One-Hour Work Week: Difference between revisions

{{quote|'''Bartlet''': I don't understand. Don't any of [[Soap Opera|these characters]] have jobs?

'''Charlie''': I don't know, Mr. President. I think one of them is a surgeon.

 

A vaguely-defined job that somehow pays well, yet gives the character a conveniently enormous amount of free time for the plot. Common jobs include columnist and artist—a decent writer can indeed pump out a newspaper column in about an hour if under the gun (though the resulting column itself is not guaranteed to be decent). Nevermind the fact that most columnists have ''other'' responsibilities at the newspaper like editing and reporting—you know, the things journalists actually go to school for. Usually you'll never see the job actually performed, except in a few throwaway scenes, and don't expect the character's job to ever be a plot point. Somehow it always pays enough for a place with [[Friends Rent Control]].

For the childhood equivalent of this trope, see [[Shouldn't We Be in School Right Now?]]. Compare [[The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything]] (who are literally their profession [[In Name Only]]) and [[What Exactly Is His Job?]] (when the profession isn't even named).

 

 

{{examples}}

* Not even Nayuki in ''[[Kanon]]'' knows what her mother does for a living. The hours and pay seem very good, though, as she is still there with no sign of leaving soon at eight AM and will be there whenever Yuuichi gets home from school as well!

** Ayu goes to a school that lets her come and go basically whenever she wants, and doesn't even require a uniform. The explanation for this is finally given near the end, though, and turns out to be an important plot point.

* Deconstructed in episode 8 of ''[[Best Student Council]]''. On the eve of a difficult exam, one character remarks that the protagonist, Rino, has done nothing but play ever since she arrived at the school, leaving her unprepared for the test. Rino spends the rest of the episode studying {{spoiler|and barely passes}}.

* Lampshaded in ''[[Durarara!!]]'', where Mikado and Anri are surprised to learn that [[Otaku|Walker and Erika]] actually ''do'' have jobs—Erika makes jewelry, and Walker's an ice-sculptor. They're freelance, though, so their schedules are flexible.

** Though considering that Howard isn't a theoretical physicist like the rest of them, but an engineer, one would expect him to have a more typical 40-hour work week.

*** Which he does, since we again see him mostly at night and on the weekends, rather than lounging about the apartment in the middle of the day. He does sometimes seem to take early afternoons, but that could be justified in that he builds machines that allow other scientists to prove their theories. If he's done building it and the scientist needs to use it, there's little point in him sticking around for the rest of the day being in the scientist's way.

* In ''[[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.

 

** In the third game, one of the locations in the game is the University Layton works at. No one there seems to mind the fact that he just wanders in and out at his leisure. And bear in mind he's Flora's legal guardian, so he's actually got two mouths to feed. Luke doesn't count, as it's mentioned in ''The Unwound Future'' that he lives with his parents.

 

* [[Justified]] One-Hour Work Week: the hour in question is the live broadcasts of the reality show, ''[[Last Res0rt]]''. Of course, when your job can kill you, it's implied the rest of your time better be spent finding a way to avoid that fate, and to be fair they're filmed for the purposes of the show (and general security) 24/7 anyway. Still, they're not exactly shown using the rest of their time pumping weights or other military-like regimens, though this could just as easily be blamed on the pace of the comic.

* Parodied in ''[[Shortpacked]]'': Robin spends most of her working hours in a toy store, despite having been ''elected to Congress'' [[What Did I Do Last Night?|during]] a Cadbury Creme Egg induced [[Caffeine Bullet Time|sugar rush]]. No one seems to care about this. Robin has also repeatedly stated that she considers her Congresswoman position to be "just a hobby" and prefers the reduced responsibility of her job at Shortpacked (which fits completely with her character).

** However, her congressional position has been used as the focus for a few storylines, especially when she's up for re-election.

* ''[[The Jetsons]]'' has a twist on this, as George Jetson's slave-driving boss cruelly forces him to work three-hour days. As a button pusher. And being able to sit down.

** And that's only [[George Jetson Job Security|when he's actually working there]].

{{quote|'''Bart''': Don't you even have a job anymore?

'''Homer''': I think it's pretty obvious that I don't. }}

[[Category:Romance Novel Tropes]]

[[Category:One-Hour Work Week]]