One-Hour Work Week in Live-Action TV series.
- Sportswriter is a popular vocation; Paul Hennessy from 8 Simple Rules, Oscar from The Odd Couple (1970), Raymond from Everybody Loves Raymond and Tony from Listen Up (based on the writings of sportswriter Tony Kornheiser) all fitting the part. This is probably so the character could be manly AND lazy at the same time. You would still expect Ray to be hurriedly writing about instant reactions and be in postgame locker rooms talking to players. Nope, most of the time he's depicted working a regular 9-to-5 M-F shift when most sporting events are in the evenings and on weekends.
- Absolutely Fabulous - Patsy got her job as the editor of a fashion magazine by sleeping with the publisher, and the position requires so little of her that she only shows up there a couple of times a year, and even then only to claim free clothes and other giveaways. It takes the magazine going out of business to dislodge her from it, and she immediately gets another job at a high fashion store which requires even less work on her part, as it actively discourages customers. Eddie, on the other hand, is often seen at the office, although very rarely doing any actual work while there.
- Billie from Accidentally On Purpose is a film critic for a newspaper, which leaves her plenty of time for seeing her friends for drinks and being at home with her twenty-something boyfriend and his wacky friends. Although she is often seen at the newspaper office, only two episodes deal with her actually doing her job.
- Most of the characters in The Almighty Johnsons have all the time in the world to work on the quest in the middle of the day, but this makes sense when you consider what they do: Anders, Mike, Ty, Colin and Agnetha are all self-employed and can skip work for a good reason, while Axl is a student who is eventually thrown off his course for non-attendance. Several characters go through periods of unemployment and subsequent money worries.
- A.P. Bio: Inverted. Jack's entire job is teaching a single period of A.P. Biology, yet he spends a lot of time hanging around the campus and teacher's lounge so he can interact with the rest of the cast. Given his disgust for the job, one would expect that he would arrive and leave immediately before and after his single period.
- Arrested Development: The premise of the show is about a family of yuppies accustomed to endless paychecks suddenly finding their real estate company investigated by the FBI for fraud and their patriarch in prison, with Michael the last chance to keep the company afloat. The episode "Staff Infection" reveals Michael's siblings, who have no actual jobs in the company, still collect paychecks.
- Subverted on Better Call Saul when Mike is given a job as a "security consultant" at Madrigal. It is actually a cover for Mike being employed by Gus Fring. Since Gus has not decided yet what to use Mike for, Mike gets to essentially sit around at home all day and play with his granddaughter while getting a nice paycheck each week. However, Mike decides to actually do his job, because he is bored and because if the police ever investigated him, it would look really suspicious that he gets so much money for no work. Mike shows up at the local Madrigal warehouse, stages a Bavarian Fire Drill and exposes serious holes in security. When confronted about it by Lydia, he states that now there is a paper work trail that justifies his paycheck while he still does almost no work. Eventually, Gus finds a use for Mike when it comes to supervising engineers who will be building a secret meth lab.
- On Beverly Hills, 90210, Donna opened a clothing store shortly after graduating from college. Aside from rarely being seen at said store, nor handling all the various things involved in running a business, she was frequently closing the shop to run off and handle either her own personal business or her friends'.
- Played with and subverted in The Big Bang Theory. The characters are mostly researchers working for a university, which means they have a relatively flexible schedule (Howard, being an engineer, would probably be the busiest). But ultimately a lot of their hijinks are either explicitly on the weekends or connected with their job to begin with, entire episodes have involved them working at home or dealing with work related stuff in some way. For a long time Penny worked as a waitress, a common job with flexible hours for an aspiring actress, and later a pharmaceutical rep, also something that lets her set her own schedule. One episode had the girls make a last-minute trip to Vegas and while Bernadette and Amy discussed the lies they told to get out of work, Penny explained "I work at the Cheesecake Factory. I said 'Bye!'"
- In Big Little Lies Jane is said to have a job as an accountant, but she's never actually seen working. There is a Hand Wave in the first couple of episodes saying she doesn't have a lot of clients yet and is looking for more. She also says that she has a few in Santa Cruz, implying she works from home. Although the one time she says she's too busy with work to pick her son up from school, she's actually lying and making a secret trip out of town. Celeste and Madeline are aversion, as they are stay-at-home mothers, and Madeline's part-time job at a community theatre is a plot point. Likewise averted with fitness instructor Bonnie, who is frequently shown at her work.
