re: The Office: is hating Jim and Pam a popular opinion?

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That's a pretty unfair criticism of the character. Jim and Pam weren't married when Pam went to art school, and they certainly didn't have two small children.

Jim was very selfish in every decision regarding Athlead. He joined in the company after he and Pam had already discussed it and he agreed not to. He invested all of their savings when it was certainly unclear if he needed to. And he was living the bachelor life in Philly while Pam was at home working a full time job and raising two children.

But yeah, Pam was the selfish bitch in that scenario.

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That's a gross over-simplification of their history though. After stringing him along for years she waits to tell him how she feels when he was in a relationship. He supported her decision to leave for art school, didn't say a word when she left her job to join the Michael Scott paper company (months before there wedding), and then forgave her near infedility with the cameraman.

Jim consistently lifted Pam out the gutter and she proceeded to act like a bitch the one time she had to sacrifice for him. His "selfishness" with Athlead was in attempting to pursue success in a dream career for himself that would set up their family for life, which it did. She did technically redeem herself at the end, but only after Jim had sold his shares of the company and once again proved he was willing to put her above his needs.