 During the earlier scenes when Dwight is in Michael 's office , Pam can be seen in the background talking to Meredith . According to actress Jenna Fischer , she and Kate Flannery stayed in character and acted out mundane talking scenes . Although they were not recorded , the dialogue was very detailed . In a guest post written for TV Guide , Fischer described several of the conversations , which ranged from Pam and Meredith discussing " the problems with the new quality @-@ assurance computer @-@ input program " , that the computers don 't " accept both alpha and numeric characters " , " backlog [ of ] receipts dating to 2001 " , and that Dunder Mifflin " changed to all @-@ numeric product codes in 2004 and the computer system does not allow for the earlier records . " 
