Why do they hate toby on the office

From the beginning of The Office , Toby seems like a decent, quiet, friendly guy. He's a little sad, and his crush on Pam sometimes gets to be a bit weird, but overall he's one of the kinder people at Dunder-Mifflin. Still, Michael hates him. What if Michael's parents divorced when he was young, and he now channels his anger and feelings of abandonment towards Toby, who is a divorced father?

Michael doesn't exactly have a sense of nuance, and so he fails to see that Toby is a much better father than his own dad. Since Toby is corporate HR , he's representative of the rules that Michael is not so fond of. Toby is continuously trying to enforce the rules of the workplace. This serves as a constant reminder to Michael that no, he can't do whatever he wants, his powers aren't unlimited, and Toby is immune to any leverage Michael has over the other people in the office.

Michael sees Toby as someone who is always trying to ruin his fun , but he can't get rid of him. Every time Michael says or does something against company policy, who's there to try and stop him or tell him no? Buckle up for this fan-theory because it goes deep! This fan theory touches on the fact that Michael hates Toby because, basically, Toby is the opposite of the American dream.

Then we have Toby, who lives relentlessly in the real world - a divorced father who has a firm grip on reality. Toby angers Michael because he's a living example that everything Michael strives for could be in vain. Toby had it all, a wife who loved him, and a daughter he adored.

Toby represented everything that Michael wanted in life, and Toby threw it all away when he got a divorce. While Toby may not have the wife and kids at home anymore, Michael is still envious that Toby has a child who loves him.

All Michael wants is a happy family to come home to and it angers him that Toby had this and let it go. Michael still seems to face the feelings of abandonment and anger, which he clearly channels towards Toby. Toby is a divorced father. To Michael, he sees Toby as his father and believes that he is not taking care of his daughter just like his father who did not take care of him after divorcing his mother.

Michael believes that Toby cannot be anything better than his father when it comes to parenting. So the hatred he has towards Toby is because Toby reminds him of his own father. Taking this further, we can say that Michael hates Toby even more because Toby is trying to be a good father even after divorcing his wife. This makes him believe that his father just abandoned him.

While Toby might seem like a fairly innocuous character for the most part, there are some inconsistencies about him upon taking a closer look. The whole point of having a Human Resource department is for the employees to remain satisfied and for the organization to follow a set of preordained guidelines in order to avoid any unnecessary controversies.

Anyone who's seen The Office can attest to the fact that Toby definitely failed spectacularly in this regard since he barely did anything to maintain proper conduct in the office. The fact that corporate had to send Jan time and time again to deal with Michael's inappropriate behavior and callous management is a testament to the fact that Toby was absolutely useless as a representative of HR. At this point, Toby should've either been transferred or fired, since he clearly wasn't doing anything substantial in the Scranton branch.

For someone who works in HR, Toby has shown a penchant to be ridiculously creepy at times, to the point where it's a wonder why his behavior had never been reported. Take his obsession with Pam for starters — it was clear from his words that he used to stalk Pam, which was ridiculously unsafe for the then-receptionist. Pam isn't the only woman who felt uncomfortable around Toby — Nellie Bertram had also been subject to his creepy behavior at times, too.

Toby once even instructed Pam on how to hit Michael harder after he gave her the opportunity to do so for dating and dumping her mother, showing that he enjoys seeing Michael suffer to a degree Double Date. Toby has on occasion stood up to Michael such as in " Classy Christmas " when Michael tries to accuse Toby of destroying Holly's beloved Woody doll to which Toby immediately responds that the vandalism is something that Michael would do, to which everyone agrees.

Toby seems to have a strong ability to absorb Michael's abuse as seen in " Goodbye Toby " where he is given a potential opportunity to complain about Michael's antics and after Michael threatens to kill him though he does so in a situation where Holly and Pam would be able to listen to Toby's issues if he wanted to present them, as they either don't know how awful Michael has been to him or, in Pam's case, know it very well , Toby claims that everything in the office is fine, and later shrugs to the camera that he has survived Michael's abuse long enough and that disclosing it is pointless.

Toby has never attempted in any way to get Michael punished for his harsh treatment of him despite having the power to do so and has never gotten angry with him for unknown reasons. This stands in direct contrast to other members of the Office who get angered at Michael for his stupidity and rudeness such as Jim, Pam and notably Stanley. Toby also somewhat seems to be in denial that Michael hates him as seen in " New Guys " in which after shooting down his impulsive idea, Andy says to Toby: "Now I know why Michael hated you so much," to which Toby responds "No, he didn't", possibly signifying that Toby does not view Michael's abuse as hatred.

Toby seems to want Michael's friendship but is too shy to talk to him about it. In " The Lover " Michael opens up to Toby, asking him to keep Pam under control, by giving Toby a hug and calling him a "good guy.

Michael, though, ended up being appreciative of Toby's efforts to actually help him during their Sabre-mandated counseling sessions even if he spent much of the time hurling harsh statements at the HR rep , to the point where he decided to talk to Toby instead of simply signing off on a few corrected forms at the sessions' end.

However, later on, Michael becomes withdrawn and sad that he hasn't had any children, which Toby senses and ends up being confidant to Michael. Michael inquires about being Sasha's godfather. Toby simply tells him that she already has one.