History Main / VetinariJobSecurity

* ''Film/KaamelottPremierVolet'': The absence of Myth/KingArthur since his abdication in [[Series/{{Kaamelott}} the series]] has been catastrophic for the Kingdom of Logres -- TheUsurper Lancelot is an oppressive tyrant and fails at making the country prosper, and LaResistance can't do anything serious against him due to infighting and being made of [[TheDitz morons]] who badly need Arthur's leadership.

* Sutler in ''Film/VForVendetta'' [[InvokedTrope invokes]] this trope. [[spoiler:It doesn't help.]]
-->'''Sutler:''' What we need right now is a clear message to the people of this country. This message must be read in every newspaper, heard on every radio, seen on every television. This message must resound throughout the entire Interlink! I want this country to realize that we stand on the edge of oblivion. I want every man, woman, and child to understand how close we are to chaos. I want ''everyone'' to remember ''why they need us''!
* In the beginning of ''Film/HotFuzz'', the London police [[ReassignedToAntarctica send Angel to Sandford]] because he's so efficient, he makes them all look bad. By the end, they are begging him to come back because his absence made the crime rate rise enough (as in '''400%''') to make them all look worse.

* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' has Lazy Larry quitting and Elmore turning into an apocalyptic wasteland within an hour. It's not that nobody else can do the jobs he does so much as that he just does so ''[[NewJobAsThePlotDemands many]]'' jobs that his quitting left way too many vacuums for the rest of the town to fill.

* UsefulNotes/OttoVonBismarck had this set up for most of his career. Unfortunately, he came up against a Kaiser who either didn't realise this or just didn't care, and removed the one person keeping everything running (relatively) smoothly. This ended badly for just about ''everyone'', as it turned out to be part of what led to UsefulNotes/WorldWarI.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'' episode "Double Jeopardy", Megatron at one point responds to [[TheStarscream Terrorsaur's]] constant and badly thought-out power plays by giving him command and waiting for him to fail. Which he does. [[EpicFail Spectacularly.]] In general, it's suggested that the main reason he holds power is that no other Predacon is remotely equipped for the job.

** [[Characters/MarvelComicsTheKingpin The Kingpin]] has this in a way. Despite being the top crime lord in New York, Characters/{{The Punisher|FrankCastle}} will almost never go after him because [[EvilPowerVacuum the infighting among the other criminal elements of New York]] would cause too much collateral damage to the innocent populace.

* In the 2011 NFL season, Colts quarterback Creator/PeytonManning sat out for the entire season as he underwent four neck surgeries. The Colts' three backup [=QBs=], Kerry Collins (who came out of retirement), Curtis Painter, and Dan Orlovsky, as well as the coaching staff (led by Jim Caldwell), tried, and failed, to run the same offense that Manning ran, and the end result, combined with a very hard schedule (AFC North and NFC South), was a disastrous 2-14 season, as well as jokes and even serious discussions that Manning was the ''real'' NFL MVP that year without playing a game. At the end of the season, nearly the entire coaching staff and front office (which included Caldwell, as well as Bill and Chris Polian) were fired from the Colts, and Manning was released in March 2012. On the bright side, they were able to draft Andrew Luck, who was called the "greatest QB prospect since Manning".

* Zig-zagged with Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who missed a major part of the season in 2013 and 2017 due to collarbone injuries. While the 2017 season was a disaster, the Packers managed to save their 2013 season by bringing back their former backup quarterback Matt Flynn, who, while he was no Rodgers, did well enough to keep Green Bay in the playoff picture until Rodgers came back in the final game of the regular season. That earlier situation suggested that at least part of the problem wasn't that the offense couldn't run without Rodgers, but rather the fact that the team didn't have a reasonably capable backup behind him. (This discussion has been reignited in the wake of questions regarding Rodgers' future that came up in 2020 and 2021.)

** In the episode "Greedy Goes On Strike", Greedy hangs up his apron and decides to go on strike when the other Smurfs take his role as the village chef for granted. Throughout the course of the episode, other Smurfs try their hand at being the village chef, only to realize after several failures that they really need Greedy to do the cooking because he is the only one who is very skilled at cooking.

** Unfortunately, this came back to haunt France, in ways Louis XIV could never have imagined, when Louis XV and Louis XVI took the throne. One of the secrets to Louis XIV's success was his keen eye for talent and his skill at managing his ministers. When Louis XV and Louis XVI took over, they proved to be far less competent and the whole system began to rot, before finally exploding in UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution.

* UsefulNotes/JosipBrozTito was a leading member of the Partisan movement that liberated Yugoslavia during [=WW2=], he was Prime Minister from 1943 to 1953, and President from 1953 to his death in 1980. Soon after he died ethnic tension started building and the leaders of the individual republics took the Presidency in turns, but some people just wouldn't play nicely. Result: no more Yugoslavia.

