Basic Trope: A villain who only does bad things while at work.
- Straight: Villain Protagonist Alice robs banks for a crime boss, but is not really a bad girl out of work.
- Exaggerated: Alice commits mass murder and Cold-Blooded Torture when her employer gives the order, but outside she's practically a saint.
- Downplayed:
- Alice's job limits mostly to Poke the Poodle.
- Alice is Affably Evil.
- Alice is a punch-clock antagonist who isn't doing anything evil at all. Only her unwittingly working for a secretly evil employer, in a perfectly blameless capacity, makes her an obstacle to the heroes.
- Justified:
- Alice doesn't like being evil, but the good guys weren't hiring.
- Alice has kids to feed (or an expensive hobby), and Evil Pays Better.
- Alice works for a Villain with Good Publicity and buys into it.
- Alice is a soldier fighting for Country A who is fighting Country B. The other side's soldiers are also serving their country and are no different from Alice.
- Inverted:
- Punch-Clock Hero.
- Chronic Villainy
- On the clock Pragmatic Villainy; Off the clock kicks puppies For the Evulz.
- Alice is a Visionary Villain.
- Subverted:
- Alice's actually more evil when she's off the clock.
- Alice is a punch-clock Designated Villain, for example: the work of the IRS isn't liked by many, but it's necessary to keep the nation afloat.
- Double Subverted: That's just an act. She wants people to stay away from her because of her day job.
- Parodied: Alice is the nicest girl ever until she literally punches the clock.
- Alice refuses to rob a bank because she’s on break.
- Zig Zagged:
- Alice is evil when not on the job somedays, other days she's nice.
- Alice does some dodgy things on the job, but she works for both sides.
- Averted:
- Alice is evil during and after her job.
- Alice is neither evil, nor does she work for Evulz Unlimited.
- Enforced: Despite her evil deeds, Alice has proven pretty popular with the audience so Moral Guardians have pressured the writers to Retcon her villainous nature so that she is a pretty nice girl off the clock.
- Lampshaded: "It's OK, Alice won't hurt us. It's her day off."
- Invoked: Alice, a Nice Girl is looking for a job. In the classified ads, she sees a job that involves evil deeds. Since she doesn't qualify for other jobs, and since it pays well, she chooses it.
- Exploited: The heroes interrogate Alice, knowing that she's willing to give out information.
- Defied: Alice refuses to work for the Big Bad.
- Discussed: "You're a nice girl, Alice. How come you rob banks for a living?"
- Conversed: "Ever wondered how those bad guys on TV can do such awful things and act like it's just a typical 9-to-5 grind?"
- Deconstructed:
- Alice thinks she can do evil things at work and remain a decent person off the clock. Unfortunately, she finds the evil she does starts to cause fundamental shifts in her personality until she becomes a truly evil woman.
- Alice thinks that she can separate her life of evil from her regular life, but her victims and their avengers certainly don't think that way, and Alice is eventually killed for her evil works. Alternatively, her acquaintances and friends don't agree with Alice doing evil deeds as a job, and everyone she knows or loves abandons her.
- As a small variation on the above, historians don't really care that Alice needed to pay her bills; they'll still rightly label her as an irredeemable monster for her deeds when on duty, banality of evil be damned.
- A sociopath is a sociopath, even one that is willing to keep his horror strictly to "office hours" and is the most kind and friendly man ever outside of them (and he's not faking that, either).
- As a basically decent person, the guilt that comes with her evil job builds up over time and eventually causes Alice to snap under the pressure.
- Alice is an enforcer for the cruel and fascist Empire but holds no particular ill will towards the ones the Empire crushes under their heel. The populace is still legitimately furious because Alice is complicit in atrocities that have very real consequences and caused great suffering.
- The apparent detached professionalism is little more than a veneer to hide The Sociopath Alice truly is, with the job-oriented persona hinting at her lack of any actual loyalty to the Empire and her lack of actual hate towards whatever the Empire is rallying against. Alice's atrocities are incidental to her lust for power, with any justifications being little more than lip-service. Her lack of dedication outside working hours is the mask coming off in private.
- Reconstructed:
- With time, Alice learns to keep her troubles at work from spilling over into her personal life. Alice redoubles her efforts to be a decent person when she isn't working.
- When she's not being evil, Alice goes out of her way to do good deeds, and as a result, everyone who previously abandoned her changes their mind and returns to socializing with her.
- Played For Laughs: Alice and Bob are in the middle of an epic duel, when suddenly a whistle blows and Alice goes to punch out, asking Bob if he wants to catch a few drinks with her.
- Played For Drama:
- Charles and Alice start dating and fall in love with each other, only to later find out they're on opposite sides of the war, having to decide if their duty is more important than love.
- Just because Alice has an evil job doesn't mean she wants to be evil. She's gotta pay the bills somehow, but for some reason, puppy-kicking is the only job she can get. This causes her no small amount of angst, especially given what tends to happen to people in her line of work.
- Played For Horror: Alice's belief that she stops being evil when she punchs out on the clock is demonstrated to be a delusion and she is Faux Affably Evil as a result.
- Implied: When asked why she is evil by her Friendly Enemy Bob, she just mumbles something about her rent.
Quittin' time boys! We've kicked enough puppies for one day, let's go back to Punch-Clock Villain. Drinks are on me!
