An index of tropes dealing with a character's job or work environment.
Note: If a job is related to one of the listed sub-categories, list it on that index instead of here.
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Categories
- Authority Tropes: Bosses, executives, managers, supervisors, and anyone else in a leadership position who's in charge of ordering employees and subordinates around.
- Circus Index: Entertainers who perform as part of circus troupes.
- Clown Tropes: Those goofy circus performers who wear garish clothes and makeup.
- Cops and Detectives: Law enforcement / police officers and professional crime investigators.
- Countryside Index: Includes some tropes about farmers and agricultural laborers.
- The Courtroom Index: Judges and lawyers whose job is to handle legal affairs in the criminal justice system.
- Criminals: Career crooks who make a living by breaking the law in hopes of illegally acquiring money.
- Doctor Index: Physicians, nurses, (para)medics, and other medical personnel one can find in any clinic or hospital.
- Eating Establishments: Restaurant staff, including the owners/managers and cooks, waiters, etc. who serve up food for a living.
- Nightlife Index: Includes some tropes about bartenders who serve alcohol at bars, pubs, nightclubs, and restaurants.
- Hired Guns: Professional mercenaries who are paid to fight and get their hands dirty (with blood) for the highest bidder.
- Hotel Tropes: Some people are employed at hotels, motels, inns, and other temporary lodging facilities for travelers.
- I Need an Index by Monday: White-collar professionals working in a typical office setting.
- Index of Industry: Laborers who work in construction or manufacturing, often in some kind of factory or other industrial facility.
- Index of Pupils and Protégés: Disciples and students who are undergoing education or training in some sort of field.
- Military and Warfare Tropes: Soldiers and warriors who are members of some sort of armed forces, whose job is to fight wars under their leaders' command.
- News Tropes: Journalists, reporters, anchors, and other people whose job is to write about or discuss current events for the news media.
- The Oldest Profession: Prostitutes, strippers, and other sex workers who sell their bodies for satisfying others' sexual pleasures.
- Politics Tropes: Politicians, bureaucrats, and other government officials who are responsible for running political affairs of the state.
- Royalty and Nobility Tropes: Monarchs and other aristocrats who directly inherit titles of political authority through legally enshrined nepotism.
- Religion Tropes: Includes multiple tropes about priests and other clergy members who are devoted full-time to preaching their religious beliefs to other people.
- Schoolteachers: Educators who teach school curriculum to students in a classroom.
- Servant Tropes: Laborers whose job is to help assist their employer by doing some sort of unglamorous work for them.
- A Slave to the Index: When they were never given a free choice about being forced to serve their masters, often for little or no reward.
- Show Business: Careers in the entertainment media industry.
- Movie-Making Index: Cast and crew members involved in film or television production.
- Music Tropes: Singers, instrumentalists, composers, and other musicians.
- Sports Story Tropes: Professional athletes who compete in sports events.
- This Index Knows What It's Talking About: These people are skilled experts in their given field.
- Mentor Index: Experienced masters who teach apprentices on how to do something.
- Tropes for Sale: Merchants, salesmen, and other workers whose job is to directly sell consumer products to costumers; often in some sort of marketplace, retail store, or shopping center.
- Grocery Store Index: Retail workers who are employed at grocery stores, selling food and other household products.
- Tropes on Science and Unscience: Research scientists and academic scholars who study and experiment for the pursuit of furthering knowledge in some sort of field.
Characters and their jobs
- Acceptable Professional Targets: Jobs that are considered okay to mock.
- Adaptational Job Change: An adaptation changes a character's occupation.
- Angry Chef: A hothead who bosses around their kitchen staff.
- Evil Chef: A chef who happens to be a villain.
- Apathetic Clerk: Clerk or cashier who is ambivalent towards their job and everything that goes on around them.
- Arms Dealer: A merchant who sells weapons, acquired through (il)legal means.
- Asian Storeowner: An (East or South) Asian immigrant who works as a shopkeeper.
