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One-Hour Work Week: Difference between revisions
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[[File:joback.jpg|link=Sluggy Freelance|frame|In his defense, his job is first mentioned five years in.]]
{{quote|'''Bartlet''': I don't understand. Don't any of [[Soap Opera|these characters]] have jobs?
'''Bartlet''': [[Conversational Troping|They seem to have a lot of free time in the middle of the day.]]|''[[The West Wing]]''}}
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This can also be contrasted to shows that take place primarily around the profession (when the profession itself is exciting enough, or can be made exciting through creative license), where the focus can be almost entirely on [[Work Com|the work itself]]. Examples are ''[[Grey's Anatomy]]'' for medical drama, ''[[Band of Brothers]]'' for drama about soldiers, and ''[[MASH]]'' for both.
{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* Soun Tendo's job in ''[[Ranma ½]]'' as city councilor seems to give him an inordinate amount of free time (enough for a few training trips and playing shogi all day with Genma), yet yields enough cash to pay the taxes and bills on his [[Big Fancy House]] and attached dojo, plus the costs of martial artist-induced repairs, as well as support his daughters, and still fit in family holidays to the seaside or mountains. He does complain about the bills, but it's only been twice in the entire anime and manga that they've ever been shown to be a problem and one of those was immediately after the Saotomes show up implying it was more of an immediate liquidity problem than gross income issues.
* 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!
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*** Which he is. In a heavily mobile fashion. And he makes progress. A good deal. Of course, the government already knew all about the Stone, and what he tracks down initially is mostly his employers' evil schemes, but that's okay, because [[Justified Trope|the program wasn't actually instituted to increase alchemical knowledge]] or even harness [[Super Soldiers]]; it's a [[Honey Trap]] for potential {{spoiler|human sacrifices}}. After all, who could seriously resist all that funding, and a commissioned rank, and the ''libraries?''
*** Being accredited is actually quite difficult and only the clever and valuable are accepted; Shou Tucker wound up destroying his whole family chasing state funding. Ed is at one point shown remembering he has to submit his research findings to keep his position. He shrugs and throws together some bullshit on the train. ''This is his normal process.'' Ed is so good he makes it look easy, and/or he's too good for the State to risk giving up, and he knows it.
== Comic Books ==
* Bruce Banner is supposedly a brilliant scientist, but between going [[Ax Crazy]] as [[The Hulk]], and being worried about turning into the Hulk, and fighting monsters as the Hulk, he very rarely finds time for any real science in the comics. Despite this, needing money never seems to be an issue for him.
** In one of the cartoons he crashed at Tony Stark's place for a while, as well as with his cousin, Jennifer Walters.
** This has sometimes been dealt with in recent years, as he's often portrayed as being homeless and relying on soup kitchens and food pantries for survival during periods where the Hulk is so uncontrollable that he needs to go on the run and thus can't exactly hold down a steady job.
** Subverted for a period with [[No Social Skills|Skaar]], Hulk's interplanetary son, as the [[Boisterous Bruiser]], and Banner himself temporarily drained of Hulk powers. He whips out gadgets every issue.
* [[Superman|Lois Lane]] [http://www.misterkitty.org/extras/stupidcovers/stupidcomics108.html can be like this].
** Clark Kent is, too --
* Belgian comic book hero [[Tintin]] is supposedly a journalist. This is rarely mentioned, and the only time he is ever seen writing an article or explicitly doing actual journalism is in ''Tintin in the Land of the Soviets''.
** He introduces himself as a journalist and occasionally takes out a book to take notes in an interview, but really he's a detective in all but name.
* [[Blacksad]]'s sidekick Weekly, a scrawny little weasel journalist, tries to convince Blacksad that the nickname is because his work is so good that he can get away with only showing up at the office once a week or so. Eventually he admits that it's because the pungent odor Blacksad noticed when they first met has given rise to an office rumor that "weekly" is how often he bathes. He never elaborates on how often he actually shows up at the office, so he might be encouraged to stay out in the field to save his coworkers from his scent, but he evidently wasn't kidding about the quality of his work, because either way he's still employed.
== Film ==
* Apparently most of the Emerald City in ''[[The Wizard of Oz]]''. They sing, "We get up at twelve and start to work at one, / Take an hour for lunch and then at two we're done! Jolly good fun!" (This can't be fully literal, since the heroes do get some work done on them in preparation to meet the wizard.)
