"The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water."
Not all jobs are treated equally, and while low pay, bad benefits, mean bosses, piles of paperwork, and a startling lack of safety regulations are all things to worry about, there's another potential consequence too — mockery from people with the position or wealth you'll probably never have.
A close cousin of both Academia Elitism and Class-Based Insult, this trope deals with people being mocked for their career, and can overlap with the others. The distinction from the other tropes is that the person being mocked could very well be well-educated, financially stable (or perhaps even wealthy), and in general, rather successful in their own right... With their bad job being the only low point in their otherwise happy life, assuming they don't outright have Happiness in Minimum Wage. Not that the person behind the insults would care; this is a show of elitism and privilege, teasing someone for having the misfortune to work a job that doesn't pay six figures or provide the world's best dental plan.
Jobs that attract such teasing include typical minimum wage jobs (such as a Burger Fool), servant or waitstaff jobs, trade jobs, and unskilled labor, such as factory work. However, any job can count, as long as the insulter thinks it's shameful or beneath them. Even if the character is only taking the job temporarily or for a very important reason — such as saving for tuition, working their way up the ladder, simply getting food on the table while their family is in a bad state, or suffering through recent financial hardship and simply wanting any paycheck at all — it doesn't matter; the fact that they work it at all is seen as something to be ashamed about, worthy of bullying and scorn. Ignore the fact that everyone has to start somewhere, that even "bad" jobs need people to work them, and that simply getting a job might be difficult in certain circumstances, because working a less lucrative or valued role is equivalent to being worthless and untalented, at least in this character's eyes.
While this trope is solely about the insults themselves, the characters who engage in these insults are often shown to be real pieces of work, with a deeply elitist mindset and the willingness to pick on anyone they feel superior to. Naturally, they're likely to fall on the bad side of How They Treat the Help, and this trope can easily overlap with that one. They're also likely to be the sort of customer or client who makes the workers' lives a living hell, treating the employees like trash simply for being employees... assuming they are at all, and aren't just being Mistaken for Servant. An Upper-Class Twit is likely to look down on those poorer or less privileged than them.
There are ways to play with it. Sometimes the employee looks down on themselves, rightly or wrongly assuming they'll be mocked and often holding real shame for their position. Sometimes the mockery will extend to family members, such as the employee's children. Sometimes they're being mocked for a job they used to have. At other times, they're being mocked via a job they don't and never did have with the implication that it's all they're good for — essentially going about the teasing from a different angle. All that matters is if the position is considered to be so shameful or bad that it attracts ridicule and is treated as something shameful and pathetic.
See Klingon Scientists Get No Respect, for when the job is vital to the "hat"-based society but isn't respected, and Too Proud for Lowly Work, in which the stigma and elitism prevent someone from seeking these jobs to begin with. Compare Hard on Soft Science, which are often related to job-seeking too.
No Real Life Examples, Please! While this sort of mindset and mockery exists, it's too common to list here.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Comic Books
- Absolute Universe:
- Absolute Superman: In Krypton's strict chaste system, the Laborer Guild (aka the People of Steel) were seen as disposable workers who are only good for menial labour. Issue #1 sees a flashback were Jor-El, who was here a laborer, be mocked and belittled by a member of the League of Middle Management by sarcastically ordering him to look at his chest, where he has the Chest Insignia denoting his higher position.
- Absolute Evil: The Big Bad of Absolute Green Lantern, Hector Hammond, bullies and dismisses Veronica Cale's security personnel as "little people" and threatens their jobs just for asking him to comply with mandatory security protocols.
Comic Strips
- Frazz: Zig-Zagged with Frazz himself, the literal Almighty Janitor of an elementary school in his day job. He's never denigrated for it, but in one Sunday strip, after he regales one of the students with a funny story from work, the student declares he wants to be a janitor when he grows up. Frazz says that step 1 is getting a degree in biochemistry (implying he's describing himself), because the kid should ideally become a janitor who isn't afraid of getting laid off.
- The Purple Ronnie Guide To Girls: In the section "Posh Girls", a cartoon says that if you are dating a posh girl, you first have to get past her dad, who asks questions such as "How rich are you? How long is your surname? What's your job?".
