And this is the kind of thing I reference when I say Stuart isn’t an absolutely abhorrent person like Jerry or Josh. He does nice gestures like this, and deep down actually cares a tad. He could’ve been a decent manager with better influences, though by no means a great one – he was always going to be rough around the edges.
I’ve worked with a lot of managers like Stuart, and I can tell you one thing about him for sure. He is not an irredeemable jerk. What he is is someone who was taught a very particular formula for how to behave to achieve success.
This is a rare situation where Stuart was very clearly taught how one treats another human being BEFORE Grumbels and 80s style management got ahold of him. For one bright and shining moment, we get to see what happens when the two ways he was taught to behave conflict, and the education in empathy wins out.
Despite my enjoyment of the fanfiction that suggested Stuart got a taste of his own medicine after Grumbels closed, every time Stuart is offered a clear choice between right and wrong where “the formula” doesn’t apply, he takes the chance to do the right thing. I suspect he became a much better person once he left Grumbels… or rather, once Grumbels left him and he realized that the 80s era formulas for corporate success don’t actually work.
I think Stuart is the type “you can’t get fired/demoted for following the manual”. He doesn’t have people skills to get results, so he falls back on policy. That’s his plan of climbing the ladder of corporate success.
I like to think Stuart has two faces. He has work and life. We can see shades of the other from time to time, how he’s surprisingly good with kids, willing to dress up for Halloween, good to his sister and here
He’s just been trained in old methods of how work work. But he IS mindful of some of it, just deep in his ways.
Makes me wonder how he might have been if he wasn’t raised in the old methods. He might have been a exceptional manager.
And this is the kind of thing I reference when I say Stuart isn’t an absolutely abhorrent person like Jerry or Josh. He does nice gestures like this, and deep down actually cares a tad. He could’ve been a decent manager with better influences, though by no means a great one – he was always going to be rough around the edges.
I can’t but feel that Stuart is vaguely jealous of Marla for finding someone.
…
That and he’s thinking — as addendum to saying “I wish you and Scott he best” — that Scott will need all the well wishes he can get.
I’ve worked with a lot of managers like Stuart, and I can tell you one thing about him for sure. He is not an irredeemable jerk. What he is is someone who was taught a very particular formula for how to behave to achieve success.
This is a rare situation where Stuart was very clearly taught how one treats another human being BEFORE Grumbels and 80s style management got ahold of him. For one bright and shining moment, we get to see what happens when the two ways he was taught to behave conflict, and the education in empathy wins out.
Despite my enjoyment of the fanfiction that suggested Stuart got a taste of his own medicine after Grumbels closed, every time Stuart is offered a clear choice between right and wrong where “the formula” doesn’t apply, he takes the chance to do the right thing. I suspect he became a much better person once he left Grumbels… or rather, once Grumbels left him and he realized that the 80s era formulas for corporate success don’t actually work.
I think Stuart is the type “you can’t get fired/demoted for following the manual”. He doesn’t have people skills to get results, so he falls back on policy. That’s his plan of climbing the ladder of corporate success.
I like to think Stuart has two faces. He has work and life. We can see shades of the other from time to time, how he’s surprisingly good with kids, willing to dress up for Halloween, good to his sister and here
He’s just been trained in old methods of how work work. But he IS mindful of some of it, just deep in his ways.
Makes me wonder how he might have been if he wasn’t raised in the old methods. He might have been a exceptional manager.