History Main / BeleagueredBureaucrat

* ''Series/BurnNote'': In one episode, Sam gets audited by the IRS. Stacey Conolly, the poor guy sent to do the job, clearly had no idea what he was getting into. At first he's an ObstructiveBureaucrat, but once he realizes that his co-workers have punked him by sending him to audit a ''retired black ops hitman'' (who is trying to be very polite with him), he's much more accommodating.

* A Beleaguered Bureaucrat (in charge of "Xeno-Cultural Gestalt Clearance", i.e., relations with extraterrestrials) is the protagonist of the short story "Birth of A Salesman" by James Tiptree, Jr.

* The Hoons, one of several species of ObstructiveBureaucrats in the ''Literature/{{Uplift}}'' series, are thoroughly unhappy with their lot in Galactic life. A few centuries ago a group of Hoons decided to ditch their technology and live simple lives as sailors of wooden ships on Jijo. In the second trilogy a young Jijoan Hoon goes back into space to teach his Galactic cousins their way of life, he's treated almost as a messiah.

* The 1970s New Zealand stage show, and later 1980s TV sitcom, ''GlidingOn'' parodied this trope.

* Series/LastWeekTonightWithJohnOliver has explored this multiple times, most notably regarding the IRS (who, despite [[IntimidatingRevenueService their reputations]] as ObstructiveBureaucrat, are ham-strung by budget cuttings, limited staffing, and rules that change constantly) and with public defenders (who are so overworked and understaffed that they only can meet with defendants for an average of '''seven minutes.'''

* VideoGame/PapersPlease casts the player as one. They take the role of a border inspector who must process immigrants quickly but accurately to get enough money to support his family.

* ''TheBlindSide'' features a wealthy nonworking white woman chewing out an overworked social worker for not paying extra attention to the one poor kid she ever was concerned about (because he can play football for her alma mater)and she is portrayed as the good guy in this scene.[[/folder]]

* ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive'': The Azir spend most of their time annoyed at how every other culture on the planet refuses to understand the importance of paperwork. They have forms for executions, requisitioning snacks, taxing smugglers, and catching people stealing from smugglers when you are trying to tax them. Despite how much trouble they have, it should be noted that their system ''works'', at least better than the feuding warlords of the rest of the world.

* The French foreign affairs minister's staff in ''ComicBook/QuaiDOrsay'' collectively qualifies.

* Rumisiel would like you to believe he was one in ''Webcomic/{{Misfile}}'' and that his having [[http://www.misfile.com/index.php?page=15 far too much]] [[http://www.misfile.com/index.php?page=16 to do]] with [[http://www.misfile.com/index.php?page=18 no breaks]] was the reason for his little [[TheStoner recreational drug use]] that kicked off the plot. It may even be true since [[ReassignedToAntarctica The Fifth Branch]] is [[http://www.misfile.com/index.php?page=1375 later referred to]] as only having one clerk who is on administrative leave.

[[/folder]]

This trope is quite closely related to HanlonsRazor. Don't always assume that people in office work or government aren't managing things properly because they're corrupt or malicious. They may simply have way too much work on their hands, and not have the skills or resources to deal with them. This trope is subject to political use, as well, with a distinct undertone of "they don't have the skills and resources to deal with their workload because the people paying, the taxpayers who directly or indirectly rely on these bureaucrats, are too cheap to pay for them." (Whether this is true or not is [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment something we will not discuss]]; suffice it to say that works that use this trope usually bring this perspective.)

If its the king who is beleaguered, this is one way an EvilChancellor may get into power. The chancellor offers to do some of the work for the king and the grateful leader allows more and more of the responsibility of running the country to get shifted to the chancellor until soon the chancellor is running more of the country than the king is. And of course, the king never believes anyone who tells him about the abuses of power or the scheming of the chancellor against the throne: to the king, the chancellor is a great guy who has made his job much easier and whom he trusts absolutely.

[[folder: Comic Books]]
* ComicBook/IronMan: Tony Stark during his time as the Director of SHIELD had some serious aspects of this. Especially during the Knauf's run. Steve Epting wrote him like this, constantly exhausted and at one or two points thinking about relapsing back into alcohol addiction.
* When [[Franchise/{{Superman}} Clark Kent]] was a television reporter in [[UsefulNotes/TheBronzeAgeOfComicBooks the 70's,]] the director of the evening newscast was an antacid-popping, constantly stressed-out guy named Josh Coyle. The fact that Clark would frequently appear just a split second before the broadcast or secretly vanish to do super-heroing during commercial breaks played even more merry havoc with the guy's nerves.