* 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; under their leadership, the composite monarchy was to suffer as they tried to leave the governing of their realms to "favorites" and governing councils so that they would not have to bear Phillip II's workload and could spend more time enjoying themselves.
* In retrospect, America ''really'' should not have overthrown UsefulNotes/SaddamHussein. His secular political platform and vision of national unity, as well as his brutal repression of dissent or insurrection prevented the religious extremists from tearing the country apart in sectarian conflicts and then exporting the chaos everywhere… as unfortunately happened after the botched occupation. At the VERY least, the US should not have disbanded the Iraqi Army, as, for all of their incompetence (see the Real Life section in PaperTiger below), they were pretty much the only integrated institution seen as a point of national pride.
* Some have said that the Western coalition shouldn't have helped to topple UsefulNotes/MuammarGaddafi, either; however, unlike Saddam Hussein (who was just [[OrcusOnHisThrone generically being nasty to his citizens]]), Gaddafi had already provoked his people into open revolt long before the West got involved with the Libyan resistance, and the rebels were pretty well entrenched in Benghazi. It's unlikely that the current situation would be any less violent without foreign intervention; at best, Gaddafi's regime would be weakened with occasional outbreaks of violence and unrest, and at worst Libya would have descended into a protracted full-scale civil war like Syria. As it happens, that happened anyway, but at least Gaddafi didn't get a chance to engage in mass murder, and (with the exception of the fairly-weak-if-still-terrifying local branch of ISIS) the sides in the present conflict generally try to avoid committing atrocities against the civilian population.

* In ''Anime/CodeGeass'', [[MagnificentBastard Zero]] invokes a more situational version of this right before they enter the Battle of Narita. He puts the [[LaResistance Black Knights]] in an extremely untenable situation (surrounded by enemies with seemingly no means of escape), then tells them that their only options are to give him complete trust and command, or shoot him dead and try to escape on their own. This continues on thoughout both seasons. When he's around, the Black Knights are a force to be reckoned with; when he's not, however, things go badly for them. In second season he actually starts pushing things to a more stable and complex command structure for the Black Knights, but doesn't get them all the way until the finale. [[spoiler: While he's off having a HeroicBSOD over the apparent death of his sister, [[ManipulativeBastard Schneizel]] steps in and basically completely tears apart the Black Knights by making them turn on Lelouch.]]

* ''Literature/TheWitchOfKnightcharm'': Lauren Taverron, the fourth-ranked student at an evil WizardingSchool, sets herself up as this. Nobody likes her and three students ranked above her all want to kill her, but Lauren manages to avoid making some screw-ups that the others make, and thus she becomes the only one with credability of the four of them. The others therefore need her to take care of various pieces of business, like making reports to the 'Board,' and can't kill or dispose of her.

* Several times on the US version of ''Series/KitchenNightmares'', Creator/GordonRamsay will force a chef that he thinks is useless to leave, only to find the kitchen even worse without him.

* One ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode features Officer Barbrady, the incompetent policeman, taking a sabbatical so he could learn to read, which leads to mass chaos. It wasn't so much that he was ''good'' at his job -- it's just that as long as ''somebody'' was doing it, nobody would go out of their way to commit crimes; but without him, people decide to just start looting at will. The problem is eventually solved when [[JerkAss Cartman]] takes over for a while. Well... depending on one's definition of "[[TyrantTakesTheHelm solved]]," anyway.

** The episode "Lethal Inspection" saw Hermes and Bender off on an adventure to discover the identity of Bender's factory inspector. Hermes appoints Leela as Lil' Bureaucrat until he returns. Leela is quickly overwhelmed by the volume of paperwork, finally resorting to hiding papers behind potted plants. By the time Hermes returns, Planet Express is in shambles. Hermes saves the day by simply tossing all the paperwork into the furnace.

---> '''Scruffy''': My job? Toilets and boilers, boilers and toilets. [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs Plus that one boiling toilet.]] Fire me if'n you dare.
** When Fry quits to become a police officer, the Planet Express crew quickly discover that they need Fry to distract them from how much they don't get along with each other.

** When Marge Simpson went to jail for accidentally shoplifting a whiskey bottle, she was absent from her usual bake sale table with her Rice Krispies squares. The chain of events snowballed into city-wide riots, at which point everyone realized how important Marge was.

** In one episode, Smithers is ill and Mr. Burns vows to save him... because otherwise, he would have to teach a new assistant his filing system.

