History Main / KickedUpstairs

** Creator/YujiNaka, creator of ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'', was given this treatment at Creator/{{Sega}}, having been promoted to a managerial position that he absolutely hated. This, combined with burnout from the ''Sonic'' series, is what led to his departure from Sega in 2006, the formation of his own development house Prope, and his current job at Creator/SquareEnix, which ended up crashing and burning after the failure of ''VideoGame/BalanWonderworld'', leading him to leave that company as well. Naka also claims that the failure of ''Balan'' has made him take a step back to reevaluate himself and pick up programming again, and he has since released a game, ''Shot 2048'', as an indie developer.
** VideoGame/{{Yakuza}} creator Toshihiro Nagoshi became the latest casualty of Sega's habit of kicking people it deems past their prime upstairs. Nagoshi was "promoted" to the position of "Creative Director" after the completion of VideoGame/LostJudgment in April 2021, and has chosen to leave Sega for Chinese firm [=NetEase=] due to the fact.

* In ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks'', Captain Freeman is desperate to get Ensign Mariner (who happens to be her daughter) off of her ship. At first she tries filling Mariner's duty roster with all the worst jobs an ensign can do, but Mariner is able to find a way to make them fun. So Freeman decides to promote her--weighing her down with endless bureaucracy and her free time with monotonous social functions that isolate her from her friends. Mariner calls her out on this and gets herself demoted again at the end of the episode by being rude to an Admiral.
** Mariner herself invokes this in the episode "Terminal Provocations"; Ensign Fletcher has caused nothing but problems for her and Boimler with his compulsive lying and violent edge, but lower deck tradition means they can't rat him out to the senior staff. Their solution? Give ''him'' the credit for saving the day. He gets promoted to Lieutenant, gets a transfer to the ''USS Titan'', [[LaserGuidedKarma and promptly gets fired from Starfleet in less than a week for his incompetence]].

* Used to [[Pun kick]] off ''Film/HotFuzz'', in which Nicholas Angel is promoted to sergeant because he's so damn good at his job, he's showing everyone else up. Unable to kick him out due to his extreme competence, they promote him to the sleepy little village of Sandford, Gloucestershire -- except as it turns out, [[ReassignmentBackfire it's not actually all that quiet]].

Also, while this move has a demoralizing effect towards Japanese people, it has the [[ReassignmentBackfire opposite intended effect]] towards western-educated hipsters and millenials, as noted by the series ''Silicon Valley''.

* Used to kick off ''Film/HotFuzz'', in which Nicholas Angel is promoted to sergeant because he's so damn good at his job, he's showing everyone else up. Unable to kick him out due to his extreme competence, they promote him to the sleepy little village of Sandford, Gloucestershire -- except as it turns out, [[ReassignmentBackfire it's not actually all that quiet]].

** Sinclair gets reassigned as ambassador to Minbar after his [[RulesLawyer manipulation of [=EarthGov=] rules and regulations]] made him too many political enemies on Earth. [[spoiler: This leads to the ultimate ReassignmentBackfire when he goes back in time 1000 years to become the Minbari religious figure Valen and sets up ''their entire culture''--leading to the Earth-Minbari War [[StableTimeLoop which started the whole business.]] ]]

** In "Hollow Pursuits", Picard and Riker suspect that Lt. Barclay's glowing performance reviews from his previous ship were issued as a way to foist him on the ''Enterprise''. It turns out he really is a good engineer under the right conditions, i.e. when he isn't paralyzed by his social anxiety.

** Hitler had this happen to himself after the 1932 election. He lost, but he and the Nazi party put up such a fight (and everyone was so scared of the Communists) that President Hindenburg named Hitler his Chancellor, hoping that he could pacify the far-right but not giving Hitler any responsibility.[[note]]He also tried to manage Hitler by appointing moderate centrist Franz von Papen to be Vice-Chancellor. This wasn't good for anybody, as not only was von Papen largely ineffective at corralling Hitler, he wound up being [[GuiltByAssociation among those tried at Nuremberg]] after the war (although he was acquitted). Hitler even toyed with assassinating him in a FalseFlagOperation to provide justification for the annexation of Austria.[[/note]] But Hitler was a shrewd manipulator who found that he had enough power as Chancellor to still put the screws on the Communists like everyone wanted, and the Reichstag fire gave him the green light to do that (although he may have [[FalseFlagOperation set that up himself]]). Then Hindenburg died, and Hitler introduced the Enabling Act of 1933, which would give all the real power to him. That's how he became the dictator.