- In Blood Ties (2007), Henry is frequently shown working on his graphic novels, pointing out a few times that his publisher will kill him if he's late on the next issue. At the same time, he has a very nice apartment in Toronto. Since he's a Friendly Neighborhood Vampire, he sleeps most of the day, frequently with a different girl every time in order to secretly feed on her. At the same time, he appears to spend a lot of time helping Vicki on her cases. Being a bastard son of Henry VIII doesn't carry with it a lot of treasure.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Buffy's "job" as a counselor at Sunnydale High School late in the series. Kids rarely come see her and she hardly ever does anything in the office (her boredom at work is a Running Gag). Basically, the only purpose of the job is to explain how she manages to pay the mortgage on the house she inherited from her mom and support Dawn, and still have time to slay vampires. This is somewhat justified, as she got the job because the principal is in on the town's secret and kept her around to deal with any Hellmouth issues. Given her mental state by that point in the series and utter lack of qualifications it's probably best for everyone that she doesn't try to actually counsel anyone.
- Amanda Graystone of Caprica is shown to be a doctor in the first two episodes, complete with a cushy office at the hospital. In "Reins of a Waterfall", she is stated to have resigned, and it is unknown if she will go back to work. In "Gravedancing", she clarifies that she is a plastic surgeon.
- Castle: the title character spends a good deal of time tooling around with the cops, but scenes often open with him writing at home.
- In the second season finale, Castle is in trouble with his ex-wife/publisher because he's late finishing his new book. It's noted that the amount of time Castle spends with Beckett leaves him with very little time to write, and perhaps there's another reason he follows her.
- In the third season, a scene involves him in an argument over the phone with said ex-wife/publisher while on the way to a crime scene which ends thus:
I have to go now, I'm at work... it is so work!- Castle's wife and daughter have pointed out how he's almost always behind on his writing schedule and then works late nights with a lot of coffee to try to meet his deadlines. Also in one episode, Beckett does not call him on a new case since he said he needed to write. When Castle finds out, he tells her it was code for "any and all distractions welcome".
- Beckett also complains that he leaves her with all of the paperwork. Given how much time detectives should spend on this, it likely leaves him plenty of time to write while she is writing reports.
- Charmed:
- Piper and Prue had full-time jobs in the first two seasons - Piper as a chef and Prue as an auctioneer. Most episodes do show them at work but they are often rushing out of it to fight demons (making "family emergency" excuses). Prue's bosses in Season 1 are also undercover warlocks and once they're vanquished, it's a recurring issue that she barely has any free time anymore - sometimes only keeping her job by bringing in artefacts found thanks to the demon of the week. Starting in mid-Season 2 Piper opens a club that eventually does successfully enough that she doesn't have to be there all the time (and would feasibly start work in the afternoon well into the night, allowing her to fight demons during the day). Prue becomes a freelance photographer which would also allow her more freedom to fight demons.
- Phoebe meanwhile doesn't work until the fourth season - where she gets a job as an advice columnist. She soon becomes a local celebrity and able to work from home. Several episodes in Season 5 and 6 deal with how overworked she is, but also gets cut a lot of slack because her column "doubled our readership"; one episode has her accidentally starting an office riot because of Power Incontinence and her boss says the latter is the reason she's still employed.
- There's a gag in Season 4 when Phoebe is in a job interview and says she'll need a flexible work schedule. Naturally she doesn't get it.
- Paige has an intern job in Season 4 and some episodes take place entirely at her work but she still has a lot of free time. When she gets promoted to social worker, she has to leave the job because she can't juggle it with her duties as a Charmed One. She does temp jobs in Season 6, and becomes a teacher at Magic School in Season 7 - where no one is going to question a Charmed One rushing out to fight demons. By Season 8, she's a full time whitelighter, meaning she's dedicated to helping innocents.
- Billie is a student but is only occasionally shown in class and has lots of time to fight demons or search for her sister.
- Lampshaded in Season 2 when Dan wonders why Leo never seems to do handy man jobs anywhere but the Halliwell manor. Leo is of course a whitelighter and being a handy man is just his cover.
- Cheers. Diane got a lot of time off, but one of the Running Gags late in the series was that Rebecca's job at Cheers was ambiguous, at best.
- Chuck.