* In retrospect, America ''really'' should not have overthrown UsefulNotes/SaddamHussein. His secular political platform and vision of national unity, as well as his brutal repression of dissent or insurrection prevented the religious extremists from tearing the country apart in sectarian conflicts and then exporting the chaos everywhere… as unfortunately happened after the botched occupation. At the VERY least, the US should not have disbanded the Iraqi Army, as, for all of their incompetence, they were pretty much the only integrated institution seen as a point of national pride.

* In retrospect, America ''really'' should not have overthrown UsefulNotes/SaddamHussein. His secular political platform and vision of national unity, as well as his brutal repression of dissent or insurrection prevented the religious extremists from tearing the country apart in sectarian conflicts and then exporting the chaos everywhere… as unfortunately happened after the botched occupation. At the VERY least, the US should not have disbanded the Iraqi Army, which was pretty much the only integrated institution seen as a point of national pride.

* In a filler episode of ''LightNovel/KyoKaraMaoh'', Gunther decides to go off on his own and see the state of the Great Demon Kingdom for himself. As he actually takes care of most of the Demon King's duties as well as his own work, it falls to Yuuri to handle everything until he comes back. Yuuri is quickly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work Gunther does.

** [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen The Scarlet Empress]] of [[TheEmpire the Realm]] disappeared without a trace a few years ago. This has led to a breakdown in just about every area of government, because the Scarlet Empress, knowing how many people would love to dethrone her, made ''damn sure'' [[SubvertedTrope not that she was irreplaceable]], but that anyone [[OverlordJr competent enough to replace her]] would have [[EnemyCivilWar thousands of potential rivals]], and [[DoubleSubversion so wouldn't dare to try and replace her for fear of losing the civil war.]] For the time being, with her gone, they appointed a hapless figurehead and are building up forces and alliances.

* ''VideoGame/BendyAndTheInkMachine'': In the tie-in novel, ''Bendy and The Lost Ones'', this is revealed to be the case with Thomas Connor, the GENT Corp. worker who designed the titualar Ink Machine. He's fired towards the end of the previous book for trying to take the machine he built back from [[BadBoss Joey Drew]], but The Lost Ones reveals that the machine broke almost immediately after he stopped working there, so Joey had to rehire him and his partner, Allison Pendle, to get him to fix it again.

* ''VideoGame/BendyAndTheInkMachine'': In the tie-in novel, ''Bendy and The Lost Ones'', this is revealed to be the case with Thomas Connor, the GENT Corp. worker who built the titualar Ink Machine. He's fired towards the end of the previous book for trying to take the machine he built back from [[BadBoss Joey Drew]], but The Lost Ones reveals that the machine broke almost immediately after he stopped working there, so Joey had to rehire him and his partner, Allison Pendle, to get him to fix it again.

* The organs of the body held a meeting to decide which one of them should be in charge. "I should be in charge of the body," said [[TheSmartGuy the Brain]], "Because I do all the thinking and send out nerve signals. Without me, nothing would happen!" "I should be in charge," said {{the Heart}}, "Because I pump blood to all of you, ensuring that you get all the oxygen and nutrients you need to do your jobs." "''I'' should be in charge," said [[{{Jerkass}} the Rectum]], "Because I'm responsible for waste disposal." All the other organs laughed at him, and he immediately shut down. Within a day, the blood was toxic, and aches and pains and general sickness ensued. "All right, Rectum!" said the Brain. "You can be in charge! Just, please, take care of this waste problem!" [[HardTruthAesop The moral of the story? You don't have to be smart or important to be in charge, just an asshole!]]

** Whenever ComicBook/{{Darkseid}} is briefly removed from power, his lieutenants all battle amongst themselves, plunging Apokolips into a civil war until he inevitably returns. Oddly, this is a case the heroes slightly encourage. If the lieutenants are fighting each other, they tend to be too busy to invade Earth. And the citizens of Apokolips are, arguably, better off with several would-be overlords than with Darkseid in charge. In ''ComicBook/KingdomCome'', when Orion disposes of Darkseid for good and seizes the planet, he soon finds that countless generations of tyranny have made the population brainless and morally-bankrupt, so freeing them just gave them what they needed to slaughter each other mindlessly. His attempts at social reform fail, leading him to just sit and brood over it in his father's old palace.
** ComicBook/AmandaWaller's entire record is peppered with this. She's been sent to jail, retired, fired with extreme prejudice and more... and at the end of the day, she'll be sent back to Belle Reve to once again lead the ComicBook/SuicideSquad because nobody else can get the results she can with what she's handed.