Film — Animation
- Shark Tale: Oscar is a bluestreak wrasse fish that works at the Whale Wash ... as a tongue scrubber. Other fish mock and jeer Oscar for his lowly job, despite Oscar taking pride in doing the job well. This humiliation acts as a powerful motivator to sustain the facade of being "The Shark-Slayer."
Film — Live-Action
- Carry-On (2024):
- Ethan tries to talk Traveler out of his scheme by pointing out that he's a government worker for the Department of Transportation. Traveler shoots him down, snarking that trying to pull rank is like a NASA janitor saying they're an astronaut, and reminding him of his overall lack of power.
- When Ethan gets distracted by his secret conversation with Traveler and temporarily holds up the line, he gets berated by a Jerkass who's impatient to get through the terminal. Ethan uses this as an opportunity to pass a note to Lionel and try to get Traveler caught, writing on the man's boarding pass and calling a security check on him. Furious at the obviously unnecessary check, the man smugly tells Ethan that TSA agents like him "are nothing", more or less flexing his bigger bank account on him. The uniformed military men behind him send him a collective Death Glare that makes him finally back off.
- Clue: Wadsworth is the Almighty Janitor butler to the six guests, most of whom are in powerful government positions. Colonel Mustard asks if a chair at the dining table is for Wadsworth, who replies "indeed no, I'm merely a humble butler". In the first ending, Miss Scarlett tells the other guests that they can pay her in government information, except Wadsworth, who has no access to government secrets, as he is a mere butler. Although in both the first and second endings, it's revealed that Wadsworth is actually an undercover FBI agent participating in a sting operation.
- GoldenEye: At the cradle, Boris sneers that Natalya is a junior programmer who works on the satellite's guidance system, and doesn't even have access to the firing codes. Unfortunately for him, while she can't use or disable the firing system, she can put it into a decaying orbit that causes it to burn up in the atmosphere — which is exactly what she does.
- GoodFellas: Billy Bats taunts Tommy because the latter once had the job of shining the other gangsters' shoes. (The oft-quoted "Now go home and get your fuckin' shine box.") However, in the years since Billy was in prison, Tommy has risen enough that he won't tolerate that abuse. He and his friends end up killing Billy over the insult.
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002): When Harry, Hermione, and the Weasley family run into Draco and his father Lucius Malfoy at Flourish and Blotts, Lucius, after introducing himself to Harry and Hermione and the Weasley children, takes particular aim at Arthur Weasley, specifically his position in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office in the Ministry of Magic, claiming that with the amount of night raids that he does, the Ministry doesn't pay him nearly enough, and outright calling him a disgrace to the name of wizard.
- Kingsman: The Secret Service: When Eggsy meets the other trainees, he's immediately ganged up on by Charlie, Rufus, and Digby, who recognized that he's the only non-rich person present and started to ask rude questions as a form of mockery. After flexing their superior educations, he's then asked if he works at McDonald's. Eggsy has no patience for this and just fires back that he doesn't, but he would have given them extra "special sauce" if he had.
- Let It Shine: Bling makes several mean comments about Cyrus and his job as a busboy, working at the same place Bling holds rap battles and flaunts his millions. He makes sure to bring it up during their own battle, ending a verse with "Now be a good busboy, and go get your mop". Cyrus throws it back at him, publicly revealing that Bling isn't rich, but merely a taxi driver, and makes several jokes about it, such as by giving back his Money Slap cash "as a tip". In Cyrus's case though, he isn't taunting Bling out of elitism, but to put him in his place, and even says "What's funny is your truth is enough, why'd you have to make up all the money and the stuff?"; he then ends his rap with "I might be a busboy, but you just got served".
- Rags: Subverted via Out-of-Context Eavesdropping; Charlie, janitor at Majesty Records, overhears Kadee having a conversation with her father, stylist, and famous contractual boyfriend. They criticize her for spending too much time with Charlie, who had quickly become one of her closest friends; she snarks that she shouldn't be spending so much time with someone who mops the floors she walks on, and he leaves, feeling betrayed and disgusted. He misses the part where Kadee ends up sincerely defending him as being cooler than anyone else in the building, which proves that she doesn't think less of him and never did. Still, Charlie lets his insecurities take over from here, and he briefly ends up convinced that Kadee would never truly share his feelings because he's just a "nobody".
