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Stupid Fruit!!! ...Best 3 out of 5?
The living embodiment of The Peter Principle (or worse — see below), this is a person who has been promoted way beyond his level of competency, a person who hangs inspirational posters unironically. He or she may have had a clue at some point, but they have misplaced it. Sometimes it is a Modern Major General.
Frequently overlaps with the Stupid Boss, and often the result of being Kicked Upstairs. Incompetence Inc is a likely place to find PHBs. Occasionally is surrounded by very competent workers when Conservation Of Competence is in effect.
Also note that they're not only incompetent, but also often a little evil: The kind of guy who would steal credit from his employees and pin failure on them.
All too often this is Truth In Television.
Examples:
Trope Namer
- The name comes from the original Pointy-Haired Boss in the daily comic strip and former animated TV series Dilbert, seen above playing chess against a pineapple — and losing. (Count the captured pieces!)
- It was implied this was a genetically enhanced sentient pineapple created by Dilbert's garbageman, the word's smartest human. It's just as weird as it sounds.
- According to Scott Adams's 1996 book The Dilbert Principle, the truly Pointy-Haired Boss is a reflection of the abandonment of the aforementioned Peter Principle — that while in the past, competent people were promoted until they reached a position overreaching their talents by one level, now the absolutely incompetent are immediately Kicked Upstairs (where, kept out of contact with the customer base and daily work load, they will do the least harm). This unfortunately denies their underlings even the slight relief of knowing their boss at least used to be good at something...
Literature
- Lt. LaGuerta in Dexter (both print and TV) got her job on talent for political maneuvering, and is in way over her professional head, showing no apparent ability as a detective. Her behavior toward subordinates could also qualify as harassment in some cases (such as her nowhere-near-subtle sexual overtures toward Dexter).
- She redeems herself to a certain extent by the end of season 2, however.
- Before or after she gets her position back by sleeping with her replacement's fiancee in a (successful) plot to undermine and discredit her?
- Dexter spends the first novel badmouthing his PHB, and at the end realizes that while she's not all that smart, she's patient, and that counts for a lot too.
- To some extent, the Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully from Discworld.
- Except that even though it's hard to tell, he's extremely competent in his job; before him an Archchancellor was lucky to survive a year without being murdered. The actual duties of an Archchancellor seem to be largely ceremonial, apart from some administrative duties to the city government, so it's difficult to say whether he's competent in the job itself per se, but if something magical threatens the city, he's your man.
- During one conversation, the narrator explains that his listening habits are perfect for the job of archchancellor: If a person continues explaining something for five minutes, it must be important, and if they give up after a mere minute or so, it would have hardly been worth his time to listen.
- As Pratchett puts it, Ridcully has a powerful intellect, but it is powerful like a locomotive - it runs on rails and is impossible to steer.
- Ridcully is also the ONLY Archchancellor to survive more than one book. Arccutter and Weatherwax may have been impressive, but both wound up... missing / dead. Ridcully is the only one who's still here, and ran through several, several, several Discworld books. According to internal mythology, even that's impressive. Tim Curry be damned.
- Many of the Network Supervisors of the Bastard Operator From Hell series certainly are this, but it's semi-justifiable in that a position with such a high turnover rate probably doesn't particularly attract the employment agencies.
- Several of the officers in Sharpe.
Live Action TV
- Lieutenant Brass comes off very much as an incompetent and biased boss in the first episode of CSI, but it may just be that his promotion put him in over his head - when he is demoted to Homicide in the second episode, he becomes every bit the equal to the crime lab folks in professional competence.
- Detective Gharty on Homicide Life On The Street is incompetent both as a beat cop and as the head of IAD, but turns out to be proficient when he finally lands as a homicide detective. When he is finally re-promoted to head the homicide division in the finale movie, he loses some of his competence again, becoming a shill for the department brass. It is noted that he's not entirely incompetent in the role, but in Giardello has some pretty big shoes to fill - and many of the other detectives note that "he ain't no Gee."
- Michael Scott of the American version of The Office was (and is) a superb salesman. In a classic case of the Peter Principle he was promoted to the post of Regional Manager - a job he is absolutely unskilled for. Note that his UK counterpart, David Brent, is more in keeping with the aforementioned Dilbert Principle in that he evidently never had any skills to begin with and his promotion to management is otherwise an enigma.
- Considering the phone call we hear between him and one of the higher-ups, he has a lot of friends in high places. It's also entirely possible that, as some have suggested, he was a tolerable-to-competent boss until the cameras came in and the sudden "fame" went to his head.
- And David is likely to be the same idea as Adam's theory, being put into a position where he can do as little harm as possible, until he can be promoted even further (a promotion which he doesn't get for insurance reasons), simply because getting rid of him is infeasible (Wernham-Hogg is evidently in financial straits, which would make hiring a replacement more costly). He only ends up fired when his presence is definitively proven to be detrimental to the company.
- In the Christmas Special, it's implied that David Brent's case is not entirely dissimilar from Michael Scott's — in his new job as a travelling salesperson we see him do a sales pitch for cleaning products which goes quite well, suggesting that he was at least a moderately talented salesman at Wernham-Hogg.
- The laughably incompetent Colonel Klink of Hogans Heroes. It's been mentioned that he's from noble stock, so he most likely got the position through nepotism more than any real leadership ability.
- In 30 Rock, Jack Donaghy was promoted to oversee the production of Liz's comedy show after having invented a microwave. He seems to be a competent businessman, but clearly has no understanding of comedy. Note that he acted more pointy-haired in earlier episodes.
- Captain Frank Hollister of Red Dwarf is revealed to have only reached his rank through blackmail (from the lowly position of Doughnut Boy no less), implying that he is possibly even less qualified than Rimmer or Lister (though clearly cleverer and/or more ambitious).
- He successfully blackmailed his way to the top. I think that puts him well ahead of Lister. As to the first part, the phrase "less qualified than Rimmer" is perhaps the least likely proposition ever advanced.
- The vacuous, hero-worshipping, management speak spouting Gus in Drop the Dead Donkey. He would appear to be a living, breathing example of the Adams principle.
Real Life
- Almost everyone in FEMA during Hurricane Katrina has been accused of this, but given the way FEMA is structured, more appropriate targeting would involve much of the state and city governments that had years to get their act together, after being repeatedly told by auditors that their emergency response plans were woefully inadequate, but didn't.
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This troper is astonished to find no Troper Tales for this entry. See Troper Tales for some.
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