Line #30 Main/PunishmentDetail


1	->'''Commissar Ciaphas Cain:''' I know these ones a bit too well.[...] Hochen, Nordstrom, Milsen, Jarvik, and the inevitable Gunner Erhlsen. Tell me Erhlsen, are you planning to make latrine orderly a full-time career?\
2	'''Erhlsen:''' We serve the Emperor as our talents direct.
3	-->-- ''Literature/CiaphasCain'', "Sector Thirteen"
4
5	Maybe Bob's not very good at doing his job. Perhaps he always shows up late, misbehaves, or just isn't reliable when it comes to getting things done. Or maybe his superiors just hate him. Whatever the reason, Bob gets punished by getting stuck with the nasty, boring, and utterly thankless tasks.
6
7	Common examples of the sorts of tasks used for a Punishment Detail include:
8	* [[TheDreadedToiletDuty Something related to sanitation and toilet functions]], or anything else that involves unpleasant odors and getting extremely dirty.
9	* Boring, repetitive tasks, like manually copying the exact same letter hundreds of times.
10	* Something extremely demeaning, like assigning a highly-trained professional to menial tasks normally left to unskilled workers.
11	* The task itself is completely pointless make-work, like digging a bunch of holes and then filling them back up again.
12	* The job is in a dangerous or otherwise extremely undesirable environment such as performing traffic direction in a busy intersection.
13
14	What unifies the concept is the idea that just having to perform the task is a form of punishment.
15
16	Frequently TruthInTelevision.
17
18	A common subversion is to have the person being punished [[{{Unishment}} actually wind up enjoying the work]], and maybe even doing the job well enough to earn some amount of respect from their superiors.
19
20	If nobody has been misbehaving lately, a lot of these duties will end up falling on the NewMeat instead, or will just be rotated around the group so everyone is equally miserable.
21
22	PeelingPotatoes, AfterSchoolCleaningDuty and ToothbrushFloorScrubbing are subtropes about a specific type of Punishment Detail. Closely related to ReassignedToAntarctica, which is about being moved to an undesirable location as a form of punishment. If the unpleasant task comes along with a promotion, the character might have been KickedUpstairs.
23
24	See also WritingLines.
25
26	----
27	!!Examples:
28	[[foldercontrol]]
29
30	[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
31	* In ''Manga/{{Citrus}}'', Yuzu and Harumi get assigned cleaning duty for stopping at karaoke on the way home from school, only getting caught because Yuzu's stepsister Mei, the StudentCouncilPresident, noticed she was late getting home.
32	* ''Manga/MariaNoDanzai'': Inspector Taiichiro Nagare is currently assigned to the Community Safety Planning Division, which handles juvenile crime cases and swamps him with work. It's heavily implied that his assignment there was a result of him being [[ConvictedByPublicOpinion falsely labeled a child abuser by his peers]]. He is actually ''thankful'' for it as this means [[SelfPunishmentOverFailure he is justly punished for what happened to his son]].
33	* In ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'', after Bakugo and Midoriya get into a fight after the Provisional License Exams, they get sentenced to a few days of house arrest and cleaning the dorms. Bakugo gets four days for starting the fight while Midoriya gets three for fighting back.
34	[[/folder]]
35
36	[[folder:Comic Books]]
37	* ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMoreThanMeetsTheEye'': Booth Rewind and Swerve (the former for smuggling snuff movies onboard (long story) and the later for running a bar without a license) are punished by being made to manually replace all the rivets of [[MileLongShip the Lost Light]].
38	[[/folder]]
39
40	[[folder:Fan Works]]
41	* In the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' fanfic ''Fanfic/AddressUnknownRemedy'', pegasus mailponies see mail delivery on the ground as the ultimate humiliation, an announcement that they've screwed up badly in the air. It works out in Derpy's favour, though, as it allows her to prove she really is good at her job.
42	* Happens to Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson in the Literature/HarryPotter story ''Fanfic/TheChosenSix''. Caught and identified as being responsible for the destruction of Neville's Remembrall, Filch assigns them to personally clean the most unpleasant male and female toilets in the school, having first asked the house-elves to leave those particular bathrooms alone to make the punishment more appropriate (Myrtle supervises Parkinson while Filch is responsible for Malfoy).
43	* In the ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' fanfic ''FanFic/CuttingLoose'' a fairly common means of dealing with most levels of misbehavior among the ninja corps is to assign those ninjas the nastiest, most unpleasant jobs possible, like sewer-cleaning.
