Tim reccomending Davids job to Gareth
That showed a lot of character,I doubt 1 in a 1000 people would do that for someone they didn't particularly like, but he knew Gareth really wanted it.
shareI actually thought Tim was being sarcastic when he recommended Gareth's attributes to Neil. Perhaps thinking Gareth wouldn't be able to cope with the extra responsibility.
shareThe opposite. He knew Gareth was perfect for the job, for the reasons he lists. As the OP said, it showed character, as much as Tim despised Gareth he was able to recognise that much of that was to do with Gareth's personal traits, not his professional ability, combined with Tim's lack of enthusiasm for the job and the company.
share"He knew Gareth was perfect for the job, for the reasons he lists."
I had the impression Tim was being ironic, especially when you could hear Gareth's "Dirty Bertie" toy going in the background:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPN53tDi0AU
The toy voice was of course a great joke in that scene but it doesn't mean Tim was ironic.
I couldn't really tell if he was, because there were reasons why Gareth was both incompetent (childish and narcissist) and competent at the same time (he was serious and enthusiastic about doing actual work).
It's just that in every other scene throughout the series Tim always seems to be ironic when it comes to Gareth. There was that time in the second episode when David was getting Gareth to find out who emailed a pornographic image (with David's face pasted onto a woman's body) to the rest of the staff. When David accuses Tim of being the culprit, Tim says:
Whoa. Whoa-Whoa. Columbo here figured it out, did he? Well, yeah of course, gee, sorry...yeah, I must be guilty, if you've got your best man on the case.Tim wasn't really giving Gareth a compliment there. Gareth himself can never tell when Tim is being ironic or sarcastic either, we see how oblivious he is when Tim and Dawn are winding him up with those double entendre questions about military combat. I've actually wondered if Gareth was supposed to have Asperger's syndrome. There seem to be signs of that in his behaviour. Or it could just be plain old lack of social skills. share
You're right that Tim is (nearly) always sarcastic about Gareth. But it was Neil asking him, a respectable guy, a boss two levels above him, who gave him a honorific offer, and they don't know each other well. Either he wouldn't use sarcasm or he wouldn't let Neil think he was serious.
If it would've been Jennifer, would Tim be still sarcastic and let her think he actually suggested Gareth?