Vetinari Job Security: Difference between revisions

Compare [[Just Fine Without You]], in which the focus is on the feelings of the person who left. Compare with [[Permanent Elected Official]]. This trope can lead to [[An Aesop]] addressing why it's wrong for the [[Planet of Hats]] to practice [[Klingon Scientists Get No Respect]].

 

 

Often obtained with the careful use of [[Bread and Circuses]] to appease the common person and undermine support for any critics of the regime.

 

Contrast and compare [[Ultimate Job Security]], where someone does a truly bad job, but doesn't get replaced; and [[George Jetson Job Security]], where a character returns mostly for [[Reset Button|continuity reasons]]. Compare [[The Heart]], the glue and morality of a team.

 

== Anime & Manga ==

{{quote| ''The Assassins Guild understood the political game in the city better than anyone, and if they took you off the register it was because they felt your departure would not only spoil the game but also smash the board.''}}

** This is illustrated nicely in ''[[Discworld (Literature)/The Fifth Elephant|The Fifth Elephant]]'' when Vimes and every other senior officer end up leaving the Watch for different reasons and Colon is left in seniority. He quickly devolves into [[The Neidermeyer]] from the increased stress and responsibility and runs the Watch into the ground. That said, the crime rate still goes ''down'', because while the criminals in the city know Vimes isn't around, they know he ''will'' be back, and he ''will not'' be happy if things go badly while he's away.

{{quote| "You know, we used to kill wizards like him."<br />

"Yes, but we used to kill wizards like us too." }}

* In Jennifer Fallon's series ''The Second Son Trilogy'', we get to see Dirk literally ''become'' this. By becoming the most extreme combination of [[The Chessmaster]] and [[Magnificent Bastard]] while running on [[Xanatos Speed Chess]] with ''no allies whatsoever'' he is now actually running the world ''competently'' (a first in a loooooong while).

* Used subtly in ''[[The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy (Literature)|The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy]]'' series. At one point, a planet attempts to improve its society by putting all of the population with "useless" jobs (such as "telephone sanitizer") on a spaceship and sending them off somewhere. Their society experiences a boom of technical and artistic achievement... until a disease from an unsanitized telephone destroys all life on the planet. In turn, all of these useless people seem completely incapable of forming a real society by themselves. They name leaves as legal tender and immediately start setting fire to trees to fight inflation.

* [[Jeeves and Wooster (Literature)|Bertie Wooster fired Jeeves once.]] [[Hilarity Ensues|Guess how long that lasted.]] There are also several other occasions where Bertie simply tries to resolve his difficulties without consulting Jeeves for various reasons (mostly injured pride or not wanting to give up whatever piece of clothing Jeeves disapproves of in gratitude), and it always ends up making things much worse before he's forced to return to Jeeves for help.

* Foaly in ''[[Artemis Fowl (Literature)|Artemis Fowl]]'' occupies this position; the technology he develops is one of the things keeping fairy society hidden from humans, and he's set himself up as being irreplacable to the L.E.P.

* In ''[[The Thick of It]]'', Malcolm is irreplaceable to the extent that ''his own enemies'' have to ask him back after getting him sacked.

* The indispensable wife plot happened ''at least'' once on ''[[I Love Lucy]]''. Ricky and Fred make a complete mess of the kitchen involving [[Noodle Implements|some bad math and a great amount of rice]], while Lucy and Ethel... well, make a [[Crowning Moment of Funny|chocolate factory.]]

* On ''[[Home Improvement (TV)|Home Improvement]]'', Al tires of being the straight man to Tim and demands they switch roles for an episode of Tool Time, saying "How hard can it be to make lame puns and screw up all the time?" Turns out, pretty hard.

* In ''[[Kaamelott (TV)|Kaamelott]]'', a few characters (most notably Léodagan) criticize regularly [[King Arthur]]'s rule and how he's handling the Grail Quest. But once Arthur gets fed up and step down from the throne in "Livre V", the knights find out the hard way that keeping the kingdom afloat is very hard work and beyond them.

* In one episode of ''[[Full House]]'', Danny Tanner decides that being such a perpetual neat-freak (he even regularly cleans his bottles of cleaning products!) is a waste of time... the house falls into total chaos in mere hours. It is only once the others all get together and talk him around that the house gets cleaned again.

* ''[[The Brady Bunch]]'' has an episode where Mike and Carol try to prove to each other whether "mom stuff" is harder than "dad stuff". So they switch places, with Carol teaching the boys baseball while Mike helps the girls bake a cake. Of course, hilarity ensues as they make many mistakes. Ultimately, they succeed with a greater appreciation of the other's work, and a lot of sore muscles.

* Weird meta-variant on this trope: On ''[[The Young Ones]]'', a single scene was included in one episode in which the four actors swapped roles with one another ("I'm just not feeling myself today..."). Although the characters switched back before any work needed doing or any of them noticed, Adrian Edmundson's dialogue as the witty Mike included only lame, self-deprecating jokes. This created the (deliberate!) impression that he wasn't nearly as good at portraying Mike's character as was his usual actor.

* Phillip II, King of Castile and Aragon and Sicily, Lord Protector of Navarre, Duke of Milan and the Low Countries -- a.k.a. Phillip II of Spain -- was famous for his desire to try and administer his territories himself, insofar as that was possible. He would work from dawn to dusk reading reports and signing off paperwork in the process of trying to personally oversee as many state functions as possible. He founded a new governing council to feed him a constant stream of advice and did his best to foster rivalries among the nobilities and principalities. Though he was intelligent and a capable ruler, his realms were just too large and diverse for him to govern effectively, and he was too hesitant and indecisive in governing them. Under his leadership his realms were involved in several costly European wars, and he was forced to declare bankruptcy no less than three times. This gave him and his realms the worst credit rating in all of 16th Century Europe. His son and grandson, however, were not up to his standards and under their leadership the composite monarchy was to suffer as they tried to leave the governing of their realms to "favourites" and governing councils so that they would not have to bear Phillip II's workload and could spend more time enjoying themselves.

* Subverted by [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-14129187 Ahmed Wali Karzai], half-brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, was for all intents and purposes, the boss of Kandahar. Recognized by both friend and foe as indispensable, and known for being a pretty decent ruler for a nepotistic warlord. He was nevertheless assassinated, probably by people who felt that instability and a poorly-run Kandahar were in their interest.

* No matter how grandly-titled an organization's official leaders are likely to be, odds are pretty good that it's their [[Almighty Janitor|secretaries/personal assistants/aides]] who do most of the essential paperwork and know what's really going on.

 

[[Category:Politics Tropes]]

[[Category:Vetinari Job Security]]