History Main / AbsurdlyDedicatedWorker

* As quoted above, in the ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' short "Southern Fried Rabbit", WesternAnimation/BugsBunny encounters a [[UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar Confederate soldier]] Yosemite Sam still guarding the Mason-Dixon line. Keep in mind that this wasn't a period piece that happened to take place during the Civil War--the short come out on May 2nd of 1953 (roughly 88 years after the Civil War ended) and as pointed by Bugs, the short takes place during the time it was made.

* ''Literature/TheRestaurantAtTheEndOfTheUniverse'': One scene has Zaphod Beeblebrox encountering a space-liner that has decided to do a "short delay" because there's no lemon-scented napkins in its inventory. This "short delay" has been of several millennia and counting, during which the civilization it belonged to fell and there is absolutely nothing still standing on the planet aside from the spaceship and all of its cryogenically-frozen crew and passengers. When Zaphod points out the utter uselessness of waiting when there is literally nothing left, the ship's computer says that it's statistically provable that something will evolve in time, and civilizations will grow again... and it will wait until said civilizations create lemon-scented napkins, and until then the "short delay" will continue.

* Many robots in the ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' universe didn't notice or don't care about the nuclear war that devastated America in 2077, and are still trying to carry out the tasks assigned to them in the Pre-War years, as much as 200 years later.

* ''Radio/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy1978'', Fit the Twelfth, has a spaceship that has automatically delayed its departure until it can restock itself with lemon-soaked paper napkins, keeping its passengers in "temporary suspended animation" for the indefinite time being.

* ''VideoGame/IWasATeenageExocolonist'': Vertumna's native sentient species, named the Convergent Domain by the human colonists, wasn't that much better about caring for the planet than humans as a whole were about caring about Earth. When Vertumna became unlivable for them, the last survivors launched themselves into space and left the planet in the care of the Gardeners, the ArtificialIntelligence network that had been built to produce food and care for the few remaining patches of nature, asking them to extend that second job into restoring and maintaining the planet's ecosystem. The Convergent Domain bailed out on the planet a good 20,000 years before the humans showed up and enver returned. One of the plot's conflicts comes from the fact that many of the Gardeners consider humans to be an invasive species to be elminated for the good of the native life they were ordered to protect.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'': The episode "A Watershed Moment!" has a twofold example: Ash and company find an old-fashioned robot planting seeds in a wasteland, and a Chesnaught that protects it. Turns out the robot's creator wanted to reforest the area, but it's been going for years and by the time the creator's grandson is around, the robot is about to break down. Clemont does some repairs to get it back in top shape, and after finally finding an underground water source the area finally shows signs of life once more.

* During the flashback sequences in ''ComicBook/TheBadBadPlace,'' a young man named Griffin was lured into the [[EldritchLocation Castavette Estate]] with the offer of guitar lessons, hoping to be able to impress a prospective girlfriend with his newfound skills; once inside, he was [[LotusEaterMachine so ensnared]] by the need to practice that he continued playing even after the strings had flayed his fingers to the bone. He forgot the need to eat, drink or rest, and eventually the very reason why he started learning guitar in the first place. Presumably, he's still practicing by the start of the story.

* Played straight with "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" short in ''WesternAnimation/{{Fantasia}}''. Mickey, as the Apprentice, sets a magic broom to the task of fetching water from a well and pouring it into a cauldron, then goes to sleep and wakes to the room flooded with water since he never told the broom to stop. Then he finds he can't stop it and when he tries chopping the broom to bits, every bit becomes a new broom, all "programmed" to fetch water and throw it into the cauldron. It takes the return of the Sorcerer himself to stop the brooms (and save the apprentice from drowning).

* In ''Film/SkyCaptainAndTheWorldOfTomorrow'', Dr. Totenkopf's machines carry on his work of assembling a "Noah's Ark"-type rocket and loading animals on it, [[spoiler: [[DeadAllAlong despite his death 20 years prior]].]]

