History Main / WrongLineOfWork

May also occur as a result of KlingonPromotion when the next highest ranked person in an organization is forced to take up the position of their superiors or SpareToTheThrone if the job involves monarchy and the one next in line proves to be underqualified for the job. Compare with TheAllegedExpert, HeroWithAnFInGood, MinionWithAnFInEvil, TheDilbertPrinciple and ThePeterPrinciple.

May also occur as a result of KlingonPromotion when the next highest ranked person in an organization is forced to take up the position of their superiors or SpareToTheThrone if the job involves monarchy and the one next in line proves to be underqualified for the job. See BusinessAsUnusual for when this drives the plot of a movie or story. Compare with TheAllegedExpert, HeroWithAnFInGood, MinionWithAnFInEvil, TheDilbertPrinciple and ThePeterPrinciple.

* In one episode of ''Series/DiagnosisMurder'', Jessie chews out one of the student doctors he's training for not checking a patient's chart, and almost administering her medication that could have killed her. By the end of the episode, it's revealed that only reason the student has lasted this long is because his father is also a doctor and wants his son to follow him into medicine, and has been secretly helping him cheat on the medical exams.

* ''Webcomic/{{Zoophobia}}'': Cameron, a [[NervousWreck neurotic]] young woman with an [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes immense fear of animals]], is hired as a guidance counselor at the Zoo-Phoenix Academy, which happens to be both staffed and attended by multiple humanoid animals (or {{Shapeshifter}}s who take on animal-like forms). While she has a genuine desire to help others, living her [[YourWorstNightmare worst nightmare]] every day often leaves her too terrified to actually help any students seeking guidance.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Stoked}}'': Fin originally applied to be the resort's new surf instructor, which would have been a perfect fit for her as she's one of the best surfers in the world. Instead, Reef gets the position while Fin is stuck with housekeeping duty, much to her dismay as she considers it both humiliating and beneath her. She eventually reaches her breaking point in one episode where the lack of respect drives her to apply for an instructor position at [[TheRival Captain Ron's]], [[GrassIsGreener although it turns out to be not all it's cracked up to be]] and throws the Ridgemount Resort into chaos by causing all the hotel rooms to remain too dirty to rent out to guests due to Fin being a far more competent maid than Lo even when the latter has Rosie helping her out. Because of this, the others work to and succeed in getting Fin fired, with Bummer literally begging on his hands and knees for her to come back after Mr. Ridgemount threatened to fire him for allowing such a skilled surfer under their employment to leave for their rival.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Stoked}}'': Fin originally applied to be the resort's new surf instructor, which would have been a perfect fit for her as she's one of the best surfers in the world. Instead, Reef gets the position while Fin is stuck with housekeeping duty, much to her dismay as she considers it both humiliating and beneath her. She eventually reaches her breaking point in one episode where the lack of respect drives her to apply for an instructor position at [[TheRival Captain Ron's]], [[GrassIsGreener although it turns out to be not all it's cracked up to be]] and throws the Ridgemount Resort into chaos by causing all the rooms to remain extremely dirty due to Fin being a far more competent maid than Lo even when the latter has Rosie helping her out. Because of this, the others work to and succeed in getting Fin fired, with Bummer literally begging on his hands and knees for her to come back as Mr. Ridgemount threatened to fire him for allowing such a skilled surfer under their employment to leave for their rival.

* On ''Series/PersonOfInterest'', flashbacks show that Sameen Shaw once trained to be a doctor. Shaw has a medical condition that suppresses her emotions and makes it very hard for her to feel things like happiness, sadness or grief. After a particularly bad death notification incident, her supervisor told her that someone with LackOfEmpathy really should not be a doctor. She took this advice to heart and switched professions to government assassin.

* ''ComicBook/GreenLantern'': G'nort Esplanade Gneemascher is a doglike alien buffoon who was given a fake GreenLanternRing by the Weaponers of Qward in an attempt to discredit the Corps. However, G'nort showed courage in helping to defeat the Qwardians, so he was nominated for membership in the Green Lantern Corps by Guy Gardner. He's still a buffoon, though, and is often sent on long missions, in isolated sectors, mostly to keep him from causing any trouble.

* ''VideoGame/Fallout4'': The DJ of the local radio station, Travis Miles, has extreme confidence and self-esteem issues and difficulties communicating with others, making his broadcasts sound very unprofessional. His friend Vadim enlists the PlayerCharacter to help Travis in a ConfidenceBoostingScheme, after which he becomes a lot better at his job.

* ''VideoGame/Fallout4'': The DJ of the local radio station, Travis Miles, has extreme confidence and self-esteem issues and difficulties communicating with others, making his broadcasts sound very unprofessional.

* ''VideoGame/Fallout4'': The DJ of the local radio station, Travis Miles, has extreme confidence issues and difficulties communicating with others, making his broadcasts sound extremely unprofessional.

