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Six Reasons That Jim From "The Office" is a Jerk

He's not as nice as you might think.

It seems that most people who enjoy comedy enjoy the office. Out of those people, there is a common misconception that the character Jim Halpert is a good guy, an every-man that gets the love of his life. The only problem is that he does not care who is in the way of his ambitions. More often than not, Jim Halpert acts less like an every-man and more like some dog from your high school.

  1. Jim roughs up Roy and blatantly hits on Pam at the same time.

    In season 1, the office challenges the warehouse to a basketball game. They are outmatched but seem to have an ace up their sleeves when Jim shows that he is a good basketball player. Everything seems to be going harmless enough until Roy accidentally elbows Jim in the face, making his nose bleed. Jim just can not accept that it was an accident, and proceeds to intentionally foul Roy every time either of them gets the basketball. While he is doing this, he is also scoring points and making Roy look like a fool. If this was not bad enough, on his way past Pam he gives her a wink, a nod and a half fist pump to which she smiles. After another couple of fouls, Roy tells Jim he needs to “take it easy”. Jim tells Roy he needs to ‘take it easy” right back. What an asshole.
  2. Jim leads on a hot girl.

    In season two, Jim decides that he should start dating someone instead of being second fiddle to Roy in Pams heart. He picks a girl that has the same features as Pam, but is way hotter and ditsier. They start to go out and eventually he invites her to go on a company Booze Cruise with him. On the Booze Cruise, Jim spends the whole time moping while the hot girl, Roy and Pam have a blast. Everyone seems to be having a good time (even Dwight who was tricked into steering the boat with a fake wheel) until Roy gets drunk and decides to set a date for the wedding. Hearing this, Jim decides he has had enough and breaks up with the hot girl, leaving her in a boat with his drunk co workers while he avoids her the rest of the night. Being broken up with sucks, being dumped for no real reason and not being able to leave, while you are around a bunch of drunk people you do not know, means that you are dating a jerk.
  3. Jim ruins a wedding.

    In the finale for season two, the people in the office hold a casino night in the warehouse for charity. Yet again people are having a good time, drinking, and not worried about much except for having fun. Roy decides that it is getting a little bit late and heads home, but Pam wants to stay. This is fine with him, and as he is pulling away he sees Jim. Roy knew that Jim had a crush on Pam, but knew that he was a good friend of Pams and let it go. When he sees Jim on Casino Night he tells Jim to look after Pam while he is gone. Jim agrees and Roy pulls away. Since he has been left alone with Pam, Jim decides that he should tell her he is in love with her. When she responds to his disliking he takes off, only to return later to force a kiss on an unsuspecting Pam who is crying in the office on the phone with her mom. She once again spurns him and he leaves Scranton, but only after he had already destroyed Roys marriage. Pam called off the wedding soon after that night.
  4. Jim ruins a renewed relationship.

     After the wedding was called off, and after Jim had already returned to Scranton to work again, Roy and Pam decided to go out again. Roy had changed and decided he should never take advantage of her again, and Pam was enjoying the new man he had become. That was until Pam told Roy why the wedding was called off. Having never known before, and realizing how big of an asshole Jim Halpert is, Roy flips out and starts smashing things at the bar. This scares Pam, who decides to end the relationship. Roy goes to confront Jim in the office later, but gets stopped by Dwight and his pepper spray. After he gets arrested and fired, Roy kills himself. Well, maybe he does not kill himself, but I have not seen him on the show in a while, so who knows.
  5. Jim leads on yet another hot girl.

    When Pam denied his advances, twice, Jim got mad and moved to a new branch of Dunder Mifflin. There he met a hot girl named Karen. Jim and Karen started dating, and when their branch got merged with the Scranton branch, Jim talked Karen into going with him. They moved to Scranton and continued dating, up until Roy and Pams new relationship ended. Seeing an opportunity, and not caring that he made this poor girl move to Scranton, Jim breaks up with Karen to pursue Pam again. Leaving a girl dumped and alone on a booze cruise is bad. Having a girl move to a new city and dumping her for no reason just proves that you are one of the biggest assholes of all time.
  6. Jim drives Andy Bernard insane.

     Upon arriving at his new job, Jim decides to pull the same old stunts on his new coworkers that he used to pull on Dwight. He chooses Andy Bernard, and puts his calculator in Jell-o. Andy flips out, and goes on a crazy rant in front of the office to try to get the culprit to fess up. Jim avoids his glares and continues about his business of ruining peoples lives. When they transfer back to Scranton, Andy Bernard comes with them. Jim throws his cell phone into the ceiling tiles and refuses to let him know about it even though Andy is visibly, insanely, angry. Andy gets so mad that he gets sent to anger management classes, all because Jim wanted to pull a prank and take it to far.
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Comments (4)
#1 by Brian, Jul 22, 2008
Actually that IS more like an everyman.

First of all, there is obvious background given that Roy is a controller and a stifler of Pam's ideas and dreams, and that he prevents her from being what she wants to be. So it's obvious that she is not supposed to end up with him unless she settles.

Secondly, Jim is not Roy's friend. If they were friends, it would matter. If someone isn't my friend, I don't give a crap about their relationship if it stands in the way of my relationship with the woman.

Thirdly, he wasn't intentionally fouling him and quite frankly, Roy was obviously getting upset that Jim was kicking his ass.

Last, as for Karen, they weren't even dating when they went to Scranton and she said she would have gone there anyway.
#2 by Shawny Nevill, Jul 22, 2008
Thanks for the response Brian.

While Roy was shown as a negative force in Pams life before the wedding got called off, he was never seen as controlling (see: when he left the Dundees she didn't go with him, when he left Casino night she didn't go with him) and after the wedding got called off he had changed dramatically, enough that she started dating him again.

He was intentionally fouling Roy, but you were right about Roy being more mad about getting shown up.

Karen and Jim where probably dating before the move to Scranton, because on his first day back Pam asks him to get coffee and he denies her because he's going out with Karen.

Lastly, the article is kind of a joke. I think he's an ass on the show but I also enjoy his character a lot. It's a fun show and I thought i'd put a new spin on part of it.
#3 by Lina Smith, Jul 24, 2008
I found this site called http://URAjerk.com maybe you can use it. It seems to help get me through the issues of dealing with some of the jerks I know. At least I can vent about these jerks, plus I get a kick out of sending them some cards.
#4 by Dan Williams, Sep 6, 2008
Great article!! I completely agree, Jim thrives on attention and to add to the list is when he is in charge of the office when Michael is in the forest. He doesn't stick to his convictions when he has to deal with all the issues about the co-birthday party and completely backs down when it looks like he is becoming unpopular which shows his cowardness.
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