== Literature ==
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* Buck from ''[[Left Behind]]'' is ostensibly a reporter, but is not only never seen doing any work, but the work that he does do is pretty mediocre, based on few examples the audience is shown.
* Malone (after quitting his lawyer job) and Sutherland in Andrew Holleran's ''[[Dancer From The Dance]].'' More generally, as noted [http://heterodoxhomosexual.blogspot.com/2007/06/planning-on-writing-gay-novel.html here], literature for gay men tends to use this trope a lot.
* Qwilleran from the ''[[Cat Who]]'' series is a columnist of this sort. His column is mentioned pretty frequently, but doesn't curtail him solving murders, taking up esoteric hobbies, and traveling all over the place.
== Live Action TV ==
* The eponymous couple of ''[[The Cosby Show]]''. Bill is a doctor, his wife is a lawyer, yet they seemingly are never unable to spend quality time with their kids whenever necessary.
** Cliff's office is apparently in the basement of their brownstone. Not sure what Claire's excuse is, though.
** Possibly she isn't the kind of insane, high-powered lawyer who works mad hours? She probably isn't even in criminal law. With two professional breadwinners in the household, she could presumably afford to take a sane caseload, bring any overflow home so she at least wasn't in the office at all hours, and only spend approximately forty hours a week fretting over Old Lady Tibbet's will or the latest heinous patent infringement or what have you. And have time for her family, duly provided for.
* Tommy's job on ''[[Martin]]'' was never stated by the writers and Martin himself always insisted he didn't have one, which became a running gag on the show.
* Chandler's job in early episodes of ''[[Friends]]'' is subject to a [[Lampshade Hanging]] in one episode, where the deciding question in a trivia contest is "What is Chandler Bing's job?" Incidentally, it was Statistical Analysis and Data Reconfiguration until he got a job in an advertising firm. Even when Chandler and Monica are a couple she can't remember what he does. This is Lampshaded in one episode, where the Friends note that their bosses don't seem to like them... at which point Joey [[Lampshade Hanging|points out]] that this may be because they're hanging out at a coffee house at 11:30 on a Wednesday morning. Made more fun by the fact that Joey is one of two people in the group -- the other being Phoebe, and even then Phoebe sometimes does hold regular jobs as a masseuse -- who works as a free-lancer.
** Monica has a character arc about her career as a restaurant chef. This is usually a job with 14 hour days, often seven days a week, but she seems to work about as much as Joey.
** Joey shouldn't be let off the hook either. It was justified when he was a struggling and mostly unemployed actor. However, daily soap opera stars have incredibly long work hours.
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** Not as bad as most examples though, as they clearly only meet up at the bar pretty late in the evening, and still they won't all be there.
** The show does look to be subverting it recently with Ted having his own firm and Marshall leaving his job at GNB. Lily is a kindergarten teacher and would have relatively short days, Robin worked for an incompetent station that probably didn't care if she left and she worked mostly at night and Barney's exact position has never been specified.
** Commonly Lampshaded as a [[Running Gag]] that
*** Further lampshaded when shown that he has developed elaborate ways of skipping work to pick up women while appearing to still work, such as his generic "Hey there Big Chief!" voice mail greeting.
** Like pretty much everything in ''How I Met Your Mother'', the premise gives this a built-in excuse: Future!Ted just [[Law of Conservation of Detail|skips the parts where he and his friends go for days without having time to all hang out together, or have to put their activities on pause to spend a few hours at work]], since a) this would bore his kids even more and b) he probably doesn't actually recall the progression of entire days from twenty years ago with clarity. One can assume that in reality, the various events Ted recalls took place over the course of several scattered evenings, rather than the full-day adventures that appear to be described.
* On ''[[My Wife and Kids]]'', Michael Kyle is vaguely described as having "a fleet of trucks" but isn't shown at work very often and seems to be at home during the day an awful lot.
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*** 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.
* Played for laughs in ''[[Father Ted]]''. The characters are priests but almost never perform any parishional duties or say mass. Given the show's humourous take on Irish life and how clueless (Or drunk in Jack's case) the priests are, this is probably intentional.