- As part of the Nerd Herd, Chuck can skip out on work hours relatively easily on spy missions by logging the time as "being on an install." It's also helped in the first three seasons by Big Mike being one of the worst slackers at the store, and it's not until Emmett comes aboard in season 2 that anyone actually takes a look at Chuck's work forms.
- Casey is a Green Shirt at the store, so doesn't have Chuck's excuse for skipping work on his cover job.
- Once Morgan is brought into the loop in season 3 this becomes less of a problem since they now have someone of authority to cover for them. By season 4, the Buy More is now owned by the CIA and with Morgan assigned as store manager, completely eliminating this problem. Ironically, it comes back as a problem to an extent in season 5 after Chuck and Sarah buy the store, since they initially neglect their jobs as owners.
- Played straighter with Sarah in season 1, when she works at the Wienerlicious. Despite frequently missing hours due to spy business, Sarah only once comments about losing her cover job over missing work. Her civilian boss is also seen in a couple episodes but never comments directly on her frequent absences. In season 2 she's instead working at the Orange Orange, and no further comments are made about missing hours. Some WMG is that the Orange Orange is actually owned by the CIA, as the only employees ever seen there are Sarah and Agent Forrest, and the store is extensively outfitted with CIA technology. The Orange Orange last appears in season 3, and no further mention is made of Sarah having a day job for the rest of the series.
- The Study Group in Community varies from season to season what they're actually studying, but for the most part, they treat it less as a means to study and more a way to hang out with each other. You could probably watch multiple episodes and not figure out what the subject they're supposedly working on is. Played with later on, when it gets repurposed into the Save Greendale Committee, and more plots involve their latest Zany Scheme to do exactly that.
- Cliff and Clair Huxtable of The Cosby Show. Cliff is a doctor and Clair is a lawyer, yet they are somehow always available to spend quality time with their kids whenever necessary. Cliff does have the excuse that his medical office is in the basement of their brownstone, but Clair's status is unexplained.
- Coupling has a... variable approach to this. Most of the characters have jobs (Patrick is a banker, Jeff, Susan, and Julia work in the same office doing something-or-other, Sally runs a beauty parlour, Jane is a local radio broadcaster, and of course Oliver has his shop), but they all seem able to skip work whenever the plot requires it. Steve's work is never seen or referred to - but writer Steven Moffat, who based the character on himself, has said that Steve is a TV writer, responsible for writing a popular sitcom based on the group's experiences as well as "some old kids' show they recently pulled out of mothballs".
- Rebecca from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend does go to work, and her job does occasionally factor in to the plot of the episode, but also takes looong breaks from the office. Justified somewhat in the fact that she is apparently the best real estate lawyer ever, and so is constantly impressing both her boss and their clients even if she doesn't actually work much. Lampshaded twice in Season 2 Episode 3, "All Signs Point to Josh...or is it Josh's Friend?". Rebecca leaves work to take a walk in the middle of the day due to her latest crisis with Josh and Paula leaves because she realizes she might be pregnant. Darryl chases after them meekly protesting that they can't just leave work all the time. Rebecca runs into Greg in a park and during their conversation, she remarks "Alright, I should get back to work...I'm literally never there. It's a miracle I'm not fired." However, she does not return to work.
- Himura from Criminologist Himura and Mystery Writer Arisugawa works as a university professor but is seemingly free to cancel his classes anytime that the police need him for consultation. Eventually gets lampshaded when one of his students complains about it.Mana: Professor Himura said class is cancelled for this afternoon.
Chihiro: There are more cancelled classes than actual classes. What's up with that? - The Daily Show and The Colbert Report: Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have both joked that they only work a half-hour a night for four days a week. Of course, it's just a joke because they, along with their teams, spend the rest of the work week researching, writing and rehearsing their shows.
- In Desperate Housewives, while Bree is a housewife and Lynette and Gabrielle have many job-related plotlines, Susan's employment is a bit mysterious. Supposedly she's a children's book illustrator, but she's rarely shown working at that.
- In Diff'rent Strokes, Mr. Drummond is the founder and CEO of a multi-million dollar corporation, yet we never see him at work and he is always home when the kids are.
- Parodied in Diplomatic Immunity where - despite being a Work Com set in an embassy - only Kirsty the receptionist seems to do any legitimate work. Jonah the ambassador is the king's brother, Mick is involved in shady deals and Suga and Malepe seem to have been given their jobs out of nepotism.
