History Main / IncompetenceInc

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': The Springfield nuclear power plant is a pollutant-pumping, outdated trainwreck that constantly seemed on the verge of meltdown, kept alive through regular infusions of bribery and run by a morally bankrupt misanthrope who thrives on making his incompetent employees suffer.

* [=InGen=] from ''Film/JurassicPark''. Despite CEO John Hammond's claim that his dinosaur theme park has "spared no expense," the park is a giant exercise in AwesomeButImpractical: it relies far too much on automation, has far too few human employees to fall back on when things go wrong, and hasn't even properly vetted these employees. (Dennis Nedry is the ur-example, a computer programmer with unstated financial troubles who put in the lowest bid for the job at Jurassic Park. While it was not unreasonable for Hammond to refuse to help him pay off his debts, they left him wide open to recruitment by corporate spies, which is exactly what happens and leads to the sabotage and total breakdown of the park that we see in the movie. Finding a programmer who didn't come with Nedry's baggage would have been the safer move... but anyone like that would have charged more money).

* Fazbear Entertainment of ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'' takes corporate incompetence to an absolutely ''lethal'' degree. Even if you toss aside the HostileAnimatronics and the child murders on company grounds, they designed wearable animatronic suits that kill the wearer if they so much as even ''breathe'' wrong (and if such an incident were to occur during business hours, instead of seeking immediate medical attention, the hapless victim is instead directed to go into the off-camera back room to bleed out, so as not to ruin the customer experience). ''VideoGame/FreddyFazbearsPizzeriaSimulator'' allows you, the player, to take it to its logical conclusion by having almost everything in your restaurant be nothing but creatively thrown-together junk, like a ball pit literally made out of a cardboard box or an "animatronic" consisting of a milk crate with googly eyes, two foam fingers, and ''literally nothing else''. Depending on how you run the business, the game will [[MedalOfDishonor "award" you with certificates]] of Mediocrity (do effectively nothing the whole game), Bankruptcy (run out of money from lawsuits) or just outright blacklisted (Have such a hazardous workplace that even [[NoOSHACompliance Fazbear Entertainment]] doesn't want anything to do with you) from working in the town. When you get to check around the Pizzaplex in ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddysSecurityBreach'' you find things like having the daycare emergency generators inside the play areas or that you can't leave through the fire exit because it's non-accessible unless you're a VIP.

* Despite their seemingly good intentions, [[Peace&LoveIncorporated is what the]] [[MegaCorp Hero Association]] from ''Webcomic/OnePunchMan'' really is: a company run by [[PointyHairedBoss incompetent executives]] who are either vain, stupid, corrupted or just douchebags and heroes who don't actually act like ones and are just there for fame or paycheck.. [[KnightInSourArmor A few other heroes]] and [[ReasonableAuthorityfigure couple of executives]] try to actually help out, but they have to contend with the aforementioned [[PunchClockHero heroes]] who are rather more of a hindrance to everyone. The villains and monsters' jobs would be much easier if they simply sit back and watch the heroes fight amongst themselves. It's however a rather zig-zagged in heroes instance, since [[HiddenDepths many of them are]] [[HiddenHeartOfGold deep down good people]], who risks their lives to save civillians. And for all Hero Association faults, in the third saga where [[spoiler:Neo Heroes are introduced, it's showcased that HA are far more capable in handling threats than Neo Heroes, who despite gaining much better reception in short amount of time, they are even more corrupted and incompetent.]]

* Despite their seemingly good intentions, this is what the Hero Association from ''Webcomic/OnePunchMan'' really is: a company run by [[PointyHairedBoss incompetent boobs]] and superpowered narcissistic megalomaniacs. Several other heroes try to actually help out, but they have to contend with the aforementioned {{Sociopathic hero}}es who are rather more of a hindrance to everyone. The villains and monsters' jobs would be much easier if they simply sit back and watch the heroes fight amongst themselves.

* Wiz's Magic Shop in ''LightNovel/KonoSuba'' specializes in selling items that are either too high-level for a town full of low-level adventurers or have dangerous curses on them. Even when the much more competent Vanir starts helping out, Wiz usually spends everything he makes on more useless merchandise.