- The Barber: Someone who trims hair for a living.
- The Bartender: Someone who serves alcohol at a bar, pub, nightclub, or restaurant.
- The Blacksmith
- Bounty Hunter: A private contractor who is hired by the legal authorities to help capture (or kill) fugitive criminals.
- Call to Agriculture: Someone in an unrelated career field decides to take up farming later in life.
- Caring Gardener
- Chatty Hairdresser
- Chinese Launderer
- Construction Catcalls: Workmen yell sexually aggressive comments at passing women.
- The Coroner: A forensic expert whose job is to examine dead bodies, and to determine their identities and causes of death.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: A ruthlessly greedy businessperson who runs a major corporation, doing evil and unscrupulous acts for the sake of profit.
- Honest Corporate Executive: The inversion of the above; a businessperson who is decent and honest, and refuses to do anything illegal or unethical with their company.
- Cranky Landlord
- Creepy Gas Station Attendant
- Creepy Gym Coach
- Creepy Mortician: Morticians are portrayed as being disturbing or strange.
- Crooked Contractor
- Dreadful Musician: A musician who is terrible at singing or playing musical instruments.
- The Driver
- Drop-In Landlord: A friendly or comedic landlord who's always showing up at the main characters' apartment to say hi.
- Eccentric Artist: An artist whose strange quirks are reflected in their works.
- Mad Artist: An artist who isn't right in the head and often creates artwork that creeps people out.
- Da Editor
- The Executioner: Someone whose job is to execute a death sentence, killing prisoners convicted of capital crimes.
- Expert Consultant: A professional brought in for their expertise or special skills.
- Fashion Designer: Someone who creates new clothing for the latest fashion trends.
- Fashion Model: Attractive people, usually women, who have to pose in photos while wearing the fashion designer's clothes.
- Following in Their Rescuer's Footsteps
- Foreign Correspondent: A journalist who is reporting in another country besides their own.
- Gaucho: A South American cowboy.
- Grease Monkey
- Great White Hunter
- Hillbilly Moonshiner: Someone who illegally brews some unlicensed liquor.
- Immoral Journalist: A dishonest reporter who has no problems with bending the facts to get a sensational (fake) news piece.
- Inherently Attractive Profession: A job has characteristics associated with it that people find attractive.
- Innocent Flower Girl
- Intrepid Reporter: A journalist who actively seeks out interesting news stories, even going on risky adventures to do so.
- Tagalong Reporter: A journalist who joins in on the hero's adventures to report them.
- Jobless Parent Drama: A family struggles because a parent is unemployed.
- Mad Scientist: An insane scientist who conducts bizarre experiments.
- Majority-Share Dictator
- Masked Luchador: A Mexican professional wrestler.
- Mean Boss: A boss who isn't very nice to their employees.
- Bad Boss: They won't give any shits about their employees' safety and welfare, and may indulge in cruel methods to keep them in line.
- Morally Bankrupt Banker: A ruthlessly greedy financier.
- Most Writers Are Writers: Fiction writers create characters who are also writers.
- Mighty Lumberjack: A big, burly logger.
- Native Guide: A local person who assists travelers with navigating the region they live in.
- Nemesis as Customer: A character's job requires them to serve someone they hate.
- Pointy-Haired Boss: The boss is a total moron.
- Private Military Contractors: Mercenary soldiers who work for a corporation instead of a government.
- Professional Gambler: Someone who regularly takes great risks to earn more money.
- Professional Killer: Someone whose job is to murder other people in exchange for a paycheck.
- Inexperienced Killer: A hitman who's never really killed anyone before.
- Psycho for Hire: A hired thug who enjoys getting paid to do bad things to other people.
- Psycho Psychologist: A psychologist who isn't a model example of sanity himself.
- Railroad Employee Roundhouse
- The Real Spoofbusters: An expy of the Ghostbusters, being a team of professionals who make a living by dealing with paranormal threats.
