History Main / IncompetenceInc

* Aperture Science in ''{{Portal}}''. They made lots of innovative products but didn't know how to use them correctly. For an example, propulsion and repulsion gels would have had many practical uses and they used them in dietary products. Despite being ''horrifically toxic''.
** To be clear, these gels are not outright poisonous. rather, the Repulsion Gel bounces everything you eat back up your throat and out your mouth, and the Propulsion Gel shoots your masticated pulp out your rear end, giving your digestive system to chance to digest it at all. Either way, you die of starvation.
** Let's not forget the portal gun itself, which was originally designed as a '''shower curtain'''.

** To be clear, these gels are not outright poisonous. rather, the Repulsion Gel bounces everything you eat back up your throat and out your mouth, and the Propulsion Gel shoots your masticated pulp out your rear end, giving you digestive system to chance to digest it at all. Either way, you die of starvation.

Quite a bit of TruthInTelevision. Please direct all personal examples to [[TroperTales/IncompetenceInc Troper Tales]], instead of posting them to the main page. Compare to MurderInc, LawEnforcementInc, and the eponymous organization of MonstersInc.

* Aperture Science in ''{{Portal}}''. They made lots of innovative products but didn't know how to use them correctly. For an example, propulsion and repulsion gels would have had many practical uses and they used them in dietary products.

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

* Mr Burns's nuclear power plant in ''TheSimpsons''. Aside from literally ''hundreds'' of safety violations, the company is staffed by incredibly stupid and incompetent employees (Homer Simpson is really only the worst of them all, and they're almost all as inept as he is anyway), and the plant is falling apart, to the point where it would cost $100,000,000 just to bring it up to code. The company really only makes money due to being the sole electric power provider to the Springfield area, and highly efficient corruption that allows crooked public officials to actually choose their bribes a la ''LetsMakeADeal''.

* [[{{Portal}} Aperture Science]].
** That's not true! They made a neat gun.

->''I work for Kruger Industrial Smoothing: "We don't care, and it shows."''

Quite a bit of TruthInTelevision. Please direct all TroperTales examples to a separate entry in TroperTales, instead of posting them to the main page. Compare to MurderInc, LawEnforcementInc, and the eponymous organization of MonstersInc.

* The company that ''{{Dilbert}}'' works at, generally nameless aside from one-off joke strips that don't hold beyond that strip (or episode, for the [[Series/{{Dilbert}} TV show]]).

* Veridian Dynamics on BetterOffTed.

* Kruger Industrial Smoothing in ''{{Seinfeld}}'', where Costanza applied for a job ''because'' of the fact that it had "no management whatsoever" and that it "couldn't smooth a silk sheet on a hot date" hoping to get a cushy job. He did but eventually ''even he'' got tired of the company's inability to get any work done and quit.

[[AC:RealLife]]
* Whether it's the bloated contracts and continually retreaded storylines of {{WCW}}, the continual breakdowns and service calls required for Xerox products, or the chronic inefficiency of and massive taxpayer subsidies required by the American healthcare industry, suffice it to say that this trope is TruthInTelevision.

* Whether it's the bloated contracts and continually retreaded storylines of {{WCW}}, the continual breakdowns and service calls required for Xerox products, or the mounds of paperwork and massive taxpayer subsidies required by the American healthcare industry, suffice it to say that this trope is TruthInTelevision.

* The nameless company that ''{{Dilbert}}'' works at.
** [[{{Series/Dilbert}} The show]] decides to call it [[IncrediblyLamePun Path-e-tech]].
*** In one episode. And it's stated that that's what they're called "this week". The frequent name changes aren't to escape a bad reputation, but merely the result of a string of mergers (most recently Pathway+e-Tech).
**** Well, that's the case in the show. There are several strips about having to change their name to cover up for past mistakes. One involves hiring a pirate with a diseased pirate to be their spokesperson. He rejects their offer.
*** And let's not forget that one comic had [[MagnificentBastard Dogbert]] generate a name for them by randomly combining terms from astronomy and electronics. The name? [[spoiler:Uranus-Hertz]]. It's not clear whether they used the name.