** When Peter went to work for a beer company, he initially got a position on the factory floor. As free beer was part of the deal, Peter was hammered in record time. He was then moved to administration, which doesn't have that benefit.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Disgaea 3|AbsenceOfJustice}}'', Nether Academy ultimately deals with [[spoiler:Beryl and her squad of delinquents]] this way, by [[spoiler: letting them graduate. Note that the academy usually encourages its students to skip classes and goof off, endlessly paying the tuition; since Raspberyl and the girls insisted on attending every class and doing all their homework, they wound up becoming the first ones to ever graduate]]. This backfires on Nether Academy [[spoiler:since Beryl and her squad's chosen career path...is to become '''teachers''' at the academy, meaning they will never leave.]]

It happens everywhere, and in all walks of life:

* In Creator/HarryTurtledove's Literature/Timeline191 series, UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler {{expy}} Jake Featherston gives the job of Vice President to the leader of a smaller group the Freedom Party in order to unite their White Power-based voter base while shoving the former rival off to the side (and giving his own right-hand man the position of Attorney General, which holds actual power). When the Vice President figures this out, he attempts a coup to seize power but ultimately fails.

The name of the trope comes from British politics, where the "Upstairs" in question is the House of Lords. Being given a title like "Lord" or "Baroness" sounds like a great reward for a career in politics -- until you realize that it disqualifies you permanently from sitting in the House of Commons, where all the real decisions are made (UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill was offered a Dukedom after WWII, but he turned it down so he might become Prime Minister again, and also so his eldest son could pursue a career in politics).

* Certain strands of Middle management exists mainly for this reason (the most common one being those responsible for monitoring the trending of company statistics rather than people). Anyone who works at a company for a certain amount of time expects to be rewarded in some way, but many of these people haven't actually ''done'' anything to earn that reward. But the company still needs to keep them happy, so they "promote" them to a position that basically exists for this purpose. One old British management book explicitly recommends this as a way of keeping them out of positions of real power.

* Middle management exists mainly for this reason. Anyone who works at a company for a certain amount of time expects to be rewarded in some way, but many of these people haven't actually ''done'' anything to earn that reward. But the company still needs to keep them happy, so they "promote" them to a position that basically exists for this purpose. One old British management book explicitly recommends this as a way of keeping them out of positions of real power.

* This is reported to have happened to Creator/ToeiAnimation producer Hiroaki Shibata. Having produced [[Anime/DokiDokiPrecure two]] [[Anime/HappinessChargePrettyCure seasons]] of the company's [[CashCowFranchise very lucrative]] ''Anime/PrettyCure'' franchise, he was apparently moved to Toei's {{Tokusatsu}} division during the airing of ''Anime/GoPrincessPrettyCure''. This was rumored to be because of poor reception of the seasons he did produce, in particular throwing {{Ass Pull}}s at the audience when Toei was hoping to take it easy and pull the franchise out of its DorkAge -- they couldn't fire him, but they weren't going to be patient with him.

** In VideoGames:
*** Ken Kutaragi is the co-founder of Sony Interactive Entertainment, as well as the father of the highly successful UsefulNotes/PlayStation and its iterations. But when the UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 failed to meet expectations (especially after overspending on R&D leading to up to a $300 loss per unit), Sony "promoted" him to a software position. This led to his resignation a few months later.
*** Creator/GunpeiYokoi, creator of the UsefulNotes/GameBoy, was often believed to have been kicked upstairs at Creator/{{Nintendo}} after the mismanagement of the UsefulNotes/VirtualBoy. However, he actually more or less did this to ''himself''; he had planned to retire from Nintendo after the Virtual Boy was released, but he believed that doing so after the system's failure would provide a symbol of its failure, so he stayed on to make the Game Boy Pocket.
*** Hideo Baba' producer of ''VideoGame/TalesOfZestiria'', saw such a backlash for it (which [[SmallNameBigEgo he totally refused to address in public]]) that he was promoted to a new role that did essentially nothing. He quit Creator/BandaiNamcoEntertainment six months later and joined Creator/SquareEnix.
** Still on the topic of VideoGames, Creator/{{Sega}} deserves a special section as they have, as of August 2021, did this to ''three'' of their star game designers:
*** Creator/YuSuzuki, after the failure of ''VideoGame/ShenmueII'', was given this treatment. He was "transferred" into a new R&D department and told to make a new arcade game. He made something called ''Sci-Fi'', which failed location tests. Sega, feeling more frustrated and pressured than ever, then restructured the entire R&D department and explicitly ordered him to make a racing game (which to be fair, was what got him into the spotlight in the first place). That became the ridiculously campy ''Sega Race TV'', which passed location tests but sold poorly compared to Sega's CashCowFranchise racer series at the time, ''VideoGame/InitialDArcadeStage''. In the end, Suzuki resigned and [[StartMyOwn started a little known company called Ys Net]]. He stayed low for a decade before coming out to crowd-fund for the next installment of the ''Shenmue'' series.
*** Creator/YujiNaka, creator of ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'', was given this treatment at Creator/{{Sega}}, having been promoted to a managerial position that he absolutely hated. This, combined with burnout from the ''Sonic'' series, is what led to his departure from Sega in 2006, the formation of his own development house Prope, and his current job at Creator/SquareEnix, which ended up crashing and burning after the failure of ''VideoGame/BalanWonderworld'', leading him to leave that company as well. Naka also claims that the failure of ''Balan'' has made him take a step back to reevaluate himself and pick up programming again, and he has since released a game, ''Shot 2048'', as an indie developer.
*** VideoGame/{{Yakuza}} creator Toshihiro Nagoshi became the latest casualty of Sega's habit of kicking people it deems past their prime upstairs. Nagoshi was "promoted" to the position of "Creative Director" after the completion of VideoGame/LostJudgment in April 2021, and has chosen to leave Sega for Chinese firm [=NetEase=] due to the fact.