* ''{{Literature/Animorphs}}: Visser Three initially just appears to be a StupidEvil GeneralFailure as he attempts to lead the [[PuppeteerParasite Yeerk Empire]] in an secret invasion of Earth. However, he is a skilled fighter who makes resourceful use of his morphing abilities and flashbacks show that he's fairly capable as a tactician in combat scenarios. His incompetence stems not from stupidity but from the fact that he isn't suited for infiltration tactics and would have been better off fighting on a front with an open war.

* ''LightNovel/AscendanceOfABookworm'': Damuel is more suited for scholar work than for a knight's work, but his family is quite poor and his older brother a better scholar than him, so he became a knight to widen his family's business.

** Chorus Federal Army General Donald Doyle is terrible at his job, having little to no combat experience and flees at the first sign of danger. Justified in that he was originally the personal secretary to the brigadier, having only gotten the position after everyone who outranked him either died or ran off.

** Chorus Federal Army General Donald Doyle is terrible at his job, having little to no combat experience and flees at the first sign of danger. Justified in that he was originally the personal secretary to the brigadier and was next in line to lead after everyone else who outranked him either died or fled the planet.

** Chorus Federal Army General Donald Doyle is terrible at his job, having little to no combat experience and flees at the first sign of danger. He was originally the personal secretary to the brigadier and was promoted only because everyone else that outranked him was either killed or fled the planet.

* ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'':

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': The [[ConArtist Flim-Flam Brothers]] are business-savvy, charismatic, and really know how to play to a crowd. If they just stuck to legitimate business ventures, they would easily be comfortably well-off for the rest of their lives. Instead, they use their talents for scams and con jobs, due to wanting to make as much as possible right away. These cons are often exposed and dismantled, leaving them with next to nothing to show for their efforts.

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'', the actor playing [[{{Notzilla}} Reptar] in "Reptar on Ice" mentions that "I can't skate, I hate kids, and lizards give me the creeps".

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'', the actor playing Reptar in "Reptar on Ice" mentions that "I can't skate, I hate kids, and lizards give me the creeps".

** Sparkstalker is a brilliant hacker and crypto-analyst who could probably undermine half of the Autobot intelligence network if he were allowed to apply those talents. Instead, he was modified into a Firecon and assigned to babysit Flamefeather and Cindersaur, respectively a hate-fueled berserker and a dimwitted pyromaniac. Unfortunately for Sparkstalker, the aforementioned idiots are stronger than he is, and he was accidentally incinerated by Cindersaur after the latter proved too stupid to understand what "friendly fire" was and why it was a bad thing.

* ''Series/{{Fargo}}'' Season One: Gus Grimly is a well-meaning but incompetent police officer, and his natural timidity sets off the plot when Lorne Malvo intimidates him into letting Malvo go at a traffic stop. His department often uses him to sub for animal control, and he himself admits to Molly he didn't want to be a cop but a friend talked him into it; after the TimeSkip we see him working his dream job as a mailman. [[spoiler:He ultimately redeems himself by getting the drop on Malvo and killing him.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'': After Mr Incredible is forced into early retirement from being a superhero, he tries working as an insurance adjuster, but he hates the tedium of white-collar work, and his desire to be helpful to his customers outweighs his desire to make profit for the company, leading to him getting written up by his supervisor for not being ruthless enough.

* ''Literature/{{Incompetence}}'' takes place in The United States Of Europe, where {{political correctness|GoneMad}} has reached DystopianEdict levels, and laws have been passed that forbid the discrimination of people based on race, class, gender, creed or competence. Thus, a society has been born where ''everyone'' is bad at their job because employers aren't allowed to use someone's ''actual ability to do the job'' as a reason to hire/fire someone. Most shoes are made of vegetable matter, a hotel room will only have furniture in it if you're lucky (and be completely non-existent if you're not), and signposts rarely agree with each other, let alone point the correct way.

May also occur as a result of KlingonPromotion when the next highest ranked person in an organization is forced to take up the position of their superiors or SpareToTheThrone if the job involves monarchy and the one next in line proves to be underqualified for the job. See BusinessAsUnusual for when this drives the plot of a movie or story. Compare with TheAllegedExpert, HeroWithAnFInGood, MinionWithAnFInEvil, TheDilbertPrinciple, ThePeterPrinciple, and VictimOfCircumstanceWithNoJobQualifications.

** This is the main driving force of Tylor's role in the show. He trained all his life to get into Monsters Inc. as a Scarer, only to find out that the job itself has been replaced with 'Jokester' the day before he was due to enroll. As a result, Tylor is assigned to MIFT and has to learn an entire new skillset on the job, which he isn't suited to due to his clumsiness and having no mechanical experience. He only getting the job due to an offhand comment about his parents owning a hardware store, even though he can’t even wrench a simple nut when he starts out.