Chris Finch

Finch is an outside sales representative for the paper merchant Wernham Hogg, in whose Slough office the show is set, and as such is frequently on the road. He is probably the only character in the series who is genuinely nasty and occasionally turns up at the office, and when he does, the boss David Brent is ecstatic because, in his opinion, "Finchy" is a wonderfully charming wag who is constantly coming up with terribly witty remarks and rapid-fire repartee. When Brent's face is pasted on a pornographic image, he is upset with the prank until he learns it was the work of Chris Finch, at which point Brent rapidly changes course and claims to find the joke funny, even refusing to apologise for reprimanding other employees who laughed at the joke. David describes him as his "best friend" but actually acts more like a lackey, laughing at his jokes and attempting to ride his coat-tails into the limelight. Finch repays him with abuse.

To most other people in the office, however, Chris Finch is just a rather cruel, unintelligent, sexist loudmouth whose jokes are rude and offensive (e.g. "What's the difference between a fox and a dog? About eight pints of lager!"). He has a natural flair in bullying others with swift, humiliating putdowns with many of his jokes directly aimed at Brent in the cruellest way imaginable. Only Gareth Keenan shares Brent's admiration for Chris Finch. Finchy also claims to be a very successful ladies' man and manages to have sex with a worker in the middle of the company car park.

Finch claims to read a book a week, though when asked which books he precariously mumbles "science... science and nature", suggesting incredulousness at this claim. He has also claimed to have thrown a kettle over the roof of a pub in Chichester and, according to David Brent, has an IQ of 142. He comes from Yorkshire and supports Leeds United F.C.

Chris Finch is also very competitive and a very bad loser. He is filled with indignant fury when he and David Brent come in second place to Tim and Ricky at the annual company Quiz Night since they have previously been winners for several years running. After the quiz ends and everyone is gathered around the pub, Finch says he can beat Tim and Ricky at 'loads of things'. He suggests a throwing contest, in which the winning team must pick something for Finch to throw over the Wernham Hogg building. If Finch does so successfully, Finch and Brent will be declared the "real winners" of the quiz. Tim and Ricky do not agree to the challenge however this doesn't seem to matter to Finch as he successfully throws one of Tim's shoes over the building, at which point he and Brent relish their victory obnoxiously and take the bottle of champagne that Tim and Ricky were awarded for winning the quiz. Finch tells Tim and his quiz partner Ricky to "respect [their] elders," and "do not fuck with the big boys."[1]

During the end credits of "The Party" Finch is shown to be having sex with Trudy.

At the end of part two of The Office Christmas Special, Brent finally appears to lose his deluded appreciation for Finch's humour and his tolerance for Finch's bullying treatment of him; following a typically misogynistic and humiliating remark from Finch concerning his blind date by calling her "a dog", Brent tells Finch (referring to him as 'Chris' as opposed to 'Finch') to "fuck off." Visibly shocked, Finch appears to be lost for any sort of comeback once his victim finally stands up to him.

Finch is the basis for the character of Todd Packer (played by David Koechner) in the American version of The Office.

• BBC's The Office website - profile of Chris Finch