44	* ''FanFic/TheWeaverOption'':
45	** Nyx tech-priests who in some way manage to anger their superior get assigned to ''[[MeaningfulName Danger-Prototype-Central]]'', the space station where Leet is working on his creations.
46	** Guardsmen celebrating the withdrawal on an Eldar invasion get a little too rowdy and use some improper language with regards to a Holy Saint. The Commissariat and Ministorum agree that the proper penance is to spend the next four months rebuilding various destroyed or damaged churches across the planet. [[WorthIt The soldiers still think it was worth it]].
47	[[/folder]]
48
49	[[folder:Films — Animation]]
50	* ''WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}}'': "Thanks to your new friend Ping, you men will spend this evening cleaning up [[PunctuatedForEmphasis every. single. grain. of. rice.]]" Of course, this wasn't just assigned randomly; the men had just gotten in a massive FoodFight and needed to clean it up anyway.
51	[[/folder]]
52
53	[[folder:Films — Live-Action]]
54	* In ''Film/TheLastCastle'', Irwin is ordered by the Warden to move a massive pile of rocks from one end of the prison yard to the other. When that doesn't break his will, Irwin is subsequently told to move all the rocks back to their original position.
55	* In ''Film/PoliceAcademy2TheirFirstAssignment'' Mahoney and his partner are assigned to the inside of the Lincoln Tunnel (or some other traffic tunnel), ostensibly in case there are any civilians who need help but actually as punishment, being forced to breathe the traffic fumes and such.
56	* Will Stockdale in ''Film/NoTimeForSergeants'' is assigned to latrine detail, but he takes to the job and gets them ship-shape.
57	* In ''Film/SecondTour'', Miss Pove is normally a political journalist but she has been assigned to covering [[UsefulNotes/AssociationFootball football]] as punishment for stepping on someone's shoes.
58	* ''Film/SWAT2003'': After Jim Street's partner Gamble gets them thrown off the SWAT team, they get punished by being put to work in the gun cage, maintaining the other SWAT units' equipment. Gamble quits rather than accepting it, but Street stays in the cage for six months, until Hondo handpicks him for a new SWAT unit he's forming.
59	* ''Film/{{Mitchell}}''. Mitchell won't stop his investigation into Deaney, so DaChief has him doing a 24/7 stakeout of a mobster. No relief, no backup.
60	[[/folder]]
61
62	[[folder:Literature]]
63	* In ''Literature/BooksAndBraun'' secret agent Eliza Braun gets sent to work in the archive as a punishment. As is to be expected, that only serves as plothook for further adventures.
64	* ''Literature/CHERUBSeries'' - Performing menial (though always necessary) cleaning jobs on [[SpySchool Campus]] is among the most common way of punishing [[TeenSuperSpy CHERUB agents]] for misconduct. An exaggerated example gets thrown at Lauren for knocking out an instructor with a spade, she has to clean out a huge ditch ''by herself''. After a few days of it most of the other [=CHERUBs=] on campus at the time help her finish it, and the director lets it slide at it's felt she's suffered enough.
65	* ''Literature/CodexAlera'': In ''Captain's Fury'', Tavi gets assigned with measuring and evaluating all the latrines after calling his immediate superior out for selling the legion's supplies on the black market.
66	* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': In ''Literature/LordsAndLadies'' Soon-To-Be-Queen Magrat makes two attempts at threatening Shawn Ogg with punishment detail. The first time she threatens to have him clean the privies, and he responds with a blank "But I ''do'' clean the privies". The second time she goes for a more general "all the dirty jobs", and when he comes up with much the same answer adds "I shall see to it there are dirtier ones".
67	* ''Literature/HoratioHornblower'' has a particularly sadistic one. Hornblower, having pissed off his superiors through no fault of his own, is ordered to report to the Officer of the Watch. On the hour. ''Every'' hour. What the sleep deprivation does to him is quite terrifying, until saner minds step in and let him sleep.
68	* Tyrion Lannister from ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' gets put in charge of managing the sewers in Casterly Rock, since he's horribly unpopular. In something of a subversion, Tyrion goes on to make the sewers incredibly more efficient than they used to be.
69	* In ''Literature/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineRelaunch'' after Ensign Prynn Tenmei gets caught pulling an ''incredibly'' stupid stunt that nearly gets her killed (she had rigged the ''Defiant'''s helm to malfunction and then explode so they couldn't chase after Dr. Bashir), a furious Captain Ro tells her not only will she stand her normal day watch but for the next 30 days she'll also stand the overnight watch on the ''Defiant''.
