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{{trope}}
[[File:office-cast.jpg|frame|Just your average day at ''[[The Office (2005 TV series)|The Office]]'']]
Life can be hard sometimes. You get up early in the morning, trudge to work, deal with loads of people who have varying opinions about you, and finally go home at the end of the day. But if someone takes out their frustrations by, say, sending you flying over the cubicles with a [[Megaton Punch]], at least you can always go to Human Resources, tell them what happened, and have the guilty party out the door, facing a lawsuit and maybe in police custody by the end of the day. Right?
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Right?
If you're living in a television show, probably not, because in fiction there is
If the victim's a [[Badass]] hero, the [[Jerkass]] co-worker who started the fight's probably going to quickly find himself taking a dive. If it's the [[Anti-Hero]] doing the punching, expect his target, probably an [[Obstructive Bureaucrat]], to also be a [[Sissy Villain]]. Just don't expect the situation to escalate into meetings with managers and termination notices, and certainly don't expect anyone to get arrested on assault charges.
This trope stems from a certain amount of [[Truth in Television]], at least historically: a "Human Resources" department is a fairly recent concept, and there are plenty of historical periods when people did settle most of their disputes with fistfights or [[Duel to the Death|worse]]. It's also somewhat justifiable in settings where there's no legal system for people to turn to: fantasy heroes, hardened criminals and [[After the End]] survivors probably aren't in a position to file grievances. But if it's a modern, everyday setting, and otherwise respectable people are routinely pounding each other flat in [[Curb Stomp Battle
In dramatic storylines, this is used primarily to keep the character conflict and development building without having to complicate things or slow down the plot by bringing in the outside world, while in action/adventure and comedies, it's more likely to simply be all-out [[Rule of Cool]] and [[Rule of Funny]] at work.
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See also [[Fiction Is Not Fair]], [[George Jetson Job Security]], and [[Ultimate Job Security]]. Compare with [[No OSHA Compliance]] and contrast with [[Can't Get Away with Nuthin']]. Not to be confused with [[Human Resources]] [[Suspiciously Specific Denial|in any way]]. See [[There Are No Therapists]] for another industry whose absence stops people solving their problems like grown-ups.
{{examples}}
== Film ==
* Neil LaBute's ''[[In the Company of Men]]'' portrays two [[He-Man Woman Hater]] office workers who curse, swindle and manipulate their way through the movie, with most of the story revolving around their romancing and dumping a female coworker to prove that they can. While the movie's point is that [[Humans Are the Real Monsters|Humans Are Bastards]], none of the numerous victims ever seem to turn to any higher authorities than these two mid-level, temporary managers. While one of them might be enough of a [[Manipulative Bastard]] to get out of trouble, the other [[Unwitting Pawn|most definitely isn't]], and the issue never comes up either way.
** Indeed, the only time it arises in the story is when {{spoiler|the [[Manipulative Bastard]] ''himself'' reports all of his partner's misdeeds and gets him in trouble for their shared offenses}}.
* The 2009 ''[[Star Trek (film)|Star Trek]]'' eats, drinks and breathes this trope. The film more or less begins with Kirk getting into a bar fight that leaves him covered in blood and bruises: Captain Pike responds afterward by recruiting him into Starfleet Academy, with no apparent attempt to identify or apprehend the Starfleet cadet who administered the beating. Later, Kirk and Spock get into a prolonged fight while the bridge crew watches on. It only ends when Spock realizes he's crossing the line and stands down.
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* Much ''[[Star Trek]]'' fan confusion has arisen over the [[Unfortunate Implications]] of McCoy's constant verbal abuse of Spock as a "green blooded bastard", among many other terms of endearment, all to Captain Kirk's amusement. There's some justification in the show being written in [[The Sixties]] (later Trek series reserved such blatant [[Fantastic Racism]] for [[Aesop]] purposes), and in that Spock never seems anything less than amused by the insults (and gives as good as he gets), though its setting in a Utopian future aboard a military vessel makes Kirk and the crew's tacit approval of such behavior all the more baffling.
** It's worth noting that the few times someone ''other'' than McCoy insults Spock, Kirk is very quick to stick up for him, and there are a few times when even McCoy crosses a line and Kirk calls him on it, such as in "Spectre of the Gun."
** Not 'never,' on the
** McCoy appears to be slightly outside normal chain-of-command concerns as Chief Medical Officer, too, and [[Star Fleet]] is pretty relaxed and ''technically'' nonmilitary at this point in history. It comes up once that they have no fraternization regs, and trust that to the discretion of the officers involved. (Kirk having mega-discretion here, interestingly, is how it gets brought up.)
** Averted in ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]''. Counselor Troi's job is basically an HR manager, although in true ''Star Trek'' tradition she [[The Main Characters Do Everything|seems to be the only person in her department]].
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== Western Animation ==
* The premise of ''[[Archer]]'' is a spy organization with incompetent employees. Its Human Resources department is a main feature, yet it still does not stop the rampant sexual harassment, gunfire wounds and other inter-office debacles, such as Archer assaulting the head of Human Resources and making her pee in fear.
* In ''[[The Simpsons]]'', all the hiring and firing in the nuclear plant is done by Burns himself. Not only is there no HR, but there's apparently no management hierarchy (except for one of the earliest episodes where Homer gets fired by Sherri and Terri's dad).
* Averted in ''[[Futurama]]'', where they have a bureaucrat employed for these kinds of purposes. In fact, the bureaucrats seem to have an organisation of their own, with one assigned to each company?
** Of course they are [[Obstructive Bureaucrat|not exactly helpful]].
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[[Category:No Such Thing as HR]]
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