# People in TV/Movies/Books/etc who were bad at their jobs. (Spoilers) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 13, 2019, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-in-tv-movies-books-etc-who-were-bad-at-their-jobs-spoilers/831094 "2019-03-13T20:43:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![snoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@snoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snoe)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-in-tv-movies-books-etc-who-were-bad-at-their-jobs-spoilers/831094/41 "2019-03-16T15:47:25Z")
I just watched the British detective series _Broadchurch_, and those motherfuckers were incompetent as fuck. ---
**Author:** ![zamboniracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9a140/32.png) [@zamboniracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zamboniracer)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-in-tv-movies-books-etc-who-were-bad-at-their-jobs-spoilers/831094/42 "2019-03-16T16:12:50Z")
On “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, Sunnydale HS Principal Snyder correctly stated, “The Sunnydale Police are deeply stupid.” As are the Gotham City PD in every incarnation of Batman, obviously. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-in-tv-movies-books-etc-who-were-bad-at-their-jobs-spoilers/831094/43 "2019-03-16T16:17:40Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > I don’t understand where the whole “Didn’t accomplish his objectives” thing comes from. Army Intelligence clearly told him to recover the Ark so the Nazi’s don’t get their hands on it, and the final scene of the movie is the Ark safely in American hands. Indy’s sole job was to make sure the Nazi’s couldn’t use it and he made sure of it. His thoughts of putting it in a museum are entirely secondary to his hired goal of recovering it. > > In addition he does multiple things that affect the course of the story > > 1. Saves Marion’s life in the bar and prevents the Nazis initially from getting the location of the ark. > 2. Destroys the flying wing the Nazi’s were going to use to fly the Ark directly to Berlin forcing them to waste time finding an alternate transport route which leads to them having to make a pit stop at a submarine base. > 3. Is there for the unveiling thus he’s able to afterwards contact friendlies and have them grab the Ark. > > If he didn’t do any of those things the movie ends with the Nazi’s now in possession of the ark and they have plenty of forced test subjects they could use to figure out how it works. If Indy hadn’t gotten involved, Marian would probably have wound up dead, the Nazis would have found the ark, taken it directly to Hitler and opened it in front of him, killing him and ending WWII before it really got started. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-in-tv-movies-books-etc-who-were-bad-at-their-jobs-spoilers/831094/44 "2019-03-16T18:52:56Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > I don’t understand where the whole “Didn’t accomplish his objectives” thing comes from. … > If he didn’t do any of those things the movie ends with the Nazi’s now in possession of the ark and they have plenty of forced test subjects they could use to figure out how it works. Sometimes some writer starts a meme, like “why didnt the eagles just drop the Ring into Mt Doom?” and “Indy didnt really do anything”. They are usually wrong. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-in-tv-movies-books-etc-who-were-bad-at-their-jobs-spoilers/831094/45 "2019-03-16T18:54:08Z")
> [@RikWriter](#): > > If Indy hadn’t gotten involved, Marian would probably have wound up dead, the Nazis would have found the ark, taken it directly to Hitler and opened it in front of him, killing him and ending WWII before it really got started. Or they would have finished their research, and found out how to open it safely. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-in-tv-movies-books-etc-who-were-bad-at-their-jobs-spoilers/831094/46 "2019-03-16T19:08:24Z")
> [@RikWriter](#): > > If Indy hadn’t gotten involved, Marian would probably have wound up dead, the Nazis would have found the ark, taken it directly to Hitler and opened it in front of him, killing him and ending WWII before it really got started. Belloq did what he always intended to do, open it himself. He was never going to send it to Hitler first. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-in-tv-movies-books-etc-who-were-bad-at-their-jobs-spoilers/831094/47 "2019-03-16T20:20:33Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Sometimes some writer starts a meme, like “why didnt the eagles just drop the Ring into Mt Doom?” and “Indy didnt really do anything”. They are usually wrong. Like “Luke didn’t do anything” in ROTJ? I guess if Luke hadn’t given himself up, Vader would have just shown up where ever Luke was going to. Assuming Vader hasn’t been emasculated by the Emperor. My impression of their relationship in ROTJ is that Vader has been put in the doghouse. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2019, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-in-tv-movies-books-etc-who-were-bad-at-their-jobs-spoilers/831094/48 "2019-03-16T20:21:59Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > I once worked with a guy named Harry Bone. I kid you not. Found out a about a guy named Shelley Nutt the other day. He got married and took his husbands name of Hunt. Yes…he’s now Shelley Nutt-Hunt. ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2019, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-in-tv-movies-books-etc-who-were-bad-at-their-jobs-spoilers/831094/49 "2019-03-17T22:58:05Z")