70	* When the narrator of Marcus Rowland's ''Literature/{{Temps}}'' story "Playing Safe" completely screws up his mission to discredit a paranorm who is protesting the EU's paranormal safety legislation, he gets reassigned to investigating CropCircles ... and told it's no good turning up after the event, he needs to camp out in fields until he sees one happen.
71	* ''Literature/TortallUniverse'': In ''[[Literature/ProtectorOfTheSmall Lady Knight]]'', Kel assigns people to latrine duty when they cause trouble. The rest of the time, unpleasant tasks are divided equally among the camp's inhabitants (including [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure its commander]]), except for those who have a talent that makes them more useful elsewhere. Kel even threatens to list a particularly unpleasant specimen of humanity as having a talent for cleaning latrines if he doesn't shape up.
72	* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': ''Literature/CiaphasCain'' is fond of handing these out instead of harsher punishments (to reenforce the illusion of a TheMenFirst attitude), particularly to soldiers who've watched his back (or at least he likes to give them the impression he does to encourage them). After a particularly messy BarBrawl that ends with three dead, he manages to make all but the killers get floggings and latrine duty... ''and they thank him for it.''
73	** He occasionally wonders if his aide Jurgen's faith leads him to believe every order, including latrine duty, is passed down from the Golden Throne itself. Then again, Cain has noted that the GodEmperor has a peculiar sense of humor...
74	** Cain isn't the only one handing out punishment duties. One argument in ''Death or Glory'' results in three members of a militia team being assigned to double sentry duty by the corporal in charge.
75	* ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse'': SuperheroSchool Whateley Academy often uses various kinds of punishments in lieu of detention. Aside from WritingLines (often from either the Psychic or Magical Canons of Ethics, for the {{Esper}} and Wizard students who violate said codes of conduct), there is [[PeelingPotatoes working in the cafeteria]], cleaning up damage done in fights, helping with landscaping, removing the voluminous amounts of snow which accumulate on the walkways[[note]]the school is located in the Presidential Mountains of New Hampshire, so winter storms are common[[/note]], or the dreaded service details in Hawthorne Cottage (a dorm for students whose powers are [[PowerIncontinence poorly controlled]] or pose a danger to themselves or others). And for those who do something really out of the ordinary, or are frequent visitors to the Headmistress' office, they might try to find a CoolAndUnusualPunishment that fits the offense.
76	* Creator/SpikeMilligan once spent fourteen days in a military prison for going [=AWOL=]. In his autobiography, he recalled that a particularly British form of punishment was "showclean", where all his issue kit, plus minimal personal possessions, had to be laid out, immaculately clean and where applicable polished, in a prescribed rigid order for inspection.
77	[[/folder]]
78
79	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
80	* In the first episode of ''Series/YoungBlades'', the Musketeers get assigned to dungeon cleaning duty as punishment for fighting.
81	* In ''Series/RedDwarf'', the punishment of choice was repainting the ship's hull. Bear in mind that you have to wear a spacesuit, and a safety tether, and said hull is 6 miles long.
82	* In the first episode of ''Series/{{Reaper}}'', Sam's boss decides to punish him the for the damaging the store by assigning him to the Gardening Department (where he has to pile forty pound sacks of dirt all day). Fortunately, the Devil arranges it so that his love interest is there to keep him company.
83	* On ''Series/{{Community}}'', the study group are forced to wash down the school's newly acquired space simulator as punishment for creating -- and permanently voting into use -- an offensive school flag.
84	* ''Series/CommonLaw'' has the main characters offered their choice of these when they violate the terms of the prior inquiry. Either they can go their return to their separate and far less prestigious positions, or they can stick together and end up on pawn shop duty. They TakeAThirdOption.
85	* ''Series/{{JAG}}'', being a military show, has this come up a bit:
86	** In "Boot", Meg Austin, while undercover as a Marine private, is assigned sanitary duty.
87	** In Season 3, after Major [=MacKenzie=] came back to JAG after briefly working for her ex-fiancee's law firm, Admiral Chegwidden had her doing "scut work" (low-level legal work like motion writing that is usually assigned to junior staff) for a few months as punishment for leaving.
88	* The Minister of Culture in season 2 of ''Series/SlingsAndArrows'' was the Minister of Health until she spoke out against her own party, and clearly would still rather be -- her reaction to Richard coming to her with a grant proposal for the New Burbage theater festival is to point out that the money he's asking for is enough to buy an entire MRI machine.
89	* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': Subverted to humorous effect. After Jon Snow defeats adversarial Thorne in the election for Lord Commander, the Watch has a meeting where Jon assigns new tasks to everyone. One of these is the job of digging a new set of latrines, and after Jon announces this must be done and how important job that is, he gives a [[MeaningfulLook significant look]] at Thorne, who fully expects to be given this terrible duty. Instead, Jon assigns the latrine duty to some random Watchman named Brian, and promotes Thorne to First Ranger.
90	* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' and ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' have scrubbing the warp plasma conduits or exhaust ports.
91	* ''Series/{{Frasier}}:''
92	** Frasier and Roz get stuck in a late night slot when Fras incurs the wrath of the new manager, Kate Costa.
93	** In his job as a late-night watchman, Martin gets put on the graveyard shift by his boss for not dating the guy's sister. Martin's in his 60s, and it gets so bad he starts suffering mild SanitySlippage.
94	--->'''Frasier:''' What, you don't like the sun?\
95	'''Martin:''' Us night-shift guys call it "the Scare Ball".
96	* ''Series/TheWire'': for the police, misbehaving officers tend to be ReassignedToAntarctica usually preceded with their boss asking "where they don't wanna go", with foot patrol or out-of-sight office duty being most common. In the drug crews, demotion comes in the form of being moved to a less valuable spot, or being busted from stash or money duty to just be a runner or lookout.
97	* ''Series/InventingAnna'': Vivian has been punished for a failure to do proper due diligence of an interview subject has seen her be banished to "Scriberia", a corner of the office for writers who have run afoul of the executives.
98	[[/folder]]
99
100	[[folder:Video Games]]
101	* ''VideoGame/ExtrapowerAttackOfDarkforce'': QuirkyMinibossSquad Sunny Day and Funny Face are often threatened with or made to clean the Dark Force Mothership for their ineptitude, under the belief that building their pride in the ship will improve their morale and effectiveness.
102	* ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'': After the Starfleet PlayerCharacter kills Ambassador B'Vat and outs him to the Klingon Empire as the AxCrazy nutjob he is[[note]]He was trying to get the Klingons and Federation into a ForeverWar ''on purpose'' because he thought Klingon society would self-destruct without an enemy to fight.[[/note]], his protege, Captain Ja'rod of the IKS ''Kang'', ends up on tribble extermination duty just for being associated with him.
103	* ''VideoGame/TheSims2'': The Military career track has references to this, including a chance card where the player's active Sim can impose the punishment detail themselves: make the recruits march in their underwear, or replace their rifles with baguettes? There's also a parody SoundOff in the Recruit description: I don't know but I've been told, scrubbing latrines gets mighty old!
104	* In ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyDualDestinies'', the culprit of case 3, which takes place at Themis Legal Academy, suggests getting bathroom detail instead of imprisonment as part of his VillainousBreakdown. For reference, [[spoiler:said culprit is a teacher, and had adopted a SadistTeacher persona after being backed into a corner.]]
105	* ''VideoGame/RumbleRoses'' has "Queens Match" that only human females can participate where the loser is ordered to perform a usually humiliating or degrading tasks. One of these can be to [[https://i.imgur.com/eMw6Yqn.mp4 clean]] the pool area.
106	* In ''[[VideoGame/WingCommanderTheKilrathiSaga Wing Commander II]]'', Stingray and Jazz get assigned a punitive mission escorting garbage shuttles for their attitude, and Stingray is warned that the garbage shuttles run daily.
107	* ''VideoGame/Fallout4'': In the Brotherhood of Steel, walking the outer hull of the [[CoolAirship Prydwyn]] and scrubbing rust off is considered punishment duty. You often hear several Lancers (pilots or ship crew), Knights (soldiers) and Scribes (technicians) complaining about drawing this punishment if they are late for their shift again.
108	[[/folder]]
109
110	[[folder:Webcomics]]
111	* ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'' has [[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20040116 "grease trap duty"]] (on an airship).
112	* In ''Webcomic/CodeNameHunter'', to punish him for breaking into a superior's office and snooping around, Hunter is pulled off front-line duty and given a four-week reassignment to Maintenance.