[[folder: Fan Works]]
* In ''FanFic/TheNewRetcons'' Elly Patterson of ''ComicStrip/ForBetterOrForWorse'' goes insane. When family members try to get her committed to get treatment, the law says they can't do it unless the husband gives consent (which John refuses to do cause he thinks it would make him look bad) or unless she becomes a danger to herself or society. [[spoiler: The latter happens when she kidnaps a boy thinking he's Michael's childhood friend.]]
* Most of the cast of [[FanFic/TheEquestrianCivilServiceSeries the Equestrian Civil Service series]].
* Pencil Pusher in Fanfic/FlashFog starts out as this, though he seems to be transforming into a BadassBureaucrat.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* In the ''Broken Steel'' DLC for ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'', Bigsley, the Brotherhood scribe in charge of administrating Project Purity and the water distribution campaign can be accurately described as this. He's got reports coming in at all hours, and his office is pretty much stacked with files and forms from wall to wall. If you talk to him, he's kinda snippy towards you and blames you for his current workload; you know, cause you're responsible for [[spoiler:'''the damn purifier being completed and turned on in the first place''']].

* [[http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20100309.html Legate Zippobic]] the dragon in ''Webcomic/TheInexplicableAdventuresOfBob.''

* ''WesternAnimation/BuzzLightyearOfStarCommand'' has Commander Nebula, Buzz and Team Lightyear's commanding officer, and veteran ranger who for most of the time, plays this trope straight, save for a few [[AvertedTrope Aversion]]-[[DeusExMachina Ex-Machinas]] where he shoved his bureaucracy aside to save Buzz and his squad from certain danger.
** Invoked in the episode "Conspiracy" where Buzz notices that signing paperwork is something Nebula wouldn't be willing to do. [[spoiler: Which causes Buzz to shoot Nebula, where the Nebula he shot was a mechanized disguise used by tiny alien terrorists in an attempt to fool Lightyear into assassinating the Galactic President, after framing him for their own attempt to kill the Galactic President with another disguise modeled after Buzz himself. ]]

* Many, many heads of government run into this problem. One indicator of a strong leader is how good an administrator they are.
** To see proof of this, one just simply has to look at the photos of a person before and after they took office. The amount that people in high offices age - often far more aging than should be possible in the time they were in office - is astounding.

* Ponder Stibbons, of Literature/{{Discworld}}'s Unseen University, is the only wizard who cares much about anything besides his next meal, leaving him saddled with dozens of jobs. This leads him to a mini-[[CrowningMomentOfAwesome CMOA]] (at least mini by Disc standards) when he interrupts the feuding Archchancellors of two magical universities by saying that his various posts give him enough votes on the University Council to control it.

->'''Hacker''' (''upon discovering a schedule conflict in his diary''): Bernard, ''how'' could you allow this to happen?
->'''Bernard''': CBE, Minister.
->'''Hacker''': CBE?
->'''Bernard''': Can't Be Everywhere.

* [[DarknessVisible Sir John Busby]] tries his best, but once the proverbial hits the fan, he can't really keep up with the volume of Wardens' reports, and his usual efficiency takes a nose dive.

This trope is quite closely related to HanlonsRazor. Don't always assume that people in office work or government aren't managing things properly because they're corrupt or malicious. They may simply have way too much work on their hands, and not have the skills or resources to deal with them. This trope is subject to political use, as well, with a distinct undertone of "they don't have the skills and resources to deal with their workload because the people paying the taxpayers who directly or indirectly rely on these bureaucrats are too cheap to pay for them." (Whether this is true or not is [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment something we will not discuss]]; suffice it to say that works that use this trope usually bring this perspective.)

* In ''TransformersTransTech'', the red-tape-happy [[CityOfAdventure Axiom Nexus]] is full of bureaucrats, including this sort. In "Withered Hope" in particular, the inability of an overworked and underpaid bureaucrat to help the [[WesternAnimation/ChallengeOfTheGoBots GoBots]] (yes, you read that right) find among the thousands of others waiting to be processed through Customs the rogue scientist that escaped from their group, is what sets all their problems in motion.

* [[ComicBook/IronMan Tony Stark]] during his time as the Director of SHIELD had some serious aspects of this. Especially during the Knauf's run.
** Steve Epting wrote him like this, constantly exhausted and at one or two points thinking about relapsing back into alcohol addiction.
* When [[{{Superman}} Clark Kent]] was a television reporter in [[UsefulNotes/TheBronzeAgeOfComicBooks the 70's,]] the director of the evening newscast was an antacid-popping, constantly stressed-out guy named Josh Coyle. The fact that Clark would frequently appear just a split second before the broadcast or secretly vanish to do super-heroing during commercial breaks played even more merry havoc with the guy's nerves.

This trope is quite closely related to HanlonsRazor. Don't always assume that people in office work or government aren't managing things properly because they're corrupt or malicious. They may simply have way too much work on their hands, and not have the skills or resources to deal with them. This trope is liable to political use, as well, with a distinct undertone of "they don't have the skills and resources to deal with their workload because the people paying [[CoughSnarkCough *cough* the taxpayers who directly or indirectly rely on these bureaucrats *cough*]] are too cheap to pay for them." (Whether this is true or not is [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment something we will not discuss]]; suffice it to say that works that use this trope usually bring this perspective.)