Literature
- In The Little Knife Who Did All The Work, some anthropomorphic utensils mock the protagonist and shout, "Potato knife! Common knife! Peels potatoes!"
- Discussed in Reincarnation of the Hero Party's Grand Mage. The adventuring profession was once seen as the lowly grunt work pursued by ruffians with more muscle than sense, as they were mercenaries risking their lives against bandits and beasts for a relative pittance. Rein is surprised to see how it has become a respected and potentially lucrative vocation three hundred years after his first life as Rin, especially with how the best adventurers are venerated as heroes in their own right.
- Sam Pig: A preemptive example; Sam's brothers mock him for wanting to be a plumber.
Live-Action TV
- Blackadder: In the third series, Blackadder is butler to Prince George. In the episode "Sense and Senility", he is mocked for being "only a butler" by the Prince, Mrs Miggins, and the thespians Mossop and Keanrick.
- A California Dreams episode has Jake's father taking a job at the high school as a janitor to support the family. While Jake himself is initially embarrassed, it's not until Sly's constant barrage of insults at his father over his job that he really gets angry, culminating in him giving him a black eye.
- The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: Invoked; after Phil and Viv cut up Hilary's credit cards and forced her to get a job (which she promised she'd do after dropping out of college but never fulfilled), Hilary gets a job at a catering company as a server. However, when she sees that the people that she'll be serving are some of her friends, she chickens out and runs to hide in the closet. Geoffrey finds her, and she explains that her friends are all on the fast track to successful careers, while she could barely get a job as a server. Geoffrey corrects her, saying that there's no shame in a "lowly" job so long as someone takes pride in their work. He uses himself as an example: his job as a butler isn't exactly glamorous, but he takes pride in his work and isn't ashamed of it.
- Friends: In "The One with the List", Rachel gets her hands on a list of pros and cons Ross made for dating her (versus dating Julie), and reads the cons out indignantly. She sounds heartbroken when she reads "just a waitress".
- Full House: When Jesse meets Becky's rich cousins Dick and Donna, he instantly takes a dislike to them. This is justified; they believe their money and status make them better than him and imply that Becky could have done better. When he and Dick are alone, Jesse outright asks Dick if he dislikes him. Dick outright admits that he would be happy to have Jesse as a waiter, or a mechanic, or some other kind of servant. This leads to this moment from Jesse:
Dick: Well, I'd like you as an acquaintance. I'd like you as a waiter. I'd even like you as a mechanic, but as a cousin, well, let's just say we always imagined Rebecca with someone — better.Jesse: (furious) Let me tell you something, I'm not your acquaintance, and I'm not your waiter, and if I were your mechanic, you'd be having brake problems. (Beat) Small joke.
- The Haunting Hour: In "The Red Dress", a teenage girl named Jamie has a job working at a country club's snack bar. A bitchy rich girl named Stella mockingly calls her "snack bar girl" because she thinks Jamie's name isn't worth remembering.
- Hell's Kitchen: In Season 3, Julia was looked down upon by some members of her team because of her job as a Waffle House short-order cook, with Tiffany snidely nominating her in the first episode because "she works in a fucking Waffle House. I mean, come on." Turns out, her previous experience helped her keep her head under pressure and could cook well consistently. She made it all the way to 4th place, and Ramsay was so impressed by her, he paid for her to go to culinary school.
- Married... with Children: Throughout the show's run, the cast makes sure to repeat the fact that shoe salesmen, like Al Bundy himself, are the lowest of the low when it comes to jobs, that apparently even beggars mock shoe salesmen.
- M*A*S*H (1972): Darkly inverted in "Preventative Medicine", with Col. Lacy, a Manipulative Bastard who knows how to get what he wants out of people. He ingratiates himself with Radar initially after Radar says he's just a corporal by telling him that everyone knows that it's the company clerks like Radar who really keep the military running. Potter has to explain to Radar that sometimes when a man offers a glad hand, it's because he has something up his sleeve.
- Reno 911!: In one episode, Jones and Garcia go out of their way to harass a man dressed in a milkshake costume outside a local restaurant. One of them remarks, "Four years of college and this is where you're at, huh?"
