This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
From You Know That Thing Where:
LTR How about the fact that it seems relatively easy to lose your job in sitcom or animated sitcom like shows? Especialy if you are working with a company run by a dictator-like boss? We're not talking about job performance being not up to spec. It could be refusal to participate in the boss' latest scheme that may or may not be illegal, getting caught red-handed in an act of industrial espionage, failing to win a game while paired with the boss at the company picnic, doing a bad job babysitting his kid or entertaining his demanding Mother, etc. etc. etc. Anything short of 100% loyalty and devotion to the company seems to prompt a cry of "You're Fired!" and that's it, quick cut to a dejected Joe Average scanning the paper classifieds while his concerned family looks on. Unemployment? Wrongful Termination? Hostile workplace? What's that? Doesn't even exsist in TV land.
George Jetson Firing perhaps?
Andyroid: Yeah, I've noticed that once or twice myself. The entry should also note that 99.9% of the time, it ends up being subject to the Reset Button or Snap Back.
Ununnilium: Definitely need this. George Jetson Job Security?
Red Shoe: It may not be a big deal for purposes of the title, but I think that the scenario with the boss is just a subset of a larger trope of pretty much any kind of power (particularly in comedy and children's shows) being absolute: cops that can arrest/hold/execute you for just annoying them (and that they have a broad spectrum: a New York Homicide detective can give you a speeding ticket in California — and see also commandeering vehicles); teachers who can fail you because they don't like you (cf. Harry Potter — though this seems to apply so universally to stories set in the Good Old British Comp that for all I know, British schoolteachers really do have absolute authority), and the like.
Ununnilium: Hmmmmm, yeah. There's a trope in there.
Tzintzuntzan: Isn't the opposite trope also common? That is, the ridiculously incompetent and/or insane employees who the boss rarely considers firing — and if they try, the employees are somehow protected no matter what screw-ups they made.
Ununnilium: Hmmmm. Any examples?
Aozame: Team Rocket in Pokemon, perhaps? Between the resources they waste and their complete lack of anything to show for it, I'm amazed Giovanni hasn't kicked them out of his organization...
Tzintzuntzan: It's Status Quo is God. A character only gets fired if the actor leaves the show. So on NYPD Blue (and most other cop shows, it seems)you can manhandle a suspect at will and merely get told to Turn in Your Badge for this one case, and temporarily, before the McCloud Speech. On Boston Public, a teacher stays employed after firing a gun in class. Sit-com characters whose work life is of-screen are often too nuts to plausibly hold a job...do Joey and Chandler from Friends act like that at work? Does Jeff from Coupling act like that at work? When Jane from Coupling is fired for causing a traffic accident, she not only gets her job back but deposes the boss. Most of these characters aren't smart enough to reach Bunny-Ears Lawyer level.
Kendra Kirai: Surprisingly, this is rather rare in anime, except for the Goldfish Poop Gang or in a blatantly Negative Continuity / Reset Button Gag Series. When someone in anime loses their job, very rarely will they ever get it back. Even in some Gag Series.
arromdee: Anyone got a better version of the Spiderman quote? It's from memory and decades ago, so it's probably wrong.
Whitewings: It's correct. I know because Teletoon was airing the show in the Retro block fairly recently.
Madrugada:
- Deleted biased explanation of at-will employment — irrelevant. Besides, At-will employment laws work both ways — the employee can quit for no reason without notice without penalty.
- Deleted Colonel Klink example — while he was threatened with transfer to the Russian Front regularly, he couldn't be fired, and I don't recall that he was ever actually transferred. This isn't where the boss threatens to fire someone, it's where he does.
- Deleted unnecessary information about the corporate status of WWE
- Deleted PETA forums example. Banning from net forums is not the same as being fired, and virtually every forum has a provision for banning. PETA is a private organization and can allow or bar anyone they want from their forums.