> [@zamboniracer](#): > > On “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, Sunnydale HS Principal Snyder correctly stated, “The Sunnydale Police are deeply stupid.” > > As are the Gotham City PD in every incarnation of Batman, obviously. A lot of people make fun of the Gotham P.D, but the people in charge of security at Arkham and the Gotham City jail must truly be incompetent. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2019, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-in-tv-movies-books-etc-who-were-bad-at-their-jobs-spoilers/831094/50 "2019-03-17T23:36:26Z")
> [@installLSC](#): > > Andy Travis, the program director on “WKRP”. What other large market commercial station of the past 40 years > –lets their DJs play their own music? > –can depending on the day or shift sound top 40, then AOR, then oldies, then R&B? > –airs pay for play religion on Sunday mornings? > None of course. Not only does it confuse listeners, but it makes it impossible to sell to advertisers. And that doesn’t even factor in keeping an awful salesman and newsman. Washington, DC’s WHFS hit most of those metrics in the 60s and 70s. They were quite a tonic for all the stations that had playlists in the upper single/lower double digit ranges. And while they eventually settled on an alternative rock identity in the 80s (and had handshake deals with a bunch of fringe bands that went on to be commercially huge in the 90s), they still had a blues show well into the 1990s. The station and format died spectacularly about 15 years ago when new owners gutted it and turned into “EL ZOL,” a Spanish language station, but HFS was contemporary with both versions of WKRP. (I forget whether they aired pay-for-play religious content on Sundays, but that was certainly done on some Washington area stations.) ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2019, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-in-tv-movies-books-etc-who-were-bad-at-their-jobs-spoilers/831094/51 "2019-03-17T23:40:29Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > Found out a about a guy named Shelley Nutt the other day. He got married and took his husbands name of Hunt. Yes…he’s now Shelley Nutt-Hunt. I worked with a Michael Hunt. He preferred his full name and not a nickname and he was from Germany so I’m not sure if anyone ever told him. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2019, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-in-tv-movies-books-etc-who-were-bad-at-their-jobs-spoilers/831094/52 "2019-03-17T23:42:55Z")
No mention so far of _House_. Four wrong diagnoses for every right one, and an enabling boss who dresses like an escort. No wonder other hospitals wouldn’t take Dr, Foreman; Princeton-Plainsboro’s toxic reputation spilled all over him! ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2019, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-in-tv-movies-books-etc-who-were-bad-at-their-jobs-spoilers/831094/53 "2019-03-18T00:22:03Z")
Stephanie Plum in the Janet Evanovich series. I should amend that - the first few books in the series are somewhat serious, like a Kinsey Milhone novel. She is untrained - she was a lingerie buyer til she lost the job and blackmailed her cousin into hiring her as a bounty hunter. Somewhere about book 5 it shifted to broad slapstick chick-lit complete with effectively Beevis and Butthead crossed with I Love Lucy Lucy and Ethel shindigs. A few books back, after some 17 or so slapsticks she shifted to using a ghost writer that rumor had being her daughter and son in law and the books got even worse, but this most current book seems to be written by a competent ghost, and sliding back to more serious [there are complaints in the reviews that it isn’t funny any longer] Like the Kinsey Milhone novels, they don’t seem to have much of a changing timeline, so it is like each book is almost just a reboot - but still, you would think that someone chasing down crooks would value learning to use her gun and run so that she could chase down her skips, and maybe take some self defense/martial arts to kick butt when attacked, but all she seems to do is sit there eating doughnuts and dealing with having an abusive “boyfriend” ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2019, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-in-tv-movies-books-etc-who-were-bad-at-their-jobs-spoilers/831094/54 "2019-03-18T00:56:17Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Have we ever seen C3PO at work? He has facility in 6 million languages or whatever, and all he does is speak English… even to R2D2. SW:ANH was on earlier today and I stopped on a few minutes of it and thought of something I never had before: when Luke asked him about Princess Leia, he said that he didn’t know who she was, but thought that she was on the ship and was important for something or another. But as a protocol droid, shouldn’t it be part of his job to be familiar with what officials and important passengers are on the ship with him? ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2019, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-in-tv-movies-books-etc-who-were-bad-at-their-jobs-spoilers/831094/55 "2019-03-18T01:16:12Z")
