Basic Trope: The boss is a bit of a Jerkass.
- Straight: Carter, the CEO of Trope Inc., is always rude to his employees (especially Charlie), yells at them for being late, and threatens to fire them if they don't finish their work.
- Exaggerated: Carter is a Bad Boss who regularly abuses his employees not just verbally, but also physically. He is willing to fire them for minor offenses like accidentally spilling his coffee or when they ask for a raise. He also never pays them.
- Downplayed: Carter is harsh with his employees, but not to the point of being an abusive jerk. He will occasionally show a kind side, such as slightly lightening the workload of a stressed out employee.
- Justified:
- Carter thinks that being mean is the best way to keep his employees motivated in working hard.
- Carter enjoys being mean to people who work for him as it gives him a sense of superiority.
- Carter's employees aren't much better.
- Inverted:
- Nice Boss: Carter treats well his employees and takes care of them (especially Charlie) and pays them if they do a good job.
- Carter is a Benevolent Boss.
- Charlie is rude to his boss, Carter.
- Subverted:
- Carter turns out to be a Jerk with a Heart of Gold to his employees.
- Carter isn't a jerk at all, he just inherited a low-performing department and his predecessor was overly permissive and was too spineless to actually manage their people or hold them accountable, and his attempts to clean the place up are being met with enormous pushback, and his supposed reputation as a petty, vindictive tyrant is the work of malcontents making unjustified complaints to anyone who will listen.
- Double Subverted:
- He ruins the mood by yelling that he hates everyone one of them and would fire them if he wanted to.
- In his frustration with his department that is exacerbated by various personal issues, Carter becomes meaner and meaner as time goes on, and he eventually becomes so awful to work for that he finally gets shuffled off to another department once his employees go forward to HR with an ultimatum that he has to go or they will all leave en masse.
- Parodied:
- Carter is presented as a Satanic Archetype, with clavichord background music, lots of red lightning and fire and smoke (and not all of it is because he smokes in the office in utter disregard for smoking laws) and chiaroscuro, lots of Hitler Cam and Dutch Angle takes, and his three names after "Carter" happen to begin with F, the sixth letter of the alphabet.
- Carter is portrayed as a Expy to Bill Lumbergh, with his evil disguised beneath the most vanilla, beige, "watching-paint-is-more-exciting" Ben Stein-sounding passive-aggressiveness known to man.
- Zig Zagged: Carter can vary from mean to nice depending on the mood he's in.
- Averted: While he may scold his employees for bad behavior, Carter never acts too cruelly towards them.
- Enforced: The writer had dealt with a mean boss before and wanted to create Carter to reflect on that.
- Lampshaded: "He's our boss, alright."
- Invoked: Carter thinks that bosses are supposed to be mean to their employees, and decides to play along with the trope.
- Exploited: Jim is the one who recommended Carter to work on Trope, Inc.
- Defied: Carter avoids being an asshole to his employees.
- Discussed: "Why are a lot of bosses such dicks?"
- Conversed: "I thought my job was tough, but this show has the guy getting yelled at for everything."
- Deconstructed:
- Caeter's harsh treatment of his employees leads them to quit working for him, which leads to the shut down of Trope Inc.
- Carter's intolerance for mistakes of any sort and practice of berating and castigating employees in front of their peers for any that they do make has created a culture of concealing mistakes (often through outright fabrication to cover one's ass, or finding other people to throw under the bus), and the already-toxic workplace becomes intolerable and leads to a revolving door of personnel even before the company gets raked over the coals by regulatory authorities for its pervasive issues with falsified documentation (that mostly occurred to escape Carter's wrath in the moment) and sweeping terminations occur to placate them.
- Carter has pissed off so many people and caused so many problems due to his awful treatment of his reports at Troper Inc. that the company is looking to throw him out, and he senses as much and begins applying to new jobs and has a contingent offer from one, but when references come up, he offers fellow managerial staff from previous positions, rather than anyone at his current position or any previous reports. HR at his prospective new employer finds this suspicious and manages to get in contact with one of his current fellow managers and a report at Troper Inc., and receives such a strong and borderline vitriolic condemnation of Carter and his treatment of his employees (as well as an admission to HR that they are not surprised that he is planning an exit and deliberately omitted current references due to his imminent firing or forced resignation) that they decide to rescind the offer.
- Implied:
- Troper Inc. is notorious for its revolving door of staff and difficulty hiring and retaining quality talent that started when Carter took over as CEO.
- Charlie leaves a negative Glassdoor review of Troper Inc. that complains of a "culture of top-level abuse" and "leadership ruling exclusively by fear".
- Carter leaves a negative Glassdoor review of Troper Inc. that complains of an "overly sensitive culture that cannot handle adversity", "defanged and neutered management", and "out-of-control HR that lends inordinate weight to spurious claims from troublemakers and malcontents".
- The couple of times Carter has talked about his (off-screen) workplace in "Carter and Charlie: The Series", he notably has a "Vietnam War veteran"-style Thousand-Yard Stare.
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