History Main / BeleagueredBureaucrat

* ''Series/MidsomerMurders'': In "Dark Secrets", the VictimOfTheWeek is a poor beleaguered social services inspector. Dealing with the eccentric inhabitants of Midsomer would be enough to drive anyone crazy, but what he disocers while trying help the elderly gets him murdered.

* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'': When Clark Kent was a television reporter in [[UsefulNotes/TheBronzeAgeOfComicBooks the '70s,]] the director of the evening newscast was an antacid-popping, constantly stressed-out guy named Josh Coyle. The fact that Clark would frequently appear just a split second before the broadcast or secretly vanish to do super-heroing during commercial breaks played even more merry havoc with the guy's nerves.

* A large number of judicial procedural rules are made in the interests of "judicial economy": that is, reducing the number of cases that get adjudicated. The most famous are probably the strict rules for filing briefs in courts: the brief can't be longer than a certain number of pages or lines, the cover sheet has to be in the correct format and in the correct ''color'', and it has to be turned in before a certain time. Mess up any of these, and your case will be dismissed--and if you miss a filing deadline, it will be dismissed ''with prejudice'', i.e. you won't be able to file again (a lawyer who does this is likely to be sued for malpractice, by the way, and if it's a paralegal who fucked it up, they will be fired, blacklisted by every non-sleazy law firm, and quite possibly held liable for the damages from said malpractice suit if it was really egregious). Also, if you're practicing in the United States, did we mention that thanks to [[UsefulNotes/AmericanFederalism federalism]], each state ''and'' [[UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC the District of Columbia]] ''and'' each territory ''and'' the federal government has [[UsefulNotes/AmericanCourts its own courts]] with its own rules that you have to keep straight in your head and if you follow the wrong ones God help you?[[labelnote:Example]]Suppose there's a [[UsefulNotes/MLBTeams Phillies game]] in Philly and a Phillies fan punches a fan of the visiting team in the face (which is rather a likely occurrence, if you know anything about Philly sports fans). If the guy who got punched was a Pirates fan from Pittsburgh, he would have to file his lawsuit (for battery) in the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia, which has its own format and which, by the way, you have to submit your papers before the office closes (officially at 5:00 PM, but unofficially at 4:30); if you have a time-limited motion to submit, it'd better be ready by then. However, if the guy who got punched is a Mets fan from [[UsefulNotes/NewJersey Trenton]], he has the option of filing suit in federal court--the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, to be exact--which has a different format and where you have until midnight to submit your files electronically if the clock is ticking. This is despite the fact that Pittsburgh is an order of magnitude further from Philadelphia than Trenton (300 miles vs. 30 miles)--what counts is it's different states. Please note, however, that in both cases, there is no difference in the ''substantive'' law applied: both the Court of Common Pleas and the Eastern District of Pennsylvania will be applying Pennsylvania's law on battery to inform the idiot Phillies fan that he will have to pay the Pirates or Mets fan for damages.[[/labelnote]] As dickish as they sound, they help the courts operate more efficiently and gauge the lawyers' diligence and respect for the rules.

* A general example: Some of the more sympathetic portrayals of social workers or probation/parole officers can fall under this: When called out on that one mistake or oversight that leads to the VictimOfTheWeek's demise, they invariably point out the huge number of cases that the desperately understaffed office is saddled with and the fact that they can't be in two places at once. Which, sadly, tends to be TruthInTelevision in more than a few cities.

* Pencil Pusher in ''Fanfic/FlashFog'' starts out as this, though he seems to be transforming into a BadassBureaucrat.
* Princess Celestia herself embodies the royal variant in ''Fanfic/{{Green}}''. Approving all policies and cases at court worked well enough back when the country was small enough for one pony to handle the workload, but the stagnancy of having done everything basically the same way for centuries has prevented her from enacting any meaningful reforms. She actually views [[spoiler:being de-powered halfway through the story]] as something of a blessing, since Luna is not as bound by tradition and a stint as [[spoiler:sole regnant Princess]] would let Luna implement meaningful reforms decentralizing the country's government and making it far easier to manage.
** Princess Luna's personal assistant Midnight Oil is an example of this as well. Keeping track of a Princess who would rather party than reign is hard enough, but then [[spoiler:Celestia is de-powered and appoints him her Regent in her absence.]] Fortunately, this puts him in the perfect position to start implementing the reforms he and Celestia have talked about making for years. Unfortunately, it's very much an uphill battle and he was hugely overworked to begin with.
* In ''Fanfic/TheNewRetcons'' Elly Patterson of ''ComicStrip/ForBetterOrForWorse'' goes insane. When family members try to get her committed to get treatment, the law says they can't do it unless the husband gives consent (which John refuses to do cause he thinks it would make him look bad) or unless she becomes a danger to herself or society. [[spoiler: The latter happens when she kidnaps a boy thinking he's Michael's childhood friend.]]

* Most of the cast of ''Fanfic/TheEquestrianCivilServiceSeries''.

* In the ''Broken Steel'' DLC for ''VideoGame/Fallout3'', Bigsley, the Brotherhood scribe in charge of administrating Project Purity and the water distribution campaign can be accurately described as this. He's got reports coming in at all hours, and his office is pretty much stacked with files and forms from wall to wall. If you talk to him, he's kinda snippy towards you and blames you for his current workload; you know, cause you're responsible for [[spoiler:'''the damn purifier being completed and turned on in the first place''']].
** The fact that he's got practically no resources at his disposal (bottling station? We just dip it under and it goes glub-glub-glub), and that all his subordinates are wholly incompetent scribe rejects, his frustration and his falling asleep at his desk are understandable.
*** He himself is a scribe reject, having irked the proctors (leaders) of all three scribe orders in the Citadel in some manner or other.
* According to the audio logs and emails, most of the administrative employees in ''VideoGame/{{Doom 3}}'' were having a nightmare of a time dealing with the workload in Mars City before Hell invaded, with extended back-to-back shifts that were barely enough to keep up with the incident reports on work-related injuries, disappearing personnel, power deficiencies, equipment breakdowns and bouts of clinical dementia, and that's only on entries directly regarding the reports. One PDA from a dead benefits analyst implies the financial work dealing with the costs of the incidents was a terror unto itself.

* ''Series/{{Becker}}'' explored this in 2003's episode "Chock Full o' Nuts", where Becker goes to one to complain about a residential care facility getting closed in his neighborhood, causing his clinic to be flooded by the former patients. Having faced the run-around from others, Becker gets belligerent with this one [[https://youtu.be/sQ1pGV68iIA?t=14m43s until he pushes too far]].