* Fazbear Entertainment of ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'' takes corporate incompetence to an absolutely ''lethal'' degree. Even if you toss aside the HostileAnimatronics and the child murders on company grounds, they designed wearable animatronic suits that kill the wearer if they so much as even ''breathe'' wrong (and if such an incident were to occur during business hours, instead of seeking immediate medical attention, the hapless victim is instead directed to go into the off-camera back room to bleed out, so as not to ruin the customer experience). ''VideoGame/FreddyFazbearsPizzeriaSimulator'' allows you, the player, to take it to its logical conclusion by having almost everything in your restaurant be nothing but creatively thrown-together junk, like a ball pit literally made out of a cardboard box or an "animatronic" consisting of a milk crate with googly eyes, two foam fingers, and ''literally nothing else''. Depending on how you run the business, the game will [[MedalOfDishonor "award" you with certificates]] of Mediocrity (do effectively nothing the whole game.), Bankruptcy (run out of money from lawsuits) or just outright blacklisted (Have so many lawsuits that even [[NoOSHACompliance Fazbear Entertainment]] doesn't want anything to do with you) from working in the town. When you get to check around the Pizzaplex in ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddysSecurityBreach'' you find things like having the daycare emergency generators inside the play areas or that you can't leave through the fire exit because it's non-accessible unless you're a VIP.

* Mr. Fujinami in ''Manga/UruseiYatsura'' runs a family beachside cafe, but refuses to accept that such a business is only workable during spring and summer. Keeping it open all year around insted of looking for alternative work left him impoverished, caused his cafe to get dilapidated, and eventually he tore it down during one of his brawls with his [[{{Bifauxnen}} daughter]], Ryuunosuke. He's constantly running schemes to try and scrape together the funds to rebuild his cafe, but his backlog of bills is so high that he can't get in front of them. The perfect summation of his skills as a manager is that he genuinely thinks that buying and running a cafe on a tiny deserted island ''four miles offshore'' from the nearest village is a good idea.

** The infamous Amy's Baking Company, run by a pair of certifiable lunatics who steal tips from their staff, openly scream at their customers and are in denial over their horrible food. No wonder this is the one place so bad that Gordon just gives up and walks out on them.

[[folder:Fan Fiction]]

* A recurring bit on ''Series/KitchenNightmares'' is marveling at how some of these restaurants were able to stay open long enough for Gordon Ramsey to visit. Gordon has lost count of how many establishments have owners with zero experience in running a restaurant and it shows.
** One place serves a "vegetarian" meal that quite clearly has meat in it.

** One place has Gordon having to calmly explain to the owners that the "Soup of the Day" is supposed to change ''every day.''
** The infamous Amy's Baking Company, run by a pair of certifiable lunatics who steal tips from their staff, openly scream at their customers and are in denial over their horrible food. No wonder this is the one place so bad that Gordon just gives up and walks out on them.

* ''WesternAnimation/ParadisePD'': The Paradise Police Department is so underfunded that a ''hobo'' is used for disarming bombs instead of a robot. The workers are also too preoccupied with their own interests to actually conduct any work and have committed just as much felonies as their targets. The chief's solution to stopping a monster invasion (and other things) is to ''sing "Pump Up the Jam" by Technotronic''. [[spoiler:They eventually get fired for their incompetence and create a new branding named "Party Dudes". Even then, they are so bad that their only target audience is ''pedophiles''.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/ParadisePD'': The Paradise Police Department is so underfunded that a ''hobo'' is used for disarming bombs instead of a robot. The workers are also too wrapped up in their own interests to actually do any work and have committed just as much felonies as their targets. The chief's solution to stopping a monster invasion (and other things) is to ''sing "Pump Up the Jam" by Technotronic''. Their incompetence gets to the point where they get fired by the mayor (who is also the chief's wife). Even when they create a new branding named "Party Dudes", they are so bad to the point of only catering to ''pedophiles''.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Wayside}}'' School. The principal is mind-bogglingly stupid, most of the teachers exhibit bizarre ways of doing things, the sole worker in the cafeteria is a textbook CordonBleughChef, the list goes on and on... and it's hard to imagine how this school hasn't been shut down yet.