- Lampshaded on Entourage: when E asks Drama if he should be working on his show, Drama responds: "That's the beauty of an ensemble cast: two-day work weeks."
- Euphoria: Even though the show's primary setting is a high school, at no point do we actually see the main characters doing schoolwork, and we often see them sashay down the halls with nary a bookbag or textbook in hand. Even after school, the kids have all the free time in the world for sex and drugs; rarely do things like homework, extracurriculars, part-time jobs, or responsibilities at home get in the way of their partying.
- Played for laughs in Father Ted. The characters are priests but almost never perform any parishional duties or say mass. Given the show's humourous take on Irish life and how clueless (Or drunk in Jack's case) the priests are, this is probably intentional.
- Several characters on Frasier:
- The series often lampshades the fact that Frasier's job as a radio psychiatrist only takes up a few hours of his day. Usually brought up by Roz when he's complaining about something to do with his time or what he feels he is due. His brother Niles — a psychiatrist in private practice — also makes a few sarcastic comments about Frasier's "McSessions".
- Niles himself seems to have a lot of time to hang out with his brother during the day, and is rarely seen working. Though he does often exit a scene by stating that he has an appointment, usually as the setup to a gag involving the patient/group's condition.
- Daphne's supposedly "full time" duties as Martin's physical therapist are also somewhat vague, and can easily allow one to reach the conclusion that Frasier is essentially paying her just to hang out in his home. It's established in her first episode that the Cranes don't need a live-in therapist, but Daphne needed a live-in job, and the Cranes were otherwise completely unable to find a therapist Martin approved of. She is sometimes shown doing chores like laundry, however, and she has sniped about all the extra duties she has besides physical therapy.
- Friends:
- Lampshaded in one episode, where the Friends note that their bosses don't seem to like them... at which point Joey points out that this may be because they're hanging out at a coffee house at 11:30 on a Wednesday.
- Chandler and Rachel have ordinary office jobs but seem to take lunch breaks for hours at a time.
- Ross in later seasons is a university professor, a career involving not only teaching but tons of grading papers, tutorials and your own research — but he seems to go to campus once a week at most.
- Monica has several character arcs about her career as a restaurant chef, a job that normally involves 14 hour days, 7 days a week, but she seems to work about as much as Joey when he's unemployed.
- And Joey himself should have incredibly long work hours as a daily soap opera star, or be filling his days with auditions as a struggling actor. To be fair, he is known to frequently forget about auditions and show up late for work.
- Full House: All three dad figures have creative jobs that allow them to be in the house much of the time. Danny is likely the busiest of the three as he has a steady job. However, since he does the morning news, he likely is home by the time the three girls are home from school most days. Jesse and Joey work nights as entertainers (one is a musician and one is a comic). As a result, there are usually adults around the house all the time which makes for maximum plot-needed interaction between the adults and kids.
- Played with on the show Get a Life from the early 90s. He's 30, lives above his parents' garage, and delivers newspapers for a "living."
- Ghost Whisperer: Melinda Gordon seems to be able to leave her job at the antique shop whenever she wants to go and track down grieving families and accident reports. She's the owner of the shop, she has a husband who's also gainfully employed, and she always has an assistant she can ask to take over, so it's possibly justified, but Andrea and Delia are always more chill with it than most people probably would be.
- Lorelei's job as an innkeeper in Gilmore Girls doesn't ever seem to take up much of her time, unless the plot so demands, and it is always extremely easy for her to get holidays or weekends off (when you'd think an inn would be busiest).
- Mansfield from Ground Floor only works three days a week, but it's only because he worked tirelessly to build his company up to a point where it can work with only minimal input from him. He uses his off days to spend time with his wife and daughters that he didn't have in the past. On the other hand the junior money managers like Brody are expected to work insane hours if they hope to advance in the firm. The support staff tends to slack off a lot but they are also shown to have very good grasp of how the system works and when they need to put in serious effort. Tori is the straightest example as she mainly comes to work to sleep after a long night of partying and no one really knows what her responsibilities are.
- On Hart to Hart, Jonathan is supposed to be the head of a large multinational corporation, yet has plenty of time to solve mysteries with his wife. It's justified by the fact that such multinational companies have tons of employees that handle the day-to-day stuff. It helps that a lot of the mysteries he's solving are actually being committed by his own employees or are otherwise linked to Hart Industries somehow.
