One-Hour Work Week: Difference between revisions
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'''Bartlet''': [[Conversational Troping|They seem to have a lot of free time in the middle of the day.]]|''[[The West Wing]]''}}
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
The reason for this trope is that going to have adventures while you're supposed to be working is not a good work ethic (unless you have the kind of job that's a conceivable part of), and no audience wants to watch someone at work with nothing interesting going on for any long amount of time. However, when you only ever see a lot of free time, and at times of day when the character really should be working, [[Fridge Logic|you may wonder]] how the character manages to earn anything.
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* ''[[Yotsubato]]'' is [[Playing with a Trope|an interesting case]]. Mr. Koiwai is a <s> trainspotter</s> translator, which basically means he works from home on his computer and can set his own hours provided he meets his deadline. Of course, this serves as a good excuse to have him home with lots of free time to play with his daughter, Yotsuba. Note, however, that being a working-at-home translator is indeed a real occupation and we do see Mr. Koiwai working a fair bit; he often requests that Yotsuba not disturb him sometimes in order to get more work done, giving her a perfect excuse to spend time with friends or neighbors.
* 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
* ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]''. Ed is a state alchemist for the military, but doesn't seem to do anything the military asks of him. He seems free to swan off with his brother to Dublinth (although he could have still been on medical leave), wander the countryside without any immediate obligation to call in or report, and even act against the government's plots without bothering to inform his superiors. When he DOES do something useful like fight off terrorists, it's often because he ended up in the situation by accident. He is also clearly paid a ridiculously large sum of money for this, including a research grant of which he spends fairly casually.
** It's shown early on that State Alchemists are supposed to either do research or fight as [[Super Soldiers]]. Even though most people would guess that Edward is doing the latter, he's officially supposed to be researching the Philosopher's Stone.
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** 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,
* 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.
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== Literature ==
* Patrick Bateman in ''[[American Psycho]]'' seems to have one of these types of
** This one is part Nepotism (His father is mentioned as basically owning the company) and part cultural statement (Patrick and his friends have fabulously wealthy lifestyles They didn't earn and look down on others because of it).
* 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.
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** 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
** 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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** Episodes have been known to show him returning from gigs or referencing them. It's possible he makes enough money from these jobs to support himself as he does not seem to have any distinct expenses.
** George ends up being the most justified. He's lazy and only ever motivated when it comes to finding ways to avoid work. He is unemployed at different points and lives with his parents for a long stretch.
* Literally true for the Fraggles of ''[[Fraggle Rock]]''
** The Doozers are the exact opposite. They work constantly, because they enjoy it so much.
* ''[[Absolutely Fabulous]]'' - Patsy got her job as the editor of a fashion magazine by sleeping with the publisher, and the position requires so little of her that she only shows up there a couple of times a year, and even then only to claim free clothes and other giveaways. It takes the magazine going out of business to dislodge her from it, and she immediately gets another job at a high fashion store which requires even less work on her part, as it actively discourages customers. Eddie, on the other hand, is often seen at the office, although very rarely doing any actual work while there.
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* In ''[[Diff'rent Strokes]]'', Mr. Drummond is the founder and CEO of a multi-million dollar corporation, yet we never see him at work and he is always home when the kids are.
* In ''[[The New Adventures of Old Christine]]'', the title character is the owner of a women's-only gym. Despite her constant complaining about money, Christine must be pretty successful to afford an exclusive private school for her son as well as a big home in Los Angeles with a guest house on the property for her brother. But she is rarely shown at work (and is pretty clueless when she's there), and she comes every day to pick up her son from school.
* ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]''. The gang seems to meet almost every evening either at the bar or at Ted's apartment, and there were a number of road trips on short notice. But Ted was, at different times, either an architect with a big firm or an architecture professor who had a contract to design a major skyscraper. Those would seem to be time-consuming jobs. Furthermore, Marshall was a corporate lawyer, and he ''said'' he worked seventy-hour weeks. But this was shown a total of ''once'', when he was in the office at 3:00
** 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.
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*** There was also one strip where he was getting ready for work, and thinking it was a shame he had to sit in an office when he could be spending quality time with his family. Then he sees Calvin tearing off in a hurry, followed by his wife in a bath towel screaming at Calvin to remove all the bugs he put in her shampoo. The last panel shows him hard at work and whistling contentedly.
**** Another comic has Calvin's dad explaining to Calvin that when Calvin was born, the two of them discussed which of them should stay home and which of them should work. He then implies that Calvin's mom ''lost'' that discussion, and that he doesn't have to go to work, he '''gets''' to go to work.
* In the French comic ''[[Blacksad]]'', the title character meets a little weasel (no, he's literally a
* The protagonists of the German comic ''[[Lula und Yankee]]'' also qualify: Lula plays in a girls' rock band (OK, they have one guy, but everyone overlooks him). Yankee doesn't seem to have a job at all.
* Cutter John from ''[[Bloom County]]'' is a particularly big example; we're told he's the new town doctor in his first appearance, but we '''never''' see him doing anything remotely medical. Maybe Bloom County's residents are just so healthy that he has all the time he needs to make out with his girlfriend and play ''[[Star Trek]]'' with the local [[Talking Animal
== Tabletop Games ==
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== Webcomics ==
* [[Justified]]
* Happens a lot in ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'', though there is the occasional work based storyline. It's [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] with Torg when he works for Adversion Advertising, since he has rather...''[http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=070111 unique]'' views on time off. He gets away with this because he somehow convinced his boss's boss that he's an "[http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=081001 advertising genius]."
* 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).
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* Lampshaded by [http://bobadventures.comicgenesis.com/d/20070414.html Jean] in ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]],'' since we'd seen Bob actually working at his newsstand (which should be a pretty time-consuming job) a grand total of once over the first five story arcs. Later stories have made it clear that Bob misses work a lot because of his adventures, and his customers don't appreciate it.
* Both averted and played straight in ''[[Questionable Content]]'': Coffee of Doom ''is'' half the cast's job. On the other hand, Marten was originally a cube-worker that only had a few strips of actual workplace (and half of them were ''after'' he got fired), and then he became a librarian at Smif (and his boss became a tertiary member of the cast.)
** Sven, on the other hand, does have a
*** He's usually not ''as'' successful as that last example, though. That was a gag about him having been dumped (more or less) and putting barely any effort into writing the song, only for it to be more popular than anything else he'd written.
* ''[[Living with Insanity]]'' averts this with Alice, but plays it straight with everyone else. She's seen working a lot and being exhausted from it, but David and Paul are only occasionally seen working on their comic.
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