[[AC:{{RealLife}}]]
* The book [[http://www.insearchofstupidity.com In Search of Stupidity]] chronicles lots of [[IncompetenceInc incompetent corporations]] of the computer industry from TheSeventies to TheNineties.
* [[{{TNA}} Total Nonstop Action]] Wrestling. Like so many on this list, TNA seems proud of it's AchievementsInIgnorance. Unlike so many on this list, it's neither intentional nor funny.
** Before that, [[{{WCW}} World Championship Wrestling]].
*** At least in WCW's case, we actually know ''why'' it stayed in business for as long as it did, namely because Ted Turner personally backed it with a wallet so fat it made Rosie O'Donnell look anorexic.
*** If it hadn't had been for the AOL-Time Warner merger, WCW would probably still be in business today. Turner is such a huge "wrasslin'" fan, that he would've spent every dollar he had if he had to.
** Think about it this way... it's only the potential and wasted gems in the roster that make this look so bad.
**** In the early '90s, when WCW was first losing money, a few Time Warner executives brought up closing WCW. Ted Turner told them that as long as he was in charge, WCW wasn't going anywhere and to never bring up the idea again. This held true until Turner lost control of his company in that merger.
* It turns out that as of 2007 the banking industry didn't actually know what the hell it was doing as a whole.
** Nor did General Motors.
*** As of 2010 they still don't get it, seeing they think they can let some of their European subsidaries go bankrupt while at the same time pocketing billions of subsidy from the European countries where the factories are located, instead of selling said subsidaries to other companies who were '''[[WallBanger willing to pay up more money]]''' than GM is asking in subsidies. Apparently GM is really so clueless that they think [[BigNo European countries will pay for bankruptcies that will cause thousands of workers to be laid off]]...
*** Last I checked, Opel was doing pretty healthily...
** True to the trope, a lot of [[{{Understatement}} smart folks]] with Ivy League economics degrees are arguing over how things went so wrong and what can be done to get out of this mess.
*** {{Greed}}...
*** ...[[WallStreet is good]]
*** [[PragmaticVillainy Rational greed]] can be good for the system. [[StupidEvil Stupid greed]] usually is not.
* Then there's the American health insurance industry, which is so bloated and inefficient that tens of millions of Americans remain without health insurance of any kind. Not to mention that, even under the current privatized system, American taxpayers still spend more money per capita to keep the system running than do the taxpayers of a completely public and socialized system like Canada, which also has everybody covered. Isn't turning things over to private enterprise supposed to make them ''more'' efficient and ''less'' costly?
** Well if its subsidized by the government to such an extent that it costs the government more money to maintain than does the Canadian system it's not really private is it? There's a difference between private enterprise and [[AtlasShrugged buddy buddy special interest economics.]]
** Insistently, the Canadian system is running out of money.
** "More efficient and less costly" was the actual goal when the current system was created in the wake of World War II. The government allowed privatized medical insurance so that medical bills for returning G.I.s could be kept under control. [[HoistByHisOwnPetard Oops?]]
** I think it's safe to say that whether it's private or government-run, healthcare in general is a massive Incompetence Inc. You get screwed somehow either way.
* British Petroleum. Just...British Petroleum. There is no longer a company known as British Petrolum.
* How could someone leave out [[UweBoll Boll KG?]]

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**** ...[[WallStreet is good]]

* Mr Burns's nuclear power plant in ''TheSimpsons''. Aside from literally ''hundreds'' of safety violations, its incredibly stupid and incompetent employees (Homer Simpson is really only the worst of them all, and they're almost all as inept as he is anyway), and the fact that it's falling apart, to the point where it would cost $100,000,000 just to bring it up to code. The company really only makes money due to being the sole electric power provider to the Springfield area, and highly efficient corruption that allows crooked public officials to actually choose their bribes a la ''LetsMakeADeal''.

* Mr Burns's nuclear power plant in ''TheSimpsons''.
** In this case it's easy to see how the company makes money, being the sole electric power provider to the Springfield area, and having numerous highly competent employes who aren't Homer Simpson. No, the main question is how the company stays in business with its notorious health and safety violations, and the answer is highly efficient corruption.

[[AC:{{Film}}]]
* The company (Initech) in ''OfficeSpace''.

Quite a bit of TruthInTelevision. Please direct all TroperTales examples to a separate entry in TroperTales, instead of posting them to the main page. Compare to MurderInc, LawEnforcementInc, and the titular organization of MonstersInc.