- How I Met Your Mother often features the main characters having crazy events late into the night, sometimes over multiple days. Ted and Lily for much of the series have an established 9-5 job as an architect and kindergarten teacher. Marshall is often very busy as a corporate lawyer and Robin is often the news anchor either late at night or really early in the morning. Barney gets a pass because his job is ill defined and seems to be able to set his own schedule. It's lampshaded in a season six episode where Ted had moved on to teaching architecture and was trying to inspire his students to take it up as a career. Only one seemed interested, saying he liked the idea that he would have enough free time to hang out with friends at a bar on a Tuesday afternoon.
- iCarly: Spencer is a sculpture artist. He manages to repeatedly sell his sculptures for huge piles of cash in very short spaces of time, even after rebuilding them 2 or 3 times when they catch on fire. It is implied in the finale that he also gets assistance from his and Carly's father, who is a military colonel.
- iCarly (2021) reveals that Spencer became rich since the original series after a partially-melted marshmallow white house sculpture he made sold for a lot of money. He pursues a different path in season 2 by purchasing the former Groovy Smoothie and turning it into a new restaurant called Shay What? The only character we see working on a regular basis is Harper, who worked at Skybucks coffee shop, before quitting in the episode "iMLM" due to the job getting in the way of her fashion ventures. Carly is still making content online and is mentioned to have over 3 million subscribers, which means she most likely makes enough money through ad revenue and sponsorships that she doesn't need to work a 9-to-5 job. Freddie previously owned a startup business that failed and then got a job working remotely in tech support, only to foolishly quit after falling for an MLM scam. Instead of trying to get his job back or get another job, he realizes that he's an entrepreneur at heart and decides to start another business.
- Intimate: Emil, a delivery boy, and actors Oskar and Bruno are seen working (or auditioning) regularly, but also have seemingly all the time in the world for various hijinks (the show Bruno and Oskar star in seems to have an unrealistically loose schedule, shooting the same episode for weeks). Leo is implied to work odd jobs. Then there's Max, whose storyline involves trying to get his clothing line going, which he appears to have invested quite a bit of money in; presumably this requires a regular job, but we never get to see what he actually does for a living.
- It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: the gang's occupation as bar-owners was specifically selected to free them up for hijinks during the day. In the original pilot, the characters are struggling actors, selected for the same reason. However, the gang is still seen off the job at night and even during the regular business hours of other bars around town. The show lampshades this in one episode where the bar's patrons are described as simply serving themselves. While the bar has always been portrayed as a dive, later seasons increasingly imply that Frank's Arbitrarily Large Bank Account is the only thing propping it up.
- Letterkenny:
- Wayne, Squirrely Dan, and Daryl are all farm workers, yet they seem to have no end of time to laze about on Wayne's farm at the produce stand, outside the barn, on the porch, and in the kitchen during daylight hours. Wayne makes occasional references to "choring," but Daryl and Dan never reference their work at all, and they're occasionally seen helping Wayne with his chores. Daryl wears a dairy farm coverall, but there's no indication of where Dan works.
- Katy spends the time between two seasons pursuing a modeling career but otherwise seems to have no job. She hangs around the family farm but never references doing any of the work. She suns herself alongside Wayne and the boys whenever they're hanging out.
- Jonesy and Reilly spend all their time as amateur hockey players. Until they become coaches of a women's league in a later season, it's not clear whether they have actual jobs.
- In Mad About You, Paul makes documentary films, which leaves him a lot of down-time between projects. Jamie was a high-powered advertising executive, but she was rarely shown at the office.
- The Man in the High Castle:
- Trade Minister Tagomi often finds himself in some government conspiracy or entanglement, but seems to spend no time actually administering to trade.
- Lemuel Washington owns and operates the Sunrise diner in season one, but this gets pretty much discarded after his role in the resistance is revealed, and he seems to spend all his time away from the diner.
- Tommy's job on Martin was never stated by the writers and Martin himself always insisted he didn't have one, which became a running gag on the show.
- Jessica Fletcher in Murder, She Wrote never seems to find time to write all these thrilling mystery novels for which she is so famous, what with people happening to die everywhere she goes, which is everywhere on the Atlantic seaboard and reasonably beyond, just about all the time. (True souvenir mug of Maine: "Cabot Cove: If You Lived Here, You'd Be Dead By Now.")
