History Main / CuttingCorners

If the company ''used'' to be generous, but has since downgraded to cheaper versions, or "BYO", that's a sure sign that they're in some kind of financial trouble. Bonus points if the things they're being stingy with are essential (and already cheap or just paid for) items such as pens or pads of sticky notes.

If the company ''used'' to be generous, but has since downgraded to cheaper versions, or "BYO", that's a sure sign that they're in some kind of financial trouble. Bonus points if the things they're being stingy with are essential (and already cheap) items such as pens or pads of sticky notes.

** In "Drive Thru," Krabs get the idea to operate one when a costumer mistakes hole in the wall for a drive through window. As usual, Krab's greed gets the better of him when he rejects the microphone, speaker, and sign SpongeBob brings for the drive-thru in favor of tin cans on a string and napkins (despite that using the drive thru items would not cost Krabs any money at all since they’re already paid for). He then smashes more holes to make Spongebob and Squidward, who are already overworked, service more customers and earn more money, which results in the Krusty Krab collapsing due to a lack of structural support.

** In "Drive Thru," Krabs get the idea to operate one when a costumer mistakes hole in the wall for a drive through window. However, Krab's greed gets the better of him and he smashes more holes to make Spongebob and Squidward, who are already overworked, service more customers and earn more money,which results in the Krusty Krab collapsing due to a lack of structural support.

* One of Basil's more notable vices in ''Series/FawltyTowers''. Given the nature of the series, it usually comes back to bite him later in the episode. In "[[Recap/FawltyTowers1E2TheBuilders The Builders]]", he hires a drunken handyman to install a new door between the dining room and the lobby. The door goes through a load-bearing wall, but he uses a simple 2x4 for the lintel instead of a more substantial beam. A more competent builder hired by Basil's wife panics and runs for a prop when he hears about this.

* One of Basil's more notable vices in ''Series/FawltyTowers''. Given the nature of the series, it usually comes back to bite him later in the episode. In one episode, he hires a drunken handyman to install a new door between the dining room and the lobby. The door goes through a load-bearing wall, but he uses a simple 2x4 for the lintel instead of a more substantial beam. A more competent builder hired by Basil's wife panics and runs for a prop when he hears about this.

* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7180034/1/Soul-s-Light Soul's Light]]'', an ''[[Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion Evangelion]]'' and ''Literature/DresdenFiles'' crossover, Harry is sent to [[DisastrousDemonstration sabotage the Jet Alone demonstration]]. In the ensuing chaos it comes to light that, to save money on the prototype, the company had used a cheaper nuclear reactor. One which lacked an automatic safety system and was currently overheating while refusing to accept orders. Harry chose to hoof it on hearing that.

** It is eventually showcased on its continuation ''Literature/TheLostWorld1995'' that [=InGen=] couldn't do things well even on Site-B: for starters, [[SwissCheeseSecurity the computers installed on the Site have security so lax that anybody who fails repeatedly on hacking them will be pretty much provided with a free user password via the computer allowing them to reset it]], and the biggest doozie on the novel: [[spoiler:[=InGen=] was so cheap and careless in the feeding of the dinosaurs (giving them badly-made ground sheep instead of anti-biotic infused chicken like a real zoo would and thus risking infecting the animals with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrapie scrapie]], a disease similar to Mad Cow Disease) and in the disposing of the bodies of those dinosaurs that died at some point of the incubation process (they just dumped the bodies somewhere without even bothering to burn them), that ''all of the dinosaurs on the island'' are doomed to die of prion disease (the carnivores gorged themselves on the dead, rotting bodies and the disease will eventually reach the herbivores via infected wounds)]].

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[[caption-width-right:350:"[[EvilLawyerJoke We've also fired our legal department and replaced them with a bunch of sharks.]]"\\
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** In "Drive Trhu," Krabs get the idea to operate one when a costumer mistakes hole in the wall for a drive through window. However, Krab's greed gets the better of him and he smashes more holes to make Spongebob and Squidward, who are already overworked, service more customers and earn more money,which results in the Krusty Krab collapsing due to a lack of structural support.

** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E15BartTheFink Bart the Fink]]", Krusty gets nabbed for tax evasion and the IRS seizes his assets. As a result, his show is renamed ''Herschel Krustofsky's Clown-Related Entertainment Show'', there's no longer money for sets, costumes, or even banana cream pies. Or somebody to throw them.

* In ''Disney/BigHero6'', Allistair Krei is described by Professor Callahan as this when he approaches Hiro about investing his microbots. [[spoiler:While Krei did ignore an irregularity in his portal experiment that led to the assumed loss of Callahan's daughter, it's implied that no one involved in the experiment was actually worried at the time and Callahan is, of course, heavily biased and planning to murder Krei.]]