it’s even more ironic that after Leia was born it was her dad that supposedly erased r2d2’s and c3pos memory banks …but r2 remembered everything (unknown to everyone else) ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2019, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-in-tv-movies-books-etc-who-were-bad-at-their-jobs-spoilers/831094/56 "2019-03-18T01:46:47Z")
The Tuetels from “American Chopper”. They had a golden goose dropped in their laps, and they couldn’t keep their personal vendettas and childish grudges out of the business and destroyed it. Paul Sr. and Jr. went on spending spress for themselves, while treating their employees like dirt and subsequently losing their best ones. And then the two of them couldn’t even maintain a working relationship despite being father and son. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2019, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-in-tv-movies-books-etc-who-were-bad-at-their-jobs-spoilers/831094/57 "2019-03-18T02:22:12Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > SW:ANH was on earlier today and I stopped on a few minutes of it and thought of something I never had before: when Luke asked him about Princess Leia, he said that he didn’t know who she was, but thought that she was on the ship and was important for something or another. But as a protocol droid, shouldn’t it be part of his job to be familiar with what officials and important passengers are on the ship with him? One would think a droid trained/programmed in “protocol” (is it ever defined what a “protocol droid” does?) would be a bit more dapper than the bumbling C3PO, tbh. But, to your point, yes he should’ve known not just Leia, but her entourage as well. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2019, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-in-tv-movies-books-etc-who-were-bad-at-their-jobs-spoilers/831094/58 "2019-03-18T02:23:39Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The Tuetels from “American Chopper”. They had a golden goose dropped in their laps, and they couldn’t keep their personal vendettas and childish grudges out of the business and destroyed it. Paul Sr. and Jr. went on spending spress for themselves, while treating their employees like dirt and subsequently losing their best ones. And then the two of them couldn’t even maintain a working relationship despite being father and son. And a lesser example is Dave Hestert of “Storage Wars” who forgot he was only supposed to be an asshole on the show. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-in-tv-movies-books-etc-who-were-bad-at-their-jobs-spoilers/831094/59 "2019-03-19T12:58:17Z")
> [@installLSC](#): > > Andy Travis, the program director on “WKRP”. What other large market commercial station of the past 40 years > –lets their DJs play their own music? > –can depending on the day or shift sound top 40, then AOR, then oldies, then R&B? > –airs pay for play religion on Sunday mornings? > None of course. Not only does it confuse listeners, but it makes it impossible to sell to advertisers. And that doesn’t even factor in keeping an awful salesman and newsman. Yah, but he had a kick-ass salesman! ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2023, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-in-tv-movies-books-etc-who-were-bad-at-their-jobs-spoilers/831094/60 "2023-04-08T22:16:48Z")
OK, so Madolyn Madden of _The Departed_ is pretty sucky at her job: 1. Sleeps with a patient of hers. 2. Gives him drugs because he had a snit. 3. Gets involved with a man she may end up treating. 4. Constantly misses the signs that her boyfriend (Matt Damon) is a rat. (Though she has ‘doubts’.) 5. Underestimates herself. 6. Yells at her patients. Kicks them out of her office. 7. Gets tired at the end of the day, stops giving a shit (according to Leo). 8. Gives Leo Lorazipam (sp). When he asks “is this enough to kill myself”, she responds “maybe it is”. Then she asks her patient “Have I done enough to meet your standards?” while still admitting that he “fits the model of drug-seeking behavior”. That’s some quality psych work right there, Maddie! 9. Right after the above, she has coffee with the “drug seeking” suicide, starts flirting. 10. Doesn’t understand that cops are playing her (the “cops cry when they use their weapons” scene). 11. Hell, Leo does a better job of psychoanalyzing her than she, him. 12. Even Damon plays with her emotions just in their first date. 13. Damon takes her to a swank French restaurant, she doesn’t question where the money comes from. And so on. Just bad, horrible at her job. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-in-tv-movies-books-etc-who-were-bad-at-their-jobs-spoilers/831094.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-in-tv-movies-books-etc-who-were-bad-at-their-jobs-spoilers/831094.md?page=4)