- Justified in My Name Is Earl. Earl won $100,000 from a lotto ticket in the first episode, which allows him to focus all his attention on the karma list. It's just enough to explain why he doesn't need a job but not so much that he can throw money at any problem to fix it. In the second season, he realized that if he wanted to be a fully functioning adult he needed to hold down a job, which would also offset his costs. By the third season the lotto money ran dry, and trying to both make a living and do the karma list took a toll on his morale.
- On My Wife and Kids, Michael Kyle is vaguely described as having "a fleet of trucks" and owning a vending machine company but isn't shown at work very often and seems to be at home during the day an awful lot.
- In The New Adventures of Old Christine, the title character is the owner of a women's-only gym. Despite her constant complaining about money, Christine must be pretty successful to afford an exclusive private school for her son as well as a big home in Los Angeles with a guest house on the property for her brother. But she is rarely shown at work (and is pretty clueless when she's there), and she comes every day to pick up her son from school.
- Newhart:
- The Stratford Inn only has a small staff (Dick, Joanna, George, and Leslie/Stephanie). Somewhat averted as the show takes place there and all of the employees live there as well, but there have been times when the entire staff was gone, such as when visiting Stephanie's family in England (though in one of those episodes they mention the inn being closed for a week), when helping Kirk fix the cafe (which is next door), there have been times when they all went to Michael's apartment, and they all went to the TV station when Dick hosted his first "Vermont Today".
- The Minuteman Cafe never has a staff beyond its owner, and yet whoever owns the cafe (whether it's Kirk or Larry, Darryl, and Darryl), they have plenty of time to visit the inn and other places. Sorta justified in that the cafe is just next door and business tends to be slow. After Larry, Darryl, and Darryl bought the place and it had three owners, one would think that at least one of them would be running the cafe while the others visit the inn, but it's rare to see any of them without the others.
- And of course, the series finale did give a hint as to why they all spent so much time not having to work.
- Once Upon a Time:
- For being the sole cop in town, Emma isn't seen doing a lot of police work after the first season. She was right; there really isn't a lot of sheriffing going on in Storybrooke.
- The same can be said for several other characters, like Regina being mayor (except for briefly in Season 2 and Season 4), but most primarily Snow White, a teacher, is literally shown teaching twice since the curse broke.
- Party Down: The caterers seem to have a tremendous amount of free time even during the duration of the day when they are on duty. It appears as though once they prep, everything sort of runs itself with the exception of a bartender or two.
- Lampshaded in Psych, where Gus works at a pharmaceutical company, but he never seems to actually do any work.
- In one episode, he wheels his big metal suitcase into the Psych office, signifying that he's working, and Shawn comments that he hasn't seen it in about two and a half years.
- In one episode Gus's boss told him to quit the psychic detective business or be fired from his job. Shawn tries to avert this by making himself useful to the boss and finally just ends up blackmailing the guy so Gus can keep doing both.
- Gus discovered the dead body of his boss in one episode, and most of the rest of the cast were surprised to hear that he still works there.
- Scrubs:
- Jordan Sullivan, Dr. Cox's ex-wife in name only, is a member of the hospital's board of directors. Of course, that entails arriving at meetings and doing actual work only every couple of months at most, so Jordan spends most of her time, quoth Cox, "eating, drinking, napping, spending, plucking, ignoring the children and singing rap tunes into a hairbrush."
- This also goes with the main characters. JD once gets it lampshaded by Turk when he asks him when he finds the time to care for his patients.
- That was also Deconstructed in one episode when one of the patients dies because of their usual shenanigans. As it turned out, an error from the doctor doing the blood work (who had never been seen before in the show) saved them from a serious reprimand, but they were reminded that a technical error doesn't mean they didn't screw up.Dr. Bob Kelso: In the end, when Mr. Foster started coughing up blood, the on-call surgeon was stuck in traffic, the nursing staff was busy losing the lottery, his original doctor was thanking a garbage man, and the covering physician was incapacitated. And what was Mr. Forster doing? He was dying in the hands of the Interns!
- In another episode, done from the perspective of Dr. Kelso, shows that he deliberately antagonizes his staff because it helps them focus on their jobs. In this particular instance, a spiraling political argument among the staff lead to them overlooking a patient's worsening condition. It was connected to Kelso himself becoming more lazy, and is even called out on it when he tries to reprimand the staff.