** Jonathan "Jony" Ive is an industrial designer who first joined Apple in 1992, and would rise to prominence after he created the distinctive design of the original [=iMac=] in 1998. He would continue to have an influential role in numerous subsequent Apple products, including the [=iPod=], [=iPhone=], and [=iPad=]. As a result of this, his influence in the company steadily grew until he was promoted to "chief design officer" in 2015; however, it soon became apparent that Ive now had too much influence, as Apple's products began to exhibit many questionable design decisions that decidedly put form over function. These were best exemplified by the 2016 [=MacBook=] which offered no ports besides USB-C, requiring awkward adapters and dongles to connect anything with a different port, and featured the infamous butterfly keyboard, which was supposed to help make the laptops as thin as possible, but proved to be unpopular due to being both unreliable and uncomfortable to type on. Other Apple executives seemed to realize that Ive's new position simply wasn't working out, and he parted with the company in 2019 to form his own independent design consulting firm, which would include Apple as a client. Since he left, Apple has, in a rare move for them, reversed some of Ive's most controversial contributions, such as the butterfly keyboard, [=TouchBar=] and all USB-C [=MacBook=].

** Burns himself threatened Corporal Klinger, who was bucking for a Section 8 discharge by cross-dressing to try and convince everyone he was crazy, with a promotion to Sergeant if he kept up with his antics. It worked (for as long as Burns was in command at the time anyway).

*** Mike Pence was picked as the VP in 2016 partly to assuage Evangelical Republicans' fears that UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump would ignore them, and partly because he had overseen a series of catastrophes as Governor of Indiana of his own making (including an HIV outbreak and a "religious liberty" bill that cost the state a ton of money) and the party was worried he would lose what should have been a slam-dunk race in a red state for the GOP if ran for re-election that year since governorships elections aren’t as partisan as most others.

*** Mike Pence was picked as the VP in 2016 partly to assuage Evangelical Republicans' fears that UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump would ignore them, and partly because he had overseen a series of catastrophes as Governor of Indiana of his own making (including an HIV outbreak and a "religious liberty" bill that cost the state a ton of money) and the party was worried he would lose what should have been a slam-dunk race for the GOP if ran for re-election that year.

*** Mike Pence was picked as the VP in 2016 partly to assuage Evangelical Republicans' fears that UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump would ignore them, and partly because he had overseen a series of catastrophes as Governor of Indiana (including an HIV outbreak and a "religious liberty" bill that cost the state a ton of money) and the party was worried he would lose what should have been a slam-dunk race for the GOP if ran for re-election that year.

* This happened to Jacques Gaillot, [[AwesomeMcCoolname the Red Cleric]], former bishop of Évreux in France. When his left-wing activism pissed off the wrong people in the Church, he was made Titular Bishop of Partenia, which is a ruined city in Algeria, meaning although it is technically not a demotion, he now has no duties and no congregation.

* ''Series/{{Arrow}}''.

* Played with in '''Series/{{Lucifer}}''. Lt. Pierce turns down Chloe for union rep because, as he later reveals, he considers it "a job for has-beens". He gives the job to Dan, who has no idea what a backhanded gesture it is.

May or may not include being ReassignedToAntarctica in the process. Often leads to a ReassignmentBackfire (and as mentioned earlier, if the character is important or this is how we first see them then this is practically guaranteed). A supernatural version of this can be AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence. When the kicking is done by a family member, it's {{Nepotism}}. Contrast with PromotedToScapegoat. For the competent but [[NonActionGuy non-action-oriented]] position of authority, see DeskJockey. If the person in question becomes dissatisfied, then it crosses into DisappointingPromotion.

* ''Series/{{Mash}}'': After a mental breakdown and a series of misadventures in Seoul that ended with Frank Burns accosting a general's wife, the Army not only cleared Frank of the charges he was facing and reassigned him to a VA Hospital in Indiana, but promoted him to Lt. Colonel.