* Rossweisse from ''LightNovel/HighSchoolDXD'' is one cheap Valkyrie. She only shops at 100 Yen stores ($2 Shops) and considers them a good first stop on a date, is seen fighting with old ladies for sale items, and only ever buys clothes on clearance. When Issei hits her with [[ClothingDamage Dress Break]], she's so upset she can't replace her outfit at the same price she [[SkewedPriorities forgets to cover herself]]. This is eventually revealed to be because Odin pays his Valkyries (or the underperforming Rossweisse, at least) a criminally miserly wage; Rossweisse is easily enticed to ''formally defect'' when Rias simply offers her a better benefits package.
* ''Manga/{{Noragami}}'': Yato is a god who has been seen having Hiyori pay for his lunch, scrounging in dumpsters to find clothes, asking Kofuku for money and taking money from Yukine. He even considers free beer a type of payment. However, he is ''ridiculously'' broke as, since he is a god, thinks that people should only pay five yen for his services as that is a normal offering. This isn't helped by his odd belief that lucky charms will actually prove useful and constantly spends what little money he has to buy them.
** Subverted by the fact that, under no circumstances, will Yato allow Yukine to steal or demand money from people, since as a shinki, it would corrupt both him and Yato, eventually turning Yukine into an ayakashi.

* In ''Series/HoneyIShrunkTheKids'', Wayne's boss H. Gordon Jennings does it constantly. It comes to a head, when an EPA inspector threatens to expose his dumping of toxic waste, he feeds the waste to Wayne's garbage-eating bacteria, causing it to mutate and turn people into garbage-eating zombies. When they're cornered by zombies in an underground lab, Wayne claims they can escape through the AirVentPassageway, which leads to the surface, only for Jennings to point out that there is no vent, it's just a grill on a bare wall to fool the safety inspectors.

* On ''Series/KitchenNightmares'', ''Series/BarRescue'' or any other Business Help show, one possible reason for the issues a restaurant might be facing is that the owner has been trying to reduce costs in ways that compromise food safety and/or quality.

* In ''Disney/BigHero6'', AlIlstair Krei is described by Professor Callahan as this when he approaches Hiro about investing his microbots. [[spoiler:While Krei did ignore an irregularity in his portal experiment that led to the assumed loss of Callahan's daughter, it's implied that no one involved in the experiment was actually worried at the time and Callahan is, of course, heavily biased and planning to murder Krei.]]

* In ''Disney/BigHero6'', Allstair Krei is described by Professor Callahan as this when he approaches Hiro about investing his microbots. [[spoiler:While Krei did ignore an irregularity in his portal experiment that led to the assumed loss of Callahan's daughter, it's implied that no one involved in the experiment was actually worried at the time and Callahan is, of course, heavily biased and planning to murder Krei.]]

* In ''Series/{{Chernobyl}}'', Legasov explains this as a key reason why the number 4 reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded. He compares RBMK reactors to those made by the West and lists a number of safety features that aren't implemented in the Soviet-made reactors because they're expensive. And when it became known that having graphite tips on boron control rods can temporarily ''increase'' nuclear reaction before boron shuts the reaction down (in case of Chernobyl, the core was so hot that the control rod channels fused with the graphite, keeping it in contract with uranium instead of allowing boron to stop the reaction), the Soviet government buried the information as it would be too costly to fix the problem.

* In ''Series/{{Chernobyl}}'', Legasov explains this as a key reason why the number 4 reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded. He compares RBMK reactors to those made by the West and lists a number of safety features that aren't implemented in the Soviet-made reactors because they're expensive. And when it became known that having graphite tips on boron control rods can temporarily ''increase'' nuclear reaction before boron shuts the reaction down (in case of Chernobyl, the core was so hot that the control rod channels fused with the graphite, keeping it in contract with uranium instead of allowing boron to stop the reaction).

* On ''{{Series/ShamelessUS}}'' Fiona buys an apartment building and struggles with being a landlord. She has to deal with tenants who refuse to pay their rent and/or wreck their apartments which causes her costs to balloon and her profits to disappear. When the roof starts leaking, she cheaps out and hires an unlicensed contractor to fix it. He in turn hires some unskilled laborers to do the job and leaves them unsupervised. One of the men falls off the roof and is severely hurt. The ensuing lawsuits threatens to bankrupt Fiona since by hiring an unlicensed and uninsured contractor, she made herself liable for all the ensuing damages.