- Seinfeld, though it's a little more justified than most examples. Jerry is hardly ever shown working on his material. We do see him get the occasional bit of inspiration and bounce an idea or two off his friend's heads but even a talented comedian puts in long hours to develop a bit. He also gets away with doing very little touring. Perhaps lampshaded by later seasons when he is not shown performing and friends are seen talking about his material falling off. Yet somehow he can still afford a nice New York apartment and has money to buy his dad a car.
- Sex and the City
- Carrie is a columnist, which only requires a laptop these days as a convincing prop.
- Miranda is supposed to be a lawyer, yet she seems to have just as much free time as Carrie, except when the plot requires her to be too swamped with work to spend time with her boyfriend Steve. For some reason Miranda is never too busy to go brunching or out to fancy nightclubs.
- Also Samantha, a PR agent, who in real life would be just as busy as Miranda is supposed to be, yet always has time to go shopping, to nightclubs, to restaurants... but as a PR person, she would no doubt HAVE to do this as part of her job.
- In Silicon Valley, Bighead becomes an "unassigned" employee at Hooli, as he cannot be terminated because he signed a three-year contract. Later he finds a group of other unassigned employees who hang out on the roof of a Hooli building all day, while still collecting a paycheck.
- Supernatural
- This is generally an Averted Trope as the Winchesters work as hunters making money through credit card scams and hustling, but in the episode "What Is And What Should Never Be" (S02, Ep20), Dean's mother asks him why he is not working in the garage, as the Dean in this reality is not a hunter.
- Bobby is a borderline example since he supposedly earns a living with his scrapyard, but he's only ever seen helping out fellow hunters and generally reacts to guests with suspicion and hostility, since he lives in a universe that involves murderous shifters and Demonic Possession. His house is surrounded by junkers though, and he clearly has equipment for towing and welding, which helps Dean work on the Impala. Presumably he just does business offscreen (it's hardly plot-relevant, after all), and probably offers all his customers beer laced with holy water.
- True Blood:
- Some of the characters have more than one job but seem to have plenty of free time. This is often handled well, such as when someone needs to get off early or shows up late, but at times, many of the main characters seem to blow off work when they should be working. Several of the characters work for Merlotte's, and Sam is too much of a Benevolent Boss to fire anybody, even if they jaunt off out of town for days at a time. The Season 4 episode "I Wish I Was The Moon" was the first time in at least 2 seasons that we actually see main character Sookie working her waitress job.
- This becomes a minor plotpoint in season 3, when Arlene, Terry and maybe Jessica are the only reliable employees at Merlotte's, and Arlene ends up forcing Sam to hire some more waitresses, because she is massively overworked and pregnant, which led to the hiring of Holly (who, despite being a witch, is more dedicated to her job than pretty much any of the other supernaturals in the show). In seasons 5 and 6, Sam barely even sets foot in his namesake restaurant even though other characters are actively working there, making you wonder who is handling purchasing and payroll. In the season 6 finale it is revealed that Sam has been elected Mayor of Bon Temps, leaving Arlene the bar. Up to that point it was heavily implied that she was the one running the place anyway.
- Charlie in Two and a Half Men is a jingle writer and composer. We occasionally see him playing the piano and there was an episode about an awards ceremony for jingles for which he was nominated, but other than that, he's free to drink, gamble and hump as much as he likes. In fact he even outright says that he has a job that pays extremely well and only requires him to work a few hours a week. It's somewhat justified in that most episodes are set during the weekends when Alan has custody of Jake. It has also been established in a few episodes that Charlie is living above his means and is frequently in trouble with creditors (for example, his house has multiple mortgages on it and he's often behind on his car payments.)
- This is lampshaded in the final season of The West Wing when CJ, as the outgoing White House Chief of Staff, is headhunted by various organizations. A number of those job offers are for a position on the organization's Board of Directors which offers a lot of money but is largely ceremonial and requires her to work only a few hours a week. She expects a similar 'emeritus' offer from the incoming administrations but President-elect Santos instead offers her a real job that would keep her almost as busy as her current job.
- The Wire: In season 2, McNulty has been dumped to the Marine Unit by Rawls. For the first half of the season, until Daniels is able to pressure Rawls into letting him recruit McNulty for the Sobotka detail, we don't see much of McNulty actually working on the boat. For the most part, he's busy tracking down Omar Little so that the outlaw can testify as a witness at Bird's trial, or trying to get an ID on the dead floater he found that kickstarted the investigations unveiling corruption at the docks.
