History Main / UnconfessedUnemployment

* Jennifer Pan convinced her parents that she was accepted into the University of Toronto and was volunteering at a local hospital. In reality, she sat in cafés, worked part-time and kept on dating her boyfriend even when her parents threatened to disown her. When her cover was blown, Jennifer tried to become a SelfMadeOrphan by staging a botched home robbery in 2010, which resulted in her mother's death. During her trial, investigators called her a CompulsiveLiar when they poked holes in her testimony, which resulted in Jennifer receiving a life sentence and being disowned permanently by her surviving family. The judge also barred Pan from contacting her ex-boyfriend as well. The murder sent shockwaves in the Asian diaspora and raised awareness about the cons of tiger parenting. Jennifer's crimes have been the subject of the Netflix documentary ''What Jennifer Did''.

* Jennifer Pan convinced her parents that she was accepted into the University of Toronto and was volunteering at a local hospital. In reality, she sat in cafés, worked part-time and kept on dating her boyfriend even when her parents threatened to disown her. When her cover was blown, Jennifer tried to become a SelfMadeOrphan by staging a botched home robbery in 2010, which resulted in her mother's death. During her trial, investigators called her a CompulsiveLiar when they poked holes in her testimony. Besides receiving a life sentence, Jennifer was disowned by her father and brother. The murder sent shockwaves in the Asian diaspora and raised awareness about the cons of tiger parenting.

* A not uncommon condition. Many addicts, particularly alcoholics or gamblers, can dress up and go to jobs that they lost months ago.

** In the episode "Locked In", the PatientOfTheWeek was doing this, using a friend's rat-infested basement to hunt for a new job.

* ''Series/{{Psych}}'': Gus' father does this in one episode.

&&* ''Series/TheElephantsGraveyard'': This is the premise for the two protagonists.

* On ''Series/BarneyMiller'', a stock broker lost his job and, unwilling to tell his wife, began begging for money in the streets instead. He ended up making more money that way.

* ''Series/DesperateHousewives'': Orson Hodge.
* ''Series/TheElephantsGraveyard'': This is the premise for the two protagonists.

* ''Franchise/LawAndOrder'': This was used in the franchise. A technically savvy guy was fired, but rather than confess it to his family, he stole another person's identity, mortgaged that person's house, and used the resulting windfall to bluff that he was still employed. The cops only found out after the other guy tracked down the thief and shot him.

* [[https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/man-allegedly-fabricated-spacex-job-204845676.html Chandler Halderson]], who ''also'' resorted to murder, killing and dismembering his parents when they discovered that he'd been lying to them for years about attending college, working in accounting, and getting an even better job.

* ''Fanfic/FamilyGuyFanon'' does an interesting version. In the pilot, "Death Has a Shadow", compared to the real show (see Western Animation below) Peter tells Lois he got fired from his job[[labelnote:note]]Which he actually ''did'' in the original Pilot Pitch.[[/labelnote]], though still hides him getting welfare from Lois, under him getting a new job with a big paycheck. But in Season 2's "[[https://familyguyfanon.fandom.com/wiki/Employee_for_Fire Employee for Fire]]", he ''does'' hide his firing from Lois, and for a different reason of not wanting Lois to be mad he got fired again.

* ''Film/TokyoSonata'': Ryūhei has a good office job, but is suddenly fired because Chinese workers are cheaper. While attempting to find a new job, Ryūhei encounters an old classmate on the street, Kurosu, who has also recently been downsized. Kurosu uses a feature on his mobile phone that plays the ringtone periodically, so that it may fool others into believing he is still employed. This intrigues Ryūhei, who decides to hide the fact that he has been fired from his family.

They still get up early, put on their business clothes, and leave for work -- sometimes they will even complain how exhausting office life is, when they come home at the end of the day. But in the meantime they just drift about, desperately pretending to be one of the gainfully employed, (possibly looking for a new job, but never with the kind of success that might tempt them to brag about it to their family) until their lies come crashing down with ugly consequences (the ugliest case being PaterFamilicide).

* Happens in ''Manga/MaisonIkkoku'' with Godai, who was laid off from his part-time job as a day-caretaker and couldn't tell Kyoko about it.

* The premise of the Finnish film ''Film/AMansJob (Miehen työ) ''. The main character loses his job as a construction worker and doesn't dare to tell it to his depressed wife. He becomes a sex worker. Hilarity does not ensue.

* ''Film/TokyoSonata'': Ryūhei has a good office job, but is suddenly fired because Chinese workers are cheaper. While attempting to find a new job, Ryūhei encounters an old classmate on the street, Kurosu, who has also recently been downsized. Kurosu uses a feature on his mobile phone that plays the ring tone periodically, so that it may fool others into believing he is still employed. This intrigues Ryūhei, who decides to hide the fact that he has been fired from his family.
* ''Film/UneEpoqueFormidable'': Michel Berthier is a qualified employee in a company specialized in the sale of mattresses, until he is laid off. Absolutely wanting to have a child with his wife Juliette, who already has two children from her first marriage, he tells her nothing of his dismissal, and soon finds himself in a situation where he is forced to leave the family home.

** Also in another episode where a man was suspected of killing his entire family rather than admit that he'd failed to provide for them.

