Toby Flenderson

Living… in Scranton, Pa., by accident. Toby left the seminary and followed a woman to Scranton, essentially because he wanted to have sex. Eventually they married, had kids and then divorced, and Toby stayed in town. His living situation is typically dismal but he tries to put a positive spin on it: “I have six roommates, which are better than friends because they have to give you one month's notice before they leave.”

Profession… human resources representative for Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. Toby is reasonably well-liked by everyone except branch manager Michael, who hates him with a passion. The source of Michael’s strong distaste isn’t entirely clear, but it may be that as the H.R. rep from Corporate, Toby is the only one in the Scranton branch who can hold Michael accountable and keep him in check. This makes him the bane of Michael’s existence and the sounding board for everyone else’s complaints.

Interests… idle entertainment, such as hard-boiled detective movies, Say Anything, The Shining, Toy Story 2, Annie Hall, short stories, the TV show Damages, etc. Really, anything to distract Toby from his often miserable existence.

Relationship Status… divorced and hopelessly in love with co-worker Pam. When Pam broke up with Roy and Jim (who also had a crush on Pam) transferred to Stamford, Toby thought the stars were aligning for him, for once. But when Jim came back and started dating Pam, their PDA was too much for Toby to handle, causing him to put out a memo banning such displays in the office. If things get worse, though, Toby could always move to Costa Rica. He certainly talks about it enough.

Challenge… keeping his job, and even keeping his life. Michael can’t fire him because Toby reports to Corporate, but Toby can’t do his job without the occasional death threat. Michael’s a big enough concern, but there’s also Michael’s sometimes unhinged acolyte Dwight. Here’s Toby on Dwight: “Every Halloween, I tell him the same thing: You can't bring weapons into the office. And every year, he says the same thing: ‘As soon as I get my weapons back, I'm gonna kill you.’”

Personality… a sad sack. Perhaps chalk it up to bad luck, but the guy is a walking tragedy. He’s basically accepted his ill-fortune at this point, expecting bad things to happen to him. While the rest of the staff mostly likes him, Toby’s too beaten down by life for it to make much of a difference in his outlook.