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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. He or she may have had a clue at some point, but has since then 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:
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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.
- Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully from Discworld's Unseen University was an attempt at this. After the Sourceror fiasco, the wizards decided to get some quiet rube from the mountains who wouldn't cause any fuss, in order to give them time to put things back together. It didn't work out quite the way the expected. As it turns out, Ridcully is loud, obnoxious(at least to them, what with his irrational insistence on excersize and not dying) and generally extremely competent; 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.
- I'd say Ridcully is the opposite of a Pointy Haired Boss- he does his job perfectly, which rather upset the Wizards who thought he'd BE a Pointy Haired Boss. The Archchancellor's job is to keep the wizards in order and not attacking everyone else, and while he is quicker to use magic than some, he does that just fine.
- In the Last Continent, Ridcully's taken up micromanagment, trying to turn the faculty into a lean, mean team. His attempts apparently have had some success, as the book states that while the wizards had no intention of becoming lean, they were getting as mean as anything.
- 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 Colonel Henry Blake from MASH exhibited signs of this as he was a brilliant doctor but an almost criminally incompetent administrator. Radar practically ran the unit, only requiring Blake to sign off on documents, and played for humor as one time he got Blake to sign blank pieces of paper as Blake railed about not knowing what he's signing.
- The few times Frank Burns was put in charge, he was literally a criminally incompetent leader (as well as a doctor, but that's another trope there), bordering on Bad Boss turf.
- 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.
- A similar case is mentioned in Norbert Wiener's story "The Brain", could have been a real case. The company raised a superb salesman after curing his severe depression - with lobotomy. His new position ruined them.
- 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.
- He confirms in one episode that his family pressured him into the military to get rid of him. However, he is also a career officer with decorations for bravery in WW 1. He used to be a pilot; it almost certain he got promoted to his current position in an attempt to get rid of him, both as a bumbling fool and as a non-member of the Nazi party.
- 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.
- Artie in Warehouse 13 is a socially inept jerk who barely manages the most basic politeness toward the people under him.
- Politeness he lacks, but one of the episodes towards the end of season 1 proves he has a lot of trust in them. They try to appease him that they took care of things while he was away. He stops them, makes sure everything's normal and then walks away unconcerned. He may not have the greatest social skills, but I wouldn't mind having him as my boss.
- ISO Administrator Mike Goss in Defying Gravity is shaping up to be this, grinding subordinates faces in their mistakes while refusing to admit to or back away from his own.
Newspaper Comics
- 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... (that something frequently being the job the underling is doing right now. Think skilled manual workers overpromoted to a position where they don't do any work anymore but instead personnel-manage younger skilled workers, say.)
- Adams draws just about every manager with pointy hair. A minimum of 99% of them are lesser reflections of the original.
- Interestingly the PHB was originally a unnamed balding manager who was more cruel than stupid. Then one day Adams accidentally drew the hair on the sides of his head slightly pointy and thought the resemblance to devil horns to be eerily appropriate. And the rest is history.
- In Retail, just about anybody at the level of store manager or higher is portrayed as a PHB.
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