An index of tropes and characters found in an office environment.
Tropes:
Workplaces
- Abusive Workplace: A workplace where the boss, coworkers, or even customers are routinely abusive.
- Adminisphere: Bureaucracy members are always away at their nice offices and thus completely out of touch with their beleaguered workers.
- Business of Generic Importance
- Celestial Bureaucracy: A bureaucracy that sorts out where people are supposed to go after they die.
- Crazy Workplace: The workplace's purpose and/or its staff are quirky or just plain bizarre.
- Creature Creation Committee: Animals are the product of a design committee.
- Critical Staffing Shortage: The workplace operates with just a (non-literal) skeleton crew, if even that.
- Cutting Corners
- Dangerous Workplace: Workplace conditions are unsafe due to the location, environment, employees, customers, and/or activities required.
- Evil, Inc.: Where a corporation is blatantly evil and exploitative.
- Family Business
- Good Corp.: Where a corporation is unambiguously good and beneficial.
- Incompetence, Inc.: This company is so incompetent that it's amazing they're able to stay in business
- The Inspector Is Coming: A plot where the characters scramble to make the workplace presentable enough to get a passing review.
- 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: A dangerous product that was never tested or is just ridiculously dangerous in concept.
- No Such Thing as H.R.
- Predatory Business: A business that uses underhanded means to eliminate the competition.
- Standard Office Setting
- Vast Bureaucracy: The bureaucracy is a pain in the ass to deal with because it's so damn big.
- Wacky Startup Workplace
- Work Com
- Workplace Horror: A workplace that should be mundane involves dealing with hostile and often supernatural or mutated entities.
- 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: Where a recently fired employee packs their things.
- Career Versus Man: A woman must choose between having a career or having a committed relationship.
- Casting Couch: An actress gets a part in a movie by having sex with the director.
- The Dilbert Principle: Incompetent employees will be promoted until they reach a position where they can cause the least damage.
- Disappointing Promotion
- Expose the Villain, Get His Job
- Family Versus Career
- Fiction Business Savvy: Character comes up with business ideas that succeed in the work but would fail in Real Life.
- Firing Day
- First Day from Hell: When a job doesn't make the best first impression for its newest employee.
- Forced Overwork
- 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.
- Last Interviewee Wins
- 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: Extra responsibilities without the extra benefits.
- Obliquely Obfuscated Occupation: The work is unclear about the employed character's actual occupation.
- Omnidisciplinary Lawyer: In fiction, if you have a law degree, you can work on any legal issue and handle any type of court case.
- Omnidisciplinary Scientist: A scientist whose knowledge and skills cover every kind of science the plot requires.
- Open Heart Dentistry: An employee has to do something far outside their expertise.
- Passed-Over Promotion
- The Peter Principle: Employees will be promoted until they reach a position where they are incompetent.
- Promoted to Scapegoat
- Promotion, Not Punishment
- Pulled from Your Day Off: Someone is forced to work on their day off.
- Quitting to Become a Caregiver
- Reluctant Retiree
- Resigned in Disgrace: A scandal forces someone to resign from their position.
- Sleeping Their Way to the Top
- Soul-Crushing Desk Job
- Superficial Suggestion Box: A suggestion box that's treated as a joke.
- Take This Job and Shove It: Someone angrily quits their job.
- Terrible Interviewees Montage
- 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: A boss who doesn't assert his actual authority.
- Bad Boss: A boss who is abusive to their employees to the point of injuring or killing them.
- 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.
- A Doormat to His Men: A pushover 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.
- Lazy Boss: A boss exploits the position without doing the work.
- Majority-Share Dictator: In fiction, owning the majority of a company's stock gives you ultimate authority over it.
- Mean Boss
- Pointy-Haired Boss: The boss is a complete dunderhead.
- Sexual Predator Boss: A boss who extorts his employees for sex.
- 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: A ruthlessly greedy businessperson who runs a major corporation, doing evil and unscrupulous acts for the sake of profit.
- 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
- Hired on the Spot: Getting hired for the job without going through the steps of the hiring process.
- Honest Corporate Executive
- I Don't Pay You to Think
- Inhuman Resources: The company's HR department exists solely to abuse its employees.
- The Intern
- Disposable Intern: The intern or newbie is ordered to do highly risky or undesirable work.
- Jaded Professional
- The Last DJ: The employee values their personal integrity over career advancement, even if it means being demoted or fired.
- Modern Major General: This character is competent at many things. His actual job is not one of them.
- Nominal Subordinate: Someone who on paper is a subordinate, is in practice independent.
- 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: This animal outperforms its sapient coworkers at a job that requires human-level intelligence.
- Professional Butt-Kisser: The office suck-up who's constantly trying to impress their superiors.
- Professional Slacker: "Working" is a strong word to describe what this employee does.
- Quirky Janitor
- Sassy Secretary: An administrative assistant with an attitude.
- Secretary of Evil
- Seriously Scruffy
- Sexy Secretary: An attractive administrative assistant.
- Volatile Second Tier Position: The second-from-the-top job position is the most demanding one in the workplace.
- Weasel Co-Worker: An unreliable coworker who always avoids the consequences with his charisma or guile.
- White Collar Worker
- Office Lady
- Salaryman
- Tech Bro: Someone in the tech industry who has a hip Frat Bro or Mad Scientist personality.
- Workaholic
- Yuppie: Members of the late Baby Boomer generation who were status- and consumerism-obsessed "young urban professionals" during The '80s.
- Work Hard, Play Hard
Recreational Opportunities
- Cheek Copy: Someone uses a copying machine to produce a picture of their bare buttocks.
- Delegation Relay: Responsibility for a bothersome task gets passed down the ranks until it reaches the guy on the bottom rung.
- Desk Sweep of Passion
- Drinking on Duty
- Employee of the Month: An award given to stellar workers.
- Executive Ball Clicker: A common desk toy for executives.
- Married to the Job: The character's dedication to their career precludes having a personal life.
- Must Have Caffeine
- Office Golf: You know that this manager is out-of-touch because he plays golf at the workplace.
- Office Romance
- Office Sports: Employees play improvised sports by utilizing office supplies.
- One-Hour Work Week
- Overworked Sleep: A worn-out character falls asleep at work.
- Playing Games at Work
- The Queen Will Be Watching
- Sensitivity Training
- Sex at Work
- Sleeping with the Boss's Wife
- Subordinate Excuse
- "Take Your Child to Work Day" Plot
- Trust-Building Blunder
- Wastebasket Ball: Throwing paper into a faraway waste basket.
- 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.
- Workplace Betting Pool
- You, Get Me Coffee: Ordering a subordinate to get coffee.
