An index of tropes and characters found in an office environment.
Workplaces
- Adminisphere
- Business of Generic Importance
- Celestial Bureaucracy: A bureaucracy that sorts out where people are supposed to go after they die.
- Critical Staffing Shortage
- Cutting Corners
- Dangerous Workplace
- Evil, Inc.: Where a corporation is blatantly evil and exploitative.
- Family Business
- Incompetence, Inc.
- The Inspector Is Coming
- No OSHA Compliance: When a battle is fought in a "factory" that would be condemned in seconds if OSHA ever inspected it.
- No Product Safety Standards
- No Such Thing as H.R.
- Predatory Business: A business that uses underhanded means to eliminate the competition.
- Standard Office Setting
- Vast Bureaucracy
- Wacky Startup Workplace
- Work Com
- Workplace Horror: Where you go to work and discover the office overrun by the supernatural and proceed to try to ignore the tortured screaming in the hallways.
- X Days Since: Where there is a prominent sign displaying "X Days since the Last Catastrophic Incident" that gets reset during the course of the story.
Career Paths
- Anti-Nepotism
- Brain Drain
- Cardboard Box of Unemployment
- Career Versus Man
- Casting Couch: An actress gets a part in a movie by having sex with the director.
- The Dilbert Principle
- Disappointing Promotion
- Expose the Villain, Get His Job
- Family Versus Career
- Fiction Business Savvy
- Firing Day
- First Day from Hell
- George Jetson Job Security: Someone gets fired for a trivial reason or no reason at all.
- High Turnover Rate
- Inept Aptitude Test
- Kicked Upstairs: Promoting an incompetent employee to an ostensibly important position to prevent them from doing any real damage.
- Klingon Promotion: Gaining a person's job or title by killing them.
- Nepotism: Allowing relatives to work for you.
- New Job as the Plot Demands:A character's job changes depending on what's appropriate for the current episode's plot.
- New Job Episode
- Non-Promotion
- Obliquely Obfuscated Occupation
- Omnidisciplinary Lawyer
- Omnidisciplinary Scientist: A scientist whose knowledge and skills cover every kind of science the plot requires.
- Open Heart Dentistry
- Passed-Over Promotion
- The Peter Principle
- Promoted to Scapegoat
- Promotion, Not Punishment
- Pulled from Your Day Off: Someone is forced to work on their day off.
- Reluctant Retiree
- Resigned in Disgrace: A scandal forces someone to resign from their position.
- Sleeping Their Way to the Top
- Soul-Crushing Desk Job
- Success Symbiosis
- Superficial Suggestion Box: A suggestion box that's treated as a joke.
- Take This Job and Shove It: Someone angrily quits their job.
- Ultimate Job Security: No matter how severe their violations or acts of negligence are, this person never gets fired.
- Unconfessed Unemployment
- Unprocessed Resignation: Someone resigns but their superior disallows the resignation through inaction.
Bosses
- The Alleged Boss
- Bad Boss: A boss who is abusive to their employees.
- Tyrant Takes the Helm (the tyrant being the boss in question)
- Beleaguered Boss
- Benevolent Boss: A boss who is nice and fair to their employees.
- Clueless Boss
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: The head of a corporation is evil or at least very unscrupulous.
- Dinner with the Boss: An employee ends up having dinner with their boss.
- Girlboss Feminist: A female character, usually a High-Powered Career Woman, and often Token Girl, who uses the language of feminism, but doesn't live up to it in practice.
- Honest Corporate Executive: The head of a corporation is a good person and refuses to use their company for unethical purposes.
- Majority-Share Dictator
- Mean Boss
- Pointy-Haired Boss: The boss is a complete dunderhead.
- Suit with Vested Interests
- Under New Management
- Weak Boss, Strong Underlings
Employees
- Almighty Janitor
- Army of Lawyers
- Badass Bureaucrat
- Beleaguered Assistant
- Bob from Accounting
- Boss's Unfavorite Employee
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: An employee is very eccentric, but still quite competent at their profession.
- Corporate-Sponsored Superhero
- Corrupt Corporate Executive
- Depending Upon the Undependable: An incompetent employee keeps getting hired and/or promoted even though the hiring person is aware (or should be aware) disaster will inevitably result.
- Desk Jockey
- Ditzy Secretary
- Elder Employee
- High-Powered Career Woman
- Hired for Their Looks
- Honest Corporate Executive
- I Don't Pay You to Think
- The Intern
- Jaded Professional
- The Last DJ
- Modern Major General
- Oblivious Janitor Cut
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: A bureaucrat who prevents the heroes from acting quickly by making them file the required paperwork before allowing them to go and solve the problem.
- Only Sane Employee
- Operator from India
- Paperworkaholic
- Plucky Office Girl
- Powersuit Monkey
- Professional Butt-Kisser
- Professional Slacker
- Sassy Secretary
- Secretary of Evil
- Seriously Scruffy
- Sexy Secretary
- Volatile Second Tier Position
- Weasel Co-Worker
- White Collar Worker
- Work Hard, Play Hard
Recreational Opportunities
- Cheek Copy: Someone uses a copying machine to produce a picture of their bare buttocks.
- Delegation Relay
- Desk Sweep of Passion
- Drinking on Duty
- Employee of the Month
- Executive Ball Clicker
- Married to the Job
- Must Have Caffeine
- Office Golf
- Office Romance
- Sleeping with the Boss's Wife
- Office Sports
- One-Hour Work Week
- Playing Games at Work
- Professionals Do It on Desks
- Sensitivity Training
- Sex at Work
- Subordinate Excuse
- "Take Your Child to Work Day" Plot
- The Queen Will Be Watching
- Trust-Building Blunder
- Wastebasket Ball
- White-Collar Crime
- Who's Watching the Store?
- Working with the Ex: Someone's career requires them to work with their ex.
- Workplace-Acquired Abilities - for when your day job gets too boring
- You, Get Me Coffee: Ordering a subordinate to get coffee.
