Yes, I know it’s in its third season and it’s won an Emmy, but I had never seen an episode of NBC’s comedy show “The Office” until about a week ago. And now I’m addicted to it.

It’s not that friends hadn’t told me about it before. The lead singer of my old band even told me about it once — said it reminded him of when we used to work together for the same company. It does. But I just never got around to watching it until another one of my friends sat me down and made me watch an episode. Well, that was all it took. I had to see them all, then.

It is hilarious! If anyone is looking for a Christmas gift to get me this year, seasons 1 & 2 are out on DVD. The pranks that Jim plays on Dwight are classic. My favorite is the one where he put all of Dwight’s office supplies in the vending machine and then gave him a sack full of nickels so he could get them back. And, of course, how can anyone not love watching the beautiful Jenna Fischer?

In terms of productivity, “The Office” reminds me most of my time at now-defunct Foster & Gallagher. I worked in the customer service department for their Magazine Marketplace division back in the late 80s and early 90s. I would answer letters and phone calls from people who bought magazines thinking it would increase their chances of winning the big sweepstakes, then cancel them when they didn’t win. I have a list of about 50 different ways our customers spelled the word “cancel.” Most common misspelling: “cancle.”

Well, F&G wasn’t doing real well, and often we would have stretches when very few people contacted us. But they didn’t lay us off during those times, so we had a lot of free time on our hands. The customer service department operated on a team concept. There were two or three (can’t remember now) suites of six agents, plus a team leader and assistant team leader. One Christmas when we were especially slow (and by that, I mean absolutely no one called or wrote us practically the whole month of December), our team decided to decorate our suite as Whoville, and we’d all dress up as Whos. Our team leader was the Grinch, and our assistant team leader was his dog.

We were very productive. We made banners, played the soundtrack to the show on a portable tape deck, brought in lots of treats — including green Rice Krispie treats. I think I have a picture of it somewhere. Hard to believe we actually got paid for that… although we didn’t get paid much, come to think of it.

“The Office” is on NBC Thursday nights at 7:30 CT.