* The Creator/ShelSilverstein poem "Obedient" has a disobedient student be told to stand in the corner of the classroom as punishment. When class ends, though, the teacher forgets to tell him he can stop, and he keeps standing there in an attempt to prove he's good. By the end of the poem, the school has closed, the building is abandoned, and he's been waiting there for forty years.

* All the Ants in ''VideoGame/BugFables'' are this to a degree but the one that really stands out is Amber, who acts as an inventory overflow for the player and will follow them into any dungeon Team Snakemouth goes to.

* In ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment'', if you choose to seek mage training from Mebbeth, one of the tasks she gives you is to pick up her laundry from the person she gave it to to wash it. Once you find him, it turns out that he's more than a little addled and has been washing and starching it religiously for ''years''. It's now as stiff as boards. [[spoiler: This is both a secret lesson by Mebbeth to teach you the pointlessness of observing rituals without understanding them, and also to give you part of the pieces necessary to craft a spellbook- the heavily laundered linens function as its pages.]]

* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' features the kids going on a field trip to a living pioneer museum where the employees refuse to break character under any circumstances. Even when the museum gets taken over by a criminal gang that takes everyone hostage, the employees keep roleplaying as pioneers to the point that one of them ''shoots'' the lone employee who tries to give the criminals a security code that his character shouldn't know about.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode"Simpson and Delilah", Homer gets an assistant who then takes the blame for something Homer did, gets fired, and still writes Homer's speech for him even after having been fired.

* In ''LetsPlay/{{Markiplier}}''[='=]s run of ''The Mortuary Assistant,'' Mark says "ScrewThisImOutOfHere'' exactly once, and goes back to work when his car won't start. By alternatingly telling the apparitions to go away and dilligently doing his job (except once when he tries to run off a shadow person and once when he gets trapped in a BlackBugRoom; muttering about how his boss will be mad if he's not done by sunup the whole time), and blundering about with Letting Paper, he's able to banish the demon after him back to Hell.

* ''VideoGame/IWasATeenageExocolonist'': Vertumna's native sentient species, named the Convergent Domain by the human colonists, wasn't that much better about caring for the planet than humans as a whole were about caring about Earth. When Vertumna became unlivable for them, the last survivors launched themselves into space and left the planet in the care of the Gardeners, the ArticificialIntelligence network that had been built to produce food and care for the few remaining patches of nature, asking them to extend that second job into restoring and maintaining the planet's ecosystem. The Convergent Domain bailed out on the planet a good 20,000 years before the humans showed up and one of the plot's conflicts comes from the fact that many of the Gardeners consider them to be an invasive species to be elminated for the good of the native life.

* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'', there are these cute Aztec-looking little electric robot guys in the Lanayru Mines. It's out of use, and the robots old stones by now, but Link reactivates the time stones the robots once harvested, which causes things to return to the way they once were (in certain spots). They are proud, single-minded laborers even after all those years.

* The cast of ''Series/RedDwarf'' first encounter Kryten obediently serving the three female crew members of the ''Nova 5'', completely oblivious to the fact that they were killed when the Nova crash-landed.

* ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'': One scene has Arthur Dent encountering a space-liner that has decided to do a "short delay" because there's no lemon-scented napkins in its inventory. This "short delay" has been of several millennia and counting, during which the civilization it belonged to fell and there is absolutely nothing still standing on the planet aside from the spaceship and all of its cryogenically-frozen crew and passengers. When Dent points out the utter uselessness of waiting when there is literally nothing left, the ship's computer says that it's statistically provable that something will evolve in time, and civilizations will grow again... and it will wait until said civilizations create lemon-scented napkins, and until then the "short delay" will continue.

* Many robots in the ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' universe didn't notice or don't care about the nuclear war that devastated America in 2077, and is still trying to carry out the tasks assigned to them in the Pre-War years, as much as 200 years later.