113	[[/folder]]
114
115	[[folder:Western Animation]]
116	* ''WesternAnimation/AngelaAnaconda'': Angela is always being assigned to clap erasers after school by her teacher (mostly because said teacher doesn't like her). She has actually [[CharlesAtlasSuperpower developed a special talent for eraser-clapping!]]
117	* This tends to happen to Donald a lot when he's seen in ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987'', seeing as he messes up a lot while in the Navy.
118	* ''WesternAnimation/JohnnyBravo'' once, while serving a temporary prison sentence, is ordered to break rocks, which [[{{Unishment}} he's fine with.]] Then, glue them back into bigger rocks, which he [[PokeThePoodle finds kind of annoying.]] Then [[RunningGag break them apart again,]] which breaks him mentally.
119	* ''WesternAnimation/OggyAndTheCockroaches'': When Oggy is once mistakenly enrolled, the [[ButtMonkey angry drill sergeant]] [[MimeAndMusicOnlyCartoon yells at him, pointing at the latrines]] and hands him a toothbrush. [[ImpossibleTaskInstantlyAccomplished Seconds later, the WC are squeaky-clean.]]
120	* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' have to clean a latrine with toothbrushes (several times) as punishment for being creative in "Phineas and Ferb get Busted".
121	* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'':
122	** [[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS1E20InnocentsOfRyloth "Innocents of Ryloth"]]: Upon realizing they're ''very'' late in reporting back in because they got distracted with HeartwarmingOrphan Numa, clone trooper Boil suggests that he and Waxer are going to be stuck polishing R2 units.
123	** [[Recap/StarWarsTheCloneWarsS2E1HolocronHeist "Holocron Heist"]]: After disobeying orders to retreat on Felucia, Ahsoka is assigned to guard duty at the Jedi Archives.
124	* ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'': Being assigned to Operation Rusty's Blanket was a punishment for Brock Samson.
125	[[/folder]]
126
127	[[folder:Real Life]]
128	* A very common practice in many military organizations. Expect to see the people in question doing various menial labor such as painting parking space stripes, doing yardwork, etc. Sometimes they will also be used for "make-work" jobs with no real purpose, such as painting rocks.
129	** In some cases these tasks will go to the NewMeat instead of people on Punishment Detail.
130	** KP, or Kitchen Patrol, is a common form of military punishment in media (classically taking the form of PeelingPotatoes). In America, it's not nearly as common as it once was since it's contracted out to civilians (who steal less and do a better job).
131	** The Russian Army has always considered KP a reward rather than a punishment. Sure, PeelingPotatoes is boring and monotonous, but so is, say, tank tread maintenance. KP is far less physically demanding, is done in a nice warm kitchen rather than a snowdrift somewhere and gives you ample opportunity to beg or steal a wide variety of edible goodies.
132	** More often than not, the punishment is not the detail itself. The detail, while miserable, is usually something that has to be done. The frequency that one ends up on said details is the punishment. If you find yourself burning shit once a week, that's normal. If you find yourself burning shit twice a day, that's a pretty good indication that you've pissed off someone up top.
133	** As a matter of fact, one of the first American airmen to receive the Medal of Honor, Sergeant Maynard "Snuffy" Smith, happened to be serving a punitive KP detail when he was supposed to be receiving the Medal of Honor from the Secretary of War. His bravery in tending to the wounds of several injured crewmates while defending a burning bomber from repeated German attacks notwithstanding, Smith was [[MildlyMilitary not a model soldier by any measure]], and would go on to be possibly the only Medal of Honor recipient to later receive a ''demotion'' due to his being a habitual screw-up.
134	* A possible form of a sentence of community service.
135	* Clean-up duties are often used in this fashion just about everywhere.
136	* Having to work dorm guard duty or some similar job that is typically on a rotating watch (the main purpose being to keep unauthorized people, usually members of the opposite gender, out of the dorms). Someone has to do this at night, and someone has to do this on the weekends. One's daytime duties do not necessarily decrease just because you had guard duty from midnight to 2 a.m.
137	** Guard duty may be punish''ing'' but is not punish''ment'' in and of itself. Having to pull guard duty every night including weekends especially when there are other able bodied personnel available? '''That's''' punishment.
138	* Members of the United States Secret Service, an elite unit whose duties including protecting important individuals, are subject to this. Regular assignment to individuals whose personality often makes them difficult to be around is regarded as a punishment detail.
139	[[/folder]]

Context Main / PunishmentDetail