- Rom Com Job
- Sequential Artist
- Shoe Shine, Mister?
- The Shrink: A psychiatrist or psychotherapist who provides mental health services.
- Single-Issue Landlord
- Smooth-Talking Talent Agent
- Snake Oil Salesman: A Con Man who sells shoddy products of very dubious quality to gullible people.
- Stage Magician: An illusionist who performs "magic tricks" for an audience.
- Magicians Are Wizards: Despite their showmanship, they are in fact capable of real magic.
- Starving Artist: An artist who has trouble with profiting from their works.
- Stock Superhero Day Jobs: Because being a superhero is usually an unpaid volunteer activity, they often have another actual career in order to pay their bills.
- Straw Critic: Professional media critics being stereotyped as perfectionist and unpleasable.
- Sweet Baker
- Team Chef
- Terrible Artist: An artist whose illustrations would fail to impress a kindergartner.
- Traveling Salesman: A merchant who visits distant locations to sell their products.
- Unstoppable Mailman: A postal worker will cross every single obstacle to deliver mail packages to their destinations.
- The Vicar
- Waiting for a Break
- The Watchmaker
- Yuppie: Members of the Baby Boomer generation who were "young urban professionals" during The '80s.
Other work-related tropes
- Bad Job, Worse Uniform: A crappy job with poor pay forces you to wear a humiliating costume.
- Burger Fool: Someone has to work for minimum wage at a fast food restaurant.
- Career Revealing Trait
- Crossing the Burnt Bridge
- Defeat Means Menial Labor: Where a villain, having been defeated, is reduced to menial labor.
- Dumb, but Diligent
- Fallen-on-Hard-Times Job: Poor and unemployed people will have to take any job that will make their ends meet.
- Goofy Suit
- Happiness In Minimum Wage: A worker is content with being paid minimum wage.
- Horrible Hollywood: The media and entertainment industry is full of morally corrupt people.
- Hospital Hottie: Doctors, medics, or nurses who are very attractive.
- Hot Men at Work: Male laborers who are very handsome.
- The Inspector Is Coming
- It's Raining Salesmen
- Jaded Professional: Someone has turned very cynical because of everything they've experienced during their career.
- Job Mindset Inertia
- Job Song: A musical number about working.
- Modeling Poses
- Muse Abuse
- New Job as the Plot Demands: A character's job changes depending on what is appropriate for the current episode's plot.
- Obliquely Obfuscated Occupation: It isn't explicitly revealed what a person's occupation is.
- Office Romance: Coworkers falling in love.
- Phony Veteran: Someone who lies about or exaggerates their claims of military service.
- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A character has a specific job, but is never seen or otherwise indicated doing anything that has to do with their profession.
- Playing Games at Work
- Plumber's Crack
- Post-Injury Desk Job: After getting seriously injured out in the field, they're relegated to handling documents and paperwork in an office.
- Pursue the Dream Job
- Really Moves Around
- Retirony: A character with a dangerous job ends up dying not long before they were supposed to peacefully retire.
- Sent Off to Work for Relatives
- Service Sector Stereotypes: Customer service jobs can be very tedious at best, humiliating at worst.
- The Simple Life Is Simple
- Soul-Crushing Desk Job: An awfully boring white-collar job at a Standard Office Setting.
- Soul-Sucking Retail Job: An awfully tedious blue-collar job at a retail store or supermarket.
- Strike Episode: Dissatisfied employees form a labor union and refuse to work in protest of how their bosses treat them.
- Successful Sibling Syndrome
- Ultimate Job Security: An employee who never gets fired even though realistically their actions would've gotten them booted out a long time ago.
- Vampire Doctor: Someone whose Horror Hunger makes their chosen profession difficult.
- Weird Trade Union: Labor unions for the most unexpected professions.
- The Wicked Stage
- Wrong Line of Work: When someone gets a job they are clearly unsuited for.
