fitness orb, his perfect first instinct is to grab a pair of scissors and stab the thing.
Jan Smashes Michael’s TV With A Dundee (“Dinner Party”)
Jim and Pam are trapped in a nightmare when Michael and Jan trap them into coming over for a dinner date, and while the whole experience is a disaster, the coup de grâce for the whole evening is Jan smashing Michael’s beloved flatscreen TV by throwing a Dundee at it.
The Hopes And Dreams Of Scott’s Tots (“Scott’s Tots”)
There is simply no argument to be made when it comes to the worst thing that Michael Scott has ever done, and it's in promising college tuitions and then reneging on the deal. It's an awful, awful thing, and we can only hope that the students he failed were able to bounce back from the horrific disappointment and do something with their lives.
Michael Cuts Up His Pants While Playing Survivor Man (“Survivor Man”)
As evidenced in “Survivor Man,” Michael isn’t much of an outdoorsman. When he is purposefully stranded out in the woods, one of his first instincts is to cut up his own pants to use as a bandana and then as a tent… and then he tries to duct tape them back together when he gets cold.
Dwight Throws His Cell Phone Off The Roof After Completing Communication With “The CIA” (“A Benihana Christmas”)
Every good prank needs a good final note, and Pam and Jim provide a great one in “A Benihana Christmas” when they convince Dwight that he is in contact with the CIA. After getting him to wait for a long period of time on the roof of Dunder Mifflin, they send him a text saying that he has been compromised, and he chucks his phone to smash on the ground below.
Michael Trashes The Sales Leads During A Scavenger Hunt (“New Leads”)
Michael should definitely leave all prank-related activities to Jim. When he gives one a shot in “New Leads,” hoping to get revenge on an arrogant sales force, it ends up going horribly wrong. He decides to turn new sales leads from corporate into the prize of a scavenger hunt, but some of them get hidden in the trash and then hauled off to the garbage dump.
Pam And Kevin Break The Elevator Trying To Prank Dwight (“Nepotism”)
Pam is arguably justified in trying to get revenge on Dwight when his cost-cutting methods as building manager make the employees of Dunder Mifflin miserable. Unfortunately, she makes the mistake of trusting that Kevin knows anything about the electronics in an elevator, and his actions end up breaking the machine while Pam and Dwight are stuck inside of it.
Dwight Poisons The Food At The Pot Luck Meal When The Weight Loss Contest Starts (“Weight Loss”)
The Dunder Mifflin employees all have their own methods for managing their weight during a corporate contest, but it’s naturally Dwight who takes things too far. After everyone feasts in an attempt to manipulate their first weigh-in, he makes sure that nobody eats too much by poisoning all of the food with a spray for killing wasps.
With all of this destruction from the great characters in The Office, it’s pretty remarkable that the Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin remained open.