* Subverted in ''[[My Name Is Earl]]''. Earl, Randy and Joy are all explicitly shown as unemployed. Though They have worked odd jobs in the past, They mostly sustained Themselves through crime and now live off Earl's lottery winnings, thus allowing Them time to work on his list. Darnell works part time at a bar and Catalina works at the motel the brothers live at, explaining her presence. They go even further by stating that the manager is incompotent and doesn't expect much from employees.
* 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.
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== Tabletop Games ==
* Player characters in ''[[The World of Darkness]]'' games tend to have jobs like this. Many [[PC
** One of the freelance writers for White Wolf, Matt McFarland, has said he's surprised most [[PC]]s don't take the private eye/[[Occult Detective]] route. What with the mind-reading and mind controlling powers of vampires, the scent tracking and shapeshifting abilities of werewolves, and the... well, ''everything'' of mages, it would be a snap.
** Most Mages don't seem to have any sort of job at all, being antisocial sorts who don't mix well with "Sleepers" as it is. Of course all it takes is a couple of spheres in certain things for the mage to have a thriving "off-the-books" business (faith healer, hacker, high-end technician) that might literally require them to work for only an hour a week... that is, if they're not living completely off the grid via their own means anyway.
* In ''[[Genius: The Transgression]]'' it is mentioned that mad scientists tend to need a lot of funds for their experiments. The pdf suggests that a player character's income should be explicitly stated and offers some suggestions to the drawbacks of each. Admittedly not all the jobs listed earn enough to both pay the bills and fund a secret laboratory but then, a lack of money is stated to be one of the common problems facing mad scientists.
== Video Games ==
* [[Phoenix Wright]] works hard when he gets a case, about once every three months. On the other hand his lack of funds is a running joke. He stays afloat but Maya's hamburger addiction takes its toll on his wallet.
** The games are also a bit inconsistent regarding Phoenix's workload. Sometimes it drops hints that we're only seeing the most interesting of his cases, and other times the game implies that the cases featured in the games are the only ones he's ever taken. One example of the former comes from Maya suggesting that Phoenix puts up photos of all the defendants he's gotten acquitted. Phoenix then thinks to himself "But what about the cases we've lost?"
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** [[Played Straight]], however, when the player has an artistic Sim make money by selling paintings.
** Or crafting Gnomes for profit.
*** Any self-employed career in ''The Sims 3'' may count as this.
* [[Professor Layton]] is an archaeology professor. The number of times throughout the games he can be seen doing anything related to archaeology or being a professor can be counted on one hand.
** 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.
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* Zac in ''[[What the Fu (webcomic)|What the Fu]]'' lampshades that he never really understood what Dries does for a living.
* It's not entirely clear what ''[[Dr. McNinja]]'''s parents do to be able to afford a house in a remote cave with phone lines and electricity, equipment for their younger son to build giant robots to defend their gigantic amount of outdoor property, and so on. It's implied they do hired ninja work or something, but they're never actually shown doing this or any other paid work, and they always have time to help Doc with his schemes. Doc himself spends relatively little time actually working as a doctor, yet has no trouble hiring contractors to rapidly rebuild his entire doctor's office after it gets blown up.
== Western Animation ==
* At times, Barney's job(s) on ''[[The Flintstones]]''.
* ''[[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.
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* For the longest time in ''[[King of the Hill]]'', we were never treated to Boomhauer's job and how he can afford such expensive things. A few episodes suggested he worked at some sort of factory; however, the last episode reveals he is a Texas State Ranger.
** Every character on the show falls under this trope. Some, like Peggy or Dale, hold part-time or infrequent employment while others like Bill and Nancy work regular full time jobs but still have all the time needed to screw around. The most blatant examples of this trope are Hank and Kahn; Hank works a regular 9-5 day and loves his job so much that he won't leave 10 minutes early on a Friday when he literally has nothing to do but sit at his desk and stare at the wall. An entire episode revolves around Kahn's job, in which he gets on with a 2 hour commute that is forgotten about a few episodes later. Notice that most episodes take place over several days; basically, the show falls under the rule of only showing the characters working when it suits the joke.
* Applies varyingly in ''[[My Little Pony:
* Although they work for a delivery company, the characters in ''[[Futurama]]'' are rarely seen doing deliveries, unless the plot calls for it. This has been [[Flanderized]] with the new season, as the crew seem to do even less deliveries then before.
{{quote|'''Hermes:''' [[Lampshade Hanging|Didn't we used to be a delivery service?]]}}
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