** [[DiscussedTrope Discussed]] by [[UsefulNotes/{{Augustus}} Augustus Caesar]] in ''ComicBook/TheSandman'' #30:

** Like Darkseid, ComicBook/DoctorDoom invariably returns to his position as dictator of Latveria because his successors always turn out to be as bad or worse than he is and the country falls apart in his absence.
** ComicBook/TheKingpin has this in a way. Despite being the top crime lord in New York, ComicBook/ThePunisher will almost never go after him because [[EvilPowerVacuum the infighting among the other criminal elements of New York]] would cause too much collateral damage to the innocent populace.

* ''Film/BruceAlmighty'': {{God}} mentions that the one time in all of creation that He took a break, the Dark Ages happened. As such, when he gives Bruce His powers, he only gives him reign over Buffalo, NY while God handles the rest of the world like usual. [[spoiler:Naturally, Bruce isn't able to handle even that much.]]

* Used subtly in ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' 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 [[spoiler:that turns out to be Earth, circa 2 million years ago.]]. 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[[spoiler:; tsk, such biting social commentary]]. They name leaves as legal tender and immediately start setting fire to trees to fight inflation.

* ''Literature/JeevesAndWooster'': Bertie Wooster fired Jeeves once. [[HilarityEnsues 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.

* Jason Hanson served as the Detroit Lions' kicker for 20 seasons, during that time he was regarded as one of the most accurate kickers in the NFL and pretty much the only person the Lions could reliably count on. After Hanson retired after the 2012 season, the Lions signed veteran David Akers to take his place, but he only lasted one season before retiring as well. Without a kicker yet again and with no veterans in the free agent pool to sign, the Lions ultimately went with rookie Nate Freese. Freese's tenure as kicker was an abject disaster, with him missing multiple easy (at least by NFL standards) field goals in an often cartoonish fashion. The Lions subsequently cut him after Week 3 and signed free agent Alex Henery, who was the Philadelphia Eagles' kicker for three solid but unremarkable seasons. Henery proved to be marginally better than Freese, and after he biffed three field goals (including a potential game winner) against the Buffalo Bills, he was cut as well. The kicking struggles only ended when by a pure spell of dumb luck, Matt Prater (then regarded as the best kicker in the league) was cut by the Denver Broncos due to them growing tired of his constant drinking. The Lions picked him up on the rebound and he served as their starting kicker through the 2020 season. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpzHoQnLh3w&ab_channel=SandmanLions this humorous video]] showcases how much Lions fans (and likely the team themselves) missed Jason Hanson during the first half of the 2014 season.

* The ''VideoGame/{{Hitman}}'' series has Diana, seemingly the only [=ICA=] employee who's both fearless enough to (H)andle the local sociopath and sensible enough not to try enslaving him (like all his previous, dead, bosses did). Aside from that, her industry [[ResignationsNotAccepted punishes any perceived betrayals with death]], so there is a significant chance that if Diana goes, the [=ICA=]'s best assassin will also go, just so he doesn't have to kill [[OnlyFriend her]]. [[spoiler:When the latter happened in ''Absolution'', 47 was noticeably reluctant to assassinate Diana even before he learned that she had a very good reason for defecting.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs'':

* This was the card Cosimo de' Medici played in order to reclaim control of Florence from the Albizzi family. When they overthrew him, instead of trying to immediately reclaim power he simply went into exile for a decade and ''let'' the Albizzi rule Florence, knowing that they weren't competent to run the city's finances. [[JustAsPlanned As he had calculated]], the Florentine economy collapsed from their mismanagement and the population became enraged. Seizing the opportunity, Cosimo returned to Florence and overthrew the Albizzi family with popular support, then organized a witch hunt of all those who had supported his removal.

* In retrospect, America ''really'' should not have overthrown Saddam Hussein. His secular political platform and vision of national unity, as well as his brutal repression of dissent or insurrection prevented the religious extremists from tearing the country apart in sectarian conflicts and then exporting the chaos everywhere… as unfortunately happened after the botched occupation. At the VERY least, the US should not have disbanded the Iraqi Army, which was pretty much the only integrated institution seen as a point of national pride.
* Some have said that the Western coalition shouldn't have helped to topple UsefulNotes/MuammarGaddafi, either; however, unlike UsefulNotes/SaddamHussein (who was just [[OrcusOnHisThrone generically being nasty to his citizens]]), Gaddafi had already provoked his people into open revolt long before the West got involved with the Libyan resistance, and the rebels were pretty well entrenched in Benghazi. It's unlikely that the current situation would be any less violent without foreign intervention; at best, Gaddafi's regime would be weakened with occasional outbreaks of violence and unrest, and at worst Libya would have descended into a protracted full-scale civil war like Syria. As it happens, that happened anyway, but at least Gaddafi didn't get a chance to engage in mass murder, and (with the exception of the fairly-weak-if-still-terrifying local branch of ISIS) the sides in the present conflict generally try to avoid committing atrocities against the civilian population.