This trope is the same as What, Exactly, Is His Job? - I guess they should be merged? How to go about it, i.e. which one will be removed?
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Wait for an opening at the TRS. God speed.
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Saw an opening so I did it for you.
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
A show (usually a sitcom) will be set in a workplace, but all references to what they actually do will be carefully stepped around. See The Smoking Room, or The IT Crowd ("they're the top makers of that product that has something to do with our company!")
Do We Have This One? Alliteration added because it looks cool, either Occupation or Office would suit fine (but I'm unsure of how well this could work in other workplaces).
reply: Dilbert has often "that project".
reply: In the Fred Savage sitcom Working, it was never mentioned what the corporation did.
reply: A subversion of sorts in Black Books, Fran takes a job at an office and not only does the audience not know what the place does, she doesn't either.
As well, Patrick in Coupling has a job that allows him to live a very nice life, but the only shot we get of him at work is him playing with a model car on a window.
reply: Inverted in Better Off Ted where Veridian Dynamics apparently makes everything.
reply: Completely averted by both versions of "The Office." The Dunder Mifflin paper company is very openly shown to make paper, as you may have guessed from the name. They even handle their products onscreen.
Dilbert is a straight example- we have no real idea what the company does. It doesn't even have a name. Sometimes they do software, other times they build robots.
reply: Bill Watterson, of Calvin And Hobbes, noted that most fathers in comic strips tended to have non-specific white collar jobs, and averted this trope by giving Calvin's dad a specific white collar job as a patent attorney - although you'd have to follow the strip quite closely to realize this, as it rarely comes up.
reply: How I Met Your Mother: Barney constantly replies to the question "what do you do?" with a derisive laugh and a dismissive "please".
reply: Not sure if this is an example or not, but the World Wide Widgets company in How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying is dedicated to manufacturing a product that is defined as "An indefinite name for a gadget or mechanical contrivance, especially a small manufactured item."
reply: Chandler's job in Friends. In one episode Ross asks the others to name Chandler's occupation as a trivia question and not one of them can answer it.
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That's a list of all the replies the YKTTW got. I've left out a couple of them:
Better Off Ted: Doing everything is not really an inversion of not knowing what it does, so it doesn't really fit here. Dilbert: The company is, similarly to Viridian Dynamics, a giant corporation that does everything. Dilbert himself is an engineer. Calvin & Hobbes: I guess this fits as a notable aversion, it just didn't seem right to have two notable aversions on a small page. If it grows anymore then it'll be good to see it in there. World Wide Widgets: o_O Seems more Weasel Words than Obliquely Obfuscated Occupation. Weird though.
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, started by Twentington on Jun 5th 2012 at 8:34:00 AM
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman