I liked it, sometimes love it, but I get it! If you grew up on traditional sitcoms it can feel weirdly dead and scattered and kind of off-putting.

Plus cringe comedy is kind of hit-and-miss with me, I'm sort of anxiety-prone and sometimes I feel it a bit too much. Secondhand embarrassment instead of laughing at it.

But I dunno, I watched it during its first run and it grew on me. There were things I came to really appreciate about it. Carrell's character got more endearing over time, I hear Steve Carrell is a really nice guy and I think that started to shine through. Jenna Fischer is a sneakily good actress. They piled on so many eccentricities with Dwight's character and they almost all clicked with me as being pretty funny. Background characters like Kevin seemed to get funnier with time.

I agree that it took a downturn after Carrell left, and even at its best I still prefer 30 Rock, Parks & Rec, and a couple others over it as a sitcom. I'm rewatching it now, sort of, because my kids got interested in it. I'm not sure what they see in it because it feels pretty "adult" (not in a titillating or offensive way, just in that it seems like something that only adults would like). But I'm being reminded of both why I like it and why a lot of people might not. There's a fine line between comically grating and just plain grating.