* This is how the [[EvilEmpire Galactic Empire]] is presented in the ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'' spoofs of ''Franchise/StarWars''.
* The palace staff and residents in ''WesternAnimation/SagwaTheChineseSiameseCat''. The Foolish Magistrate bumbles a lot, Tai-Tai only cares about being better than the "commoners", the Reader of the Rules is clumsy, and even some of the palace cats show signs of this trope. Even for a preschool show, this trope is heavy.
* ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndFriends:'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCzODUHQSE4 With all of the crashes and runaways on Sodor]], it's a wonder Sir Topham Hatt's Railway stays in business, but the logging company on Misty Island especially applies, as it makes almost no profit since cranes like Old Wheezy keep throwing logs into the river.

* Venture Industries in ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBros'' 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.
* The only thing we ever see of [[AcmeProducts Acme Corporation]] in ''WesternAnimation/WileECoyoteAndTheRoadrunner'' most of the time is their output. What we do see, though, certainly doesn't give a good impression of them (though Wile E. Coyote does seem to hold one, given his impressive brand loyalty). About half of the Coyote's failures come from an Acme product malfunctioning in some fashion, either failing completely or overperforming to absurdity. Supposedly, it's based on various shady, mediocre companies that chose their name with the intention of being first in the phonebook.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Archer}}'': The spy agency, ISIS, where the core characters work, is largely staffed with petty and lazy workers who focus more on their hedonistic lives during the work day than on actual work, and is in constant financial hardship due to the field agents' and Malory's shameless embezzling of company money. This over-spending has gone on for years, and 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, and 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'll fail''. Ironically enough its one of the few, 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 can avoid the charges against them, including treason for the aforementioned reason. Though the ISIS name itself was eventually phased out, in the later seasons that follow, 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.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Brickleberry}}'': Brickleberry is run badly by the ethically questionable Woody and staffed by: Connie who is clumsy and prone to mood swings where she runs off crying and punching things, Denzel who is literally good for nothing, and only has the job because there's a chance he'll sue the park for racial discrimination, and Steve who only achieves a level of satisfaction because of his peer's 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. How bad is Brickleberry? In "Squabbits" Woody mentions that they had 25 campers die, in ''one month''.

* ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead'': [[BurgerFool Burger World]]. The manager [[UltimateJobSecurity hasn't fired Beavis and Butt-Head]] despite everything from their laziness and rudeness to customers to their ''getting the place shut down for health violations by selling tainted meat''. What's most notable is that despite all his talk about how he got ahead in life through hard work, the manager isn't really seen on-screen doing any work of note aside from giving orders to Beavis and Butt-head and the ''only'' time we see him out at the front doing something is when the duo have screwed something up to the point where he has no choice but to go out there and deal with angry customers.

* ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead'': [[BurgerFool Burger World]]. Beavis and Butt-Head have gotten the restaurant closed multiple times due to health violations, goofed off in the kitchen and the bathroom, beat each other up on work hours simply to get worker's compensation, insulted customers and delayed/abandoned their orders, etc. [[PointyHairedBoss The manager himself is not much better]], as he is [[UltimateJobSecurity never shown firing them for any of this]], despite clearly being in the right to do so.

* ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead'': [[BurgerFool Burger World]]. Beavis and Butt-Head have gotten the restaurant closed multiple times due to health violations, goofed off in the kitchen and the bathroom, beat each other up on work hours simply to get worker's compensation, insulted customers and delayed/abandoned their orders, etc. [[PointyHairedBoss The manager himself is not much better]], as he is [[UltimateJobSecurity never shown firing them for any of this]], despite clearly being in the right for doing so.

* ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead'': [[BurgerFool Burger World]]. Beavis and Butt-Head have gotten the restaurant closed multiple times due to health violations, goofed off in the kitchen and the bathroom, beat each other up on work hours simply to get worker's compensation, insulted customers and delayed/abandoned their orders, etc. [[PointyHairedBoss The manager himself is not much better]], as he is [[UltimateJobSecurity never shown firing them for any of this]], despite clearly being in the right for doing so. [[spoiler:In the 2022 revival, though, it's implied Beavis and Butt-Head were ''finally'' fired for their antics at some point in time, with a new manager on-board, implying the original manager also got fired for constantly keeping the two on-board in spite of everything.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead'': [[BurgerFool Burger World]]. Beavis and Butt-Head have gotten the restaurant closed multiple time due to health violations, goofed off in the kitchen and the bathroom, beat each other up on work hours simply to get worker's compensation, insulted customers and delayed/abandoned their orders, etc. [[PointyHairedBoss The manager himself is not much better]], as he is [[UltimateJobSecurity never shown firing them for any of this]], despite clearly being in the right for doing so. [[spoiler:In the 2022 revival, though, it's implied Beavis and Butt-Head were ''finally'' fired for their antics at some point in time, with a new manager on-board, implying the original manager also got fired for constantly keeping the two on-board in spite of everything.]]

!!Examples:

* This is the default assumption for any organization, business, or enterprise in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', with the possible exception of Globex.
** Mr. Burns's nuclear power plant has, aside from literally ''hundreds'' of [[NoOSHACompliance safety violations]], a staff of incredibly stupid and incompetent employees (Homer Simpson is really only slightly more inept than the rest), and a structure that's falling apart, to the point where it would cost $100,000,000 just to bring it up to code. Security is also alarmingly lax, to the point that a child spy from Communist Albania was able to get a look at the plant facilities simply by asking Homer for a tour, with Homer replying that he could probably do it by "pulling some strings with the boys in security." 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 ''Series/LetsMakeADeal''.
*** The company's collective work ethic can also be demonstrated by the fact that everyone at the plant sleeps all at once. Even when they're awake, all of the employees except for Smithers are slackers. In one episode, Homer sneaks out of work by getting Lenny to "cover for him", which consists of Lenny replacing Homer in lazing around in Homer's chair and eating his donuts. This gets a CallBack in a much later episode when Homer gets Mr. Burns to cover for him. Mr. Burns then ends up being the one to laze in the chair and eat donuts.
*** Should someone, say, accidentally trigger a ''core meltdown'' in their sleep(!), the only thing preventing this is a trained dog. So much so that the pre-programmed warning messages are designed to commend the dog.
*** The plant's hiring policies verge between bizarre and outright illegal, since Mr. Burns himself makes all employment decisions without a single HR employee, apparently on a whim. Among others, he has employed animals (a duck named Stewart and a dog as VP), illegal aliens, professional athletes as ringers for the company softball team, a man who was openly loading a shotgun and declaring himself "the angel of death" ''at his desk'', and the survivors of a plane crash that happened on his property. In one episode he promotes a crudely constructed dummy that Homer used to sneak out of work to management. Homer himself has briefly been replaced on separate occasions by a chicken and ''a brick''.
*** In one episode, Globex targets the plant as a potential source of talented employees. They first approach Smithers, and when he turns them down they go for the number three guy at the plant -- Homer. (In some fairness, he wasn't the next-''best'' pick as their next-longest employee, but that's not much better.)
*** In "Homer the Smithers", Smithers decides to take a vacation. He decides to select the plant's stupidest and most incompetent employee to fill his role, so that Mr. Burns won't replace him. When Smithers goes through the company database, and when he searches the employee evaluations for "Incompetent" 714 employees match the description. He tries to be more specific: "lazy, clumsy, dim-witted, monstrously ugly" after a brief moment the database shows that ''all 714 employees fit that description as well''.
---->'''Smithers:''' [[ForegoneConclusion Aw, nuts to this, I'll just go get Homer Simpson]].
** Any company that makes an endorsement deal with Krusty the Clown is guaranteed to produce the shoddiest goods in existence. You're lucky if you bought a product with Krusty's face on it that simply isn't working right. Chances are it'll be downright dangerous to use, or in some cases, even just to ''touch''. Most of the time, Krusty isn't even trying to pretend he cares about the quality of any product carrying his name. Also, the quality of the Krusty Burgers restaurant chain often goes past awful and straight into life-threateningly unsanitary and in a few cases even into "crimes against humanity" territory (in a canon episode Krusty actually ''[[TheSecretOfLongPorkPies shreds a man's arm for hamburger meat and sells it to the guy]]''), and his investing in it is equally stupid (the ChekhovsGun that saves the Simpsons' lives in "Boy Scouts 'N' The Hood" is a Krusty Burger built on an oil rig... an ''unmanned'' oil rig. Krusty ''was'' warned that it was unmanned but it was obvious he didn't cared until he arrived to the fully-built restaurant and got bored out of his mind).
** Powell Motors, a satire of the dire straits of a lot of American auto manufacturers in the 90s, falls into this pretty hard. They've designed so heavily for unassuming mid-tier good-mileage cars that none of their cars are even a little remarkable; Herb Powell, the CEO, grumbles that there's "maybe forty bucks of steel in these cars." The executives and management are incompetent and out-of-touch, insistent on focus-testing their mediocre products into oblivion while pursuing a pretentious and unappealing aesthetic. Herb tries to counter their downward spiral by having his half-brother Homer, supposedly the "average American," design a car. The resulting mess drives Powell Motors into bankruptcy.
** Duff Beer, as depicted in "Duffless", has manufacturing processes so flawed that the single guy on their quality control team regularly finds rodents, syringes, and human body parts (as in, Adolf Hitler's head) inside the bottles, and releases the exact same beer under three different names. One episode had them try to put out a non-alcoholic beer to stay afloat after Springfield had a brief spell of prohibition, attempting to sell consumers on its taste -- they went bankrupt thirty minutes later.
** Pretty much every business and operation in Springfield is some manner of crooked. Even ''TheMafia'' and regular criminals are incompetent (especially because they have zero idea [[WithCatlikeTread of how to act "covert"]]), and only prosper as much as they do because [[PoliceAreUseless the cops are worse]].
** [[SuckySchool Springfield Elementary]] counts as well, given the disorganized principal and his profound budget cuts, apathetic and unscrupulous teachers, insubordinate and simple-minded students, unregulated bullying, horrible cafeteria food, and minimal safety requirements among other things. The closest to the OnlySaneEmployee is the superintendent, and even he isn't without his IdiotBall moments.

* ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'': [=AnyoCorp=], run by the eponymous Nef Anyo is held aloft only by Anyo's superficial charisma, his ability to constantly scam investors, and the tireless work of the competent few who work under him. The company's directions are beholden almost entirely by Anyo's whims, which are almost always petty and misguided. The guy basically has a monopoly on terraforming Venus and has come close to flushing the operation SEVERAL times thanks to, but not limited to, sentient superheavy weapons platforms going rogue, randomly assigning collective punishments to his workers, and forcing a CENTURIES OLD terraforming tower into action when it was blatantly not ready. Oh, and he's also a crippling gambling addict, frequently pissing away credits and assets. It's a miracle he's still in business, and players have been calling for a boss-fight to finally kill the bastard for quite some time now.

* ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead'': [[BurgerFool Burger World]]. Beavis and Butt-Head had gotten the restaurant closed multiple time due to health violations, goofed off in the kitchen and the bathroom, beat each other up on work hours simply to get worker's compensation, insulted customers and delayed/abandoned their orders, etc. The manager himself is not much better, as he is never shown firing them for any of this, despite clearly being in the right for doing so. [[spoiler:In the 2022 revival, though, it's implied Beavis and Butt-Head were ''finally'' fired for their antics at some point in time, with a new manager on-board, implying the original manager got fired for constantly keeping the two on-board in spite of everything.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead'': Burger World. Beavis and Butt-Head had gotten the restaurant closed multiple time due to health violations, goofed off in the kitchen and the bathroom, beat each other up on work hours simply to get worker's compensation, insulted customers and delayed/abandoned their orders, etc. The manager himself is not much better, as he is never shown firing them for any of this, despite clearly being in the right for doing so. [[spoiler:In the 2022 revival, though, it's implied Beavis and Butt-Head were ''finally'' fired for their antics at some point in time, with a new manager on-board, implying the original manager got fired for constantly keeping the two on-board in spite of everything.]]