** Don reaches an emotional low and tells an important client about his childhood growing up in a brothel. This does not go over well with the client and the other partners are furious. As Don is a founding partner they do not fire him outright but instead put him on paid leave and hire someone else to do Don's job. The unspoken understanding is that Don will quit the company on his own and everyone saves face. However, Don is unwilling to quit and instead spends his days hanging around his apartment. Megan, Don's wife, is living in California at the time while pursuing an acting career so she does not find out about the situation until months later. Whenever Don flew to California to spend time with her, he pretended that he was still employed and nothing interesting was happening back in New York. Similarly, Sally, Don's daughter from his first marriage does not find out about what happened until she is on a visit to New York and decides to surprise her father at work. Instead she finds a strange man occupying Don's office. Don is able to patch things up with Sally but Megan is furious that Don chose a soon-to-be-gone job over her. Don is very wealthy so he would have had no issue with moving to California to be with Megan full time.

* German bankd ''Tic Tac Toe'' has a song called ''Spiegel'' ("Mirror") about two young women and a guy in group therapy. The guy, Bernard (who is the last to get to vent) confesses that despite his best efforts and helpfulness he not only has never been promoted (they said he has no leadership qualities, cannot say no when he should and isn't assertive enough), but has been fired the day previously after 15 years. His last lines are, translated, "And what am I supposed to tell my wife now?! HUH?! [[spoiler: [[DrivenToSuicide I've had it!]]]]" - implying that he hasn't told his wife he was fired yet.

* [[NoNameGiven Man]] in ''Theatre/WhosAfraidOfTheWorkingClass'' was laid off his job some time before the play begins. He spends his days riding trams around the city in his business clothes. [[{{Hypocrite}} At one point he bitterly mocks a young bogan woman for being unemployable.]]

* In ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyTrialsAndTribulations'', Ron Delite is fired from his job as a security guard, and worries that his wife will leave him if she finds out, especially as she is a big spender and "treats money like it's water". So he turns to freelancing, reasonable. [[spoiler:Becomes a PhantomThief while guarding the secret from her?]] Not so reasonable. In the end after she discovers all, she tells him that she wouldn't have abandoned him because she truly loved him.

* A variation involving teenagers and school occurred in ''WesternAnimation/TheProudFamily'': Penny and her friends ended up suspended from school the day after Valentines Day because of a graffiti mark on the school with Penny's name on it, which neither of them actually painted on. As they were unwilling to admit to their parents that they had gotten suspended from school indefinitely until they found the true culprit was exposed, Sticky instead had created a fake call from the principal regarding them winning an award (which as the last scene revealed, was fake from the start) in place of the suspension call to hold the parents off until they caught the culprit responsible (a crippled student who is later revealed to not be a nice kid) and thus got back to school. It bites them in the butt later on.

** Variation: Homer's life coach persuaded him to quit his job at the nuclear plant and apply for a better position at a copper piping company. He didn't get it, but couldn't bear to tell his family and spends all day hanging out at Krusty Burger, filling out the map mazes on the back of the kid menus. He almost got away with it... but as luck would have it, Bart's school class ends up at that ''exact'' restaurant after bus driver Otto ruins a field trip to the zoo by taking mushrooms and riding a turtle.

* This was the reason [[https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Bartlett_Whitaker Thomas Bartlett Whitaker]] had a hitman kill his family. He told them he was about to graduate from Sam Houston State University when he had not attended his classes in a long time and was spending his tuition money on luxury items. After his family had a dinner in his honor, they went home only for a gunman to shoot his mother, brother, and father. It turned out the gunman was a friend of his that he had hired to murder his family so that he could inherit their estate and continue his lifestyle. His father survived the attack and actually defended him, getting him commuted from death row within an hour of his scheduled execution.

* Jennifer Pan convinced her parents that she was accepted into the University of Toronto and was volunteering at a local hospital. In reality, she sat in cafés, worked part-time, and kept on dating her boyfriend even when her parents threatened to disown her. When her cover was blown, Jennifer tried to become a SelfMadeOrphan by staging a botched home robbery in 2010, which resulted in her mother's death. During her trial, investigators called her a CompulsiveLiar when they poked holes in her testimony. Besides receiving a life sentence, Jennifer was disowned by her father and brother. The murder sent shockwaves in the Asian diaspora and raised awareness about the cons of tiger parenting.

'''Peter''': (''Laughing'') I feel great! I haven't got a job in the world!

** The pilot episode of ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy''. Peter, due to drinking too much at a StagParty, was suffering from a hangover, and he ended up falling asleep at work. Note, he is a safety inspector at the Happy-Go-Lucky Toy Factory, which means he was grossly negligent for sleeping on the job (as it directly resulted in a number of dangerous products in place of regular toys, ranging from a Baby Heimlich spitting up ''fire'', to a Pound Poochie being replaced with a bottle of pills, to a Silly Ball being replaced with an ''axe''). He decided to try to keep it a secret, yet as his phrases indicate, he's doing a very bad job at trying to hide his being unemployed.

* This [[https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/man-allegedly-fabricated-spacex-job-204845676.html man]], who ''also'' resorted to murder, killing and dismembering his parents when they discovered that he'd been lying to them for years about attending college, working in accounting, and getting an even better job.