History Main / IncompetenceInc

* ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBros'': Venture Industries was once an R&D juggernaut with countless superscience innovations and a ton of prestige, but after Jonas Venture died and passed the reins to Rusty, it went completely to seed:
** It's so understaffed that the idea of anyone besides Rusty, his kids, and his bodyguard working at the company is treated as a surprise, and it pretty much entirely survives off Rusty's personal efforts at fulfilling government contracts (which often fail) and selling off its old assets, most of which are decades old.
** The Venture Compound is in such a poor state that entire sections of it have been shut down indefinitely, including the underground transit network, which is occupied by a cult. When the military came by to check on what projects were coming out, Rusty had to resort to painting his private jet black in an attempt to pass it off as a new stealth bomber.
** Its collapse at the end of the fifth season due to a fire burning down the compound was almost a MercyKill, though it did allow Rusty to jump ship to his late brother's company and promptly start running that one into the ground as well.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Brickleberry}}'': Brickleberry National Park, in ''spades'':
** Woody is [[PointyHairedBoss ethically questionable and runs the park badly]].
** Connie is clumsy and prone to mood swings where she runs off crying and punching things.
** Denzel is literally good for nothing and only has the job because there's a chance he'll sue the park for racial discrimination.
** Steve only achieves a level of satisfaction because of his peers' lack of any skill short of Ethel, who is great at her job as long as she doesn't drink.
** Malloy is the only one who comes close to true competence at anything, but he doesn't "work" for the park, nor does he care about nature, since he's a spoiled house bear who loves junk food, video games, and making people's lives a living hell.
** In "Squabbits", Woody mentions that they had 25 campers die in ''one month''.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Archer}}'': The spy agency, ISIS, is this in spades:
** The workers are petty and lazy, focusing more on their hedonistic lives during the work day than on actual work.
** It is in constant financial hardship due to the field agents' and Malory's shameless embezzling of company money, which has been going on for ''years''; it has been noted by the company's head accountant that, for fifteen quarters, the company has ended up in the red.
** At the beginning of season three, ISIS manages to turn a profit, briefly, [[spoiler:when Archer goes missing for three months]]; however, Ray probably burns through this when he uses company money to buy a yacht and charter a flight, [[spoiler:all in the name of rescuing Archer]].
** In the field, agents let petty bickering and sheer, unfiltered idiocy get in the way of their jobs; multiple villains have gotten away because of this incompetence.
** In the Season 4 episode "The Papal Chase", a cardinal hires ISIS to protect the Pope [[spoiler:''because he knows they will fail''. Ironically enough, it's one of the few missions where ISIS does succeed, and the cardinal is arrested]].
** The agency was shut down when it was revealed it was never sanctioned by the US government, and Malory had to give up the property so she and the other agents could avoid the charges against them, including treason, for the aforementioned reason.
** The ISIS name itself was eventually phased out in the later seasons that followed, although the former agents were forced to work as a drug cartel, contracted (and eventually fired) by the CIA, and set up a private investigative agency, with about the same amount of success as their work in espionage.

** From the same show, [=DrugCo=], the company Lewis works for. While they're apparently a pharmaceutical company, it's apparently run by mad scientists, with such experiments as combining a monkey and a hippo (a "monkapotamus"), and experimental breast implants tested on men. As a janitor, Lewis has to clean up a lot of these messes, and it's implied all of it has really messed with his head.

* OCP in the ''Franchise/RoboCop'' films is what happens when a corporation takes the mindset of American car companies of the time, and then transfers it to law enforcement, and weapons manufacturing. Nearly all their products are CoolButInefficient at best, and they sink millions of dollars into flashy technologies that don't actually work while leaving the actual police understaffed and underequipped. The titular character is their only unqualified success that we see, and even that seems to have been [[SuperPrototype a total fluke]], as their many, many {{Disastrous Demonstration}}s can attest to. The videogame ''VideoGame/RobocopRogueCity'', an interquel between the second and third films, shows a large part of the company's freefall including [[spoiler:OCP's CEO the "Old Man", who for all of his corporate raiding did had a number of standards and [[WellIntentionedExtremist truly wanted to improve Detroit for the better]], dying and [[TyrantTakesTheHelm being replaced by utterly incompetent jerkwads]].]] By the [[Film/RoboCop3 third film]], they've fallen into such dire straits that they've been bought out by a Japanese MegaCorp.

* OCP in the ''Franchise/RoboCop'' films is what happens when a corporation takes the mindset of American car companies of the time, and then transfers it to law enforcement, and weapons manufacturing. Nearly all their products are CoolButInefficient at best, and they sink millions of dollars into flashy technologies that don't actually work while leaving the actual police understaffed and underequipped. The titular character is their only unqualified success that we see, and even that seems to have been [[SuperPrototype a total fluke]], as their many, many {{Disastrous Demonstration}}s can attest to. By the [[Film/RoboCop3 third film]], they've fallen into such dire straits that they've been bought out by a Japanese MegaCorp.

* ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'': This is how the [[EvilEmpire Galactic Empire]] is presented in the ''Franchise/StarWars'' spoofs.

May be controlled or managed by {{pointy haired boss}}es, be staffed [[OnlySaneEmployee mostly]] with bogglingly stupid employees, have installations with [[NoOSHACompliance tons of safety violations]], saddled with ludicrous rules and regulations that make no sense outside of some [[ObstructiveBureaucrat bureaucratic hell]], or some combination of the above.

* Weyland-Yutani Corp. in the ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' movies, despite being a powerful MegaCorp that has its own private army and hundreds of other personnel, has spent a great deal of effort in capturing the xenomorphs, which usually ends with the xenomorphs running loose and killing everyone in their facilities. ''Film/AlienResurrection'' reveals that the incompetence actually had consequences, culminating in Weyland-Yutani being bought out by '''Walmart'''.