Theatre
- Twelfth Night: When the haughty steward Malvolio reprimands Sir Toby and Sir Andrew for acting drunk and rowdy in his mistress' home after midnight, Toby retorts, "Art any more than a steward?" and carries on.
Video Games
- Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel!: Handsome Jack spends most of the game being given shit from his boss for being a "low-level programmer." As in, someone who programs everything underneath the actual user-interface in a computer system, and is actually fairly well-respected.
- Chicory: A Colorful Tale's protagonist, Pizza, starts the game as the janitor working for Chicory in Luncheon Tower. No one demeans Pizza for it, but their family and friends become very surprised when they "replace" Chicory as the new Wielder of the Brush, due to Chicory going through a crisis in confidence and throwing away their magic paintbrush. This comes up later in a boss fight, when Pizza is confronted by their self-doubts and Shadow Archetype who asks if a janitor is really able to wield the brush and save the world.
- In Final Fantasy XIV, virtually anyone with the training and gumption can become an adventurer, a mercenary who will do just about anything for the right price. This has given the profession a mixed reputation, as most adventurers are seen as fools willing to risk their lives for the thrill of it more than anything. Alphinaud derides them as mere sellswords when he's forced to call upon them to aid in the defense of the Steps of Faith. Even the Warrior of Light receives a good amount of vitriol from other people for their chosen profession despite becoming a globe-trotting hero over the course of their adventures.
- Space Quest: Roger Wilco's main profession is a janitor and he often gets called a "broom jockey" by many of his opponents. Even when he becomes the captain of his own ship (admittedly through cheating), it's just a cleaning scowl largely as a mockery from a Jerkass captain who shows him no respect despite his accomplishments.
Web Original
- Not Always Right has numerous stories of snotty customers looking down on service employees (the very service employees they currently require help from). They'll typically assume that the clerk is stuck in a dead-end job because of their lack of education, or tell their kid to get a university degree and avoid this fate, whereupon the clerk will inform them that they are in fact doing the job to fund an advanced degree. If the customer is really unlucky, they'll do this on the clerk's last day working, when the filters are off.
Western Animation
- Miraculous Ladybug: Gabriel Agreste's wealthy and powerful in-laws deride him as a mere "dressmaker", even after he became the hugely successful CEO of one of France's biggest companies.
- Rugrats: Drew mocks his younger brother Stu for his career as an inventor, wishing he would get a real job with benefits. Stu sees real jobs as "dead-end" jobs and decides he's not going to waste his life going down that path. How successful Stu's career is depends on the episode; while his inventions are largely hit-or-miss, he has managed to get the contracts to work for professional companies such as Mucklehoney Toys and the Reptar Corporation. And a decade later, Stu has helped keep the house and his family afloat, enough for Stu to encourage Tommy's budding filmmaking career. Also, despite his disrespect for Stu's career, it's implied in episodes such as "The Baby Vanishes" and "Chuckie is Rich" that Drew isn't as successful at being an accountant or an investment banker as he lets on.note
- The Simpsons: Subverted in "And Maggie Makes Three." In retelling the story leading to Maggie's birth, Homer Simpson quits his well-paying job at the nuclear power plant after settling his debts, and gets his dream job as a "pin-monkey" at the Bowlarama, prompting Bart to respond: "finally, I don't have to be ashamed of my father's job".
- SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Squilliam Returns", Squidward Tentacles wants to impress Squilliam, who shows up with all of his rich friends to mock him. Squilliam laughs at him for being "a cashier", forcing Squidward to pretend that the Krusty Krab is actually a five-star restaurant to make it seem less pathetic. At the end, Squilliam digs the knife in by pretending to have also been lying, claiming he is also a cashier... only to rip the moment away by laughing and revealing that, no, he's "filthy stinkin' rich" and was just lying about lying to humiliate Squidward further.
- Transformers: Animated: Sentinel Prime never misses an opportunity to mock his former friend and classmate, Optimus Prime, over his status as a space-bridge repair-bot after getting booted from Autobot Academy. What makes it worse is that Optimus got booted from Autobot Academy because he took the blame for something Sentinel did.