Judgment

The final episode of the first series starts with a meeting in the office of David Brent, manager of the Slough branch of paper merchant Wernham Hogg.  In the presence of sycophant Gareth Keenan, Brent is telling warehouse worker and non-fork-lift-truck-driving fork lift truck driver Alex that he is being made redundant.  There is an accusation from Alex that he has been positively discriminated against because a 'midget' in the warehouse has kept his job.  In true Brent style he evades the  obvious resentment of his (former) employee by entering into a discussion with Gareth over what constitutes a midget and indeed, what are the differences between a midget and a dwarf.

The rest of the employees are in really rather an agitated state on this day of days.  They know that a decision is due to be made on whether Slough will absorb Swindon or vice versa.  One of them, Malcolm, confronts Brent and is fobbed off and then verbally and physically insulted with a volley of jokes about his baldness.

Then Jennifer (Taylor-Clarke) arrives in the office and things really come to an head.  In Brent's office, she tells him that the board have decided to offer him a promotion to her post (she's been made a partner), at the expense of Neil, the Swindon branch manager.  She tells him that the board voted 5-2 in his favour, and as he preens about his landslide victory, even going to the length of calculating the percentage of votes won, she also tells him that this will mean the closure of the Slough branch and its absorption into the Swindon branch.  All of his previous protestations about loving his staff (or his family) of course count for nought.

So Brent tells his staff of the decision that has been made, and they are not best pleased - funnily enough they don't see his good news as being particularly good for them.  So the scene is set for a jolly time at the office party which is booked for the coming evening...