Pointy-Haired Boss/Playing With

Basic Trope: A character who's in a managerial position is completely incompetent at their job.

• Straight: Peter Harrison is a manager at Incompetence, Inc.. He's a total buffoon who has no idea what he's doing.
• Exaggerated: Peter isn't aware of his job responsibilities, what's going on around him, or even where he works.
• Justified: Peter used to be fairly competent at his job, but he was unable to handle the strains of managerial duties.
  • Peter was an incompetent from the start - however, the company couldn't really get rid of him for whatever reason, so he was Kicked Upstairs to do as little damage as possible.
  • Everyone else is even worse
• Inverted: Peter is way too competent for his low-ranking job.
• Subverted: At first Peter seems to have all the hallmarks of the Pointy-Haired Boss, but it turns out that was just a lie spread by Bob, who hates him.
  • Peter is expected based on his past incompetence to fail at a task, but it happens to fall within his single area of specialty and he succeeds.
• Double Subverted: Bob only scratched the surface; he's way less competent than even his worst enemy thought.
  • Peter's surprise success was entirely an accident.
• Parodied: Peter is so incompetent at management that, in a completely mundane office environment, his employees start dying off in various absurd/tragic ways.
  • Incompetence, Inc.'s main competitor declares Peter to be their Employee of the Month.
• Deconstructed: Peter's incompetence comes back to bite him in the butt when the newest Incompetence, Inc. product fails due to him. His entire office is shut down, costing all the employees there their jobs.
• Reconstructed: While there are some heavy losses on his end, Peter's office manages to weather the storm, but he's exposed as an incompetent. He's demoted back to Sales, which is where he wanted to be in the first place.
• Zig Zagged: Peter is competent in some functions of his job and abysmal in others.
• Averted: Peter is competent enough for his position, and no evidence to the contrary is presented.
• Enforced: "Those wage slaves watching this will love it if the boss is terrible. That way they sympathize with the office workers on this sitcom."
• Lampshaded: "How did you get promoted?"
• Invoked: When it's realized that Peter is incompetent, he's Kicked Upstairs.
• Defied: "I know I'm a good salesman, but I don't think I should be leading the sales branch."
• Discussed: "The management staff need better training, and not just copies of Who Moved My Cheese. They need to be either promoted from the floor and taking a few calls themselves so they know their employee's jobs as well as their own."
• Conversed: See any bar at happy hour.

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