Basic Trope: A character doesn't tell his/her family that he/she has lost a job.
- Straight: Bob gets laid off from Trope Co. Inc. He doesn't tell Alice for days or weeks.
- Exaggerated: Bob doesn't tell Alice for six months. Somehow, Alice fails to notice anything is amiss.
- Downplayed:
- Alice is in a bad mood, and Bob decides to wait until she's in a better mood before sharing this bit of bad news.
- Bob gets demoted, and doesn't immediately tell Alice.
- Bob is reduced to working part time, and still leaves and arrives home according to his former schedule.
- Bob, an independent contractor, claims to have lost a client, neglecting to mention that said client provided a large majority of his income.
- Bob never admits repeatedly changing jobs and the periods on unemployment between them.
- Justified:
- Alice and Bob have a large emergency fund, and Bob is primarily the one that takes care of all the finances and brings in the mail.
- Bob is afraid to tell Alice, or doesn't want to let her down.
- Alice and Bob have separate bank accounts, and Alice does not look at Bob's account (nor he at hers). So she would never notice anything such as no new paychecks coming in, or unemployment checks being deposited.
- Inverted:
- Bob gets a new job at Trope Co. Inc. He waits until he's been working there for a month before he tells Alice about it.
- Bob gets promoted and doesn't tell Alice, possibly because he wants to keep the extra money for himself.
- Subverted: Bob gets his job back, or finds a new job as quickly as he lost his old one, so it's a moot point.
- Double Subverted: Bob's new job fires him after finding out why his old job let him go, and he doesn't tell Alice.
- Parodied:
- Bob's boss fires him out of a cannon, and he lands in his yard. Alice calmly asks him, "Why are you home so early?"
- Bob puts on a fake mustache "I am not your husband Bob, I am Rob. I am staying at your house until Bob comes home from work."
- Zig-Zagged: Bob is ready to tell Alice that he got fired, but he sees that she's in a bad mood and/or busy, so he decides not to tell her immediately. He tells Carol in the interim, but when he's about to tell Alice, he finds himself embarrassed to admit the truth and switches what he says to her.
- Averted:
- Bob doesn't lose his job.
- Bob tells Alice right away.
- Enforced: Rule of Drama
- Lampshaded: "Hey, I thought Bob was supposed to be at work, but there he is at Burger Fool..."
- Invoked: Alice keeps talking about how proud she is of her husband's job, and about the wonderful vacation they're expecting to take, or that she just found out she's pregnant ... and Bob doesn't want to disappoint her.
- Exploited:
- Charles calls Alice and tells her that Bob lost his job, hoping she'll divorce Bob and go be with Charles instead.
- Charles offers Bob money in exchange for favors, complete with a shell corporation to make Alice think the checks are part of a company payroll.
- Defied:
- Bob sits Alice down and breaks the bad news to her when he gets home.
- Bob uses his cell phone to call Alice the minute he gets fired.
- Bob's boss calls Alice and tells her, "I fired your husband, so don't believe him if he tells you otherwise."
- Discussed: "Alice, just hypothetically, what would you say if I lost my job?"
- Conversed: "How does Alice not notice something's wrong? I mean, shouldn't they be getting nasty calls and letters about unpaid bills, or having utilities shut off, or facing a foreclosure on their house?"
- Implied: Bob leaves the house one morning and tells Alice that he's going to work, but instead, he hides in a restaurant until 5:00 p.m.
- Deconstructed:
- Alice and Bob get nasty calls about unpaid bills.
- Alice is very unhappy when she inevitably finds out, pointing out that he should have told her sooner so they could adjust to only working on a more limited income, instead of keeping her in the dark for the sake of his own misguided pride.
- Reconstructed:
- Luckily for Bob, Alice believes that the nasty calls are mistakes.
- Bob is able to answer the calls before Alice is, and lies about the content of said calls.
- Once the initial anger at the deception has passed, Alice makes it clear that even if she finds the situation frustrating, she was never going to do anything hurtful to him because he lost his job. She was more hurt by his lack of trust, and says that she would have been fine with trying to work things out until he could get another job if he had been willing to speak up.
- Played for Laughs: Bob uses Embarrassing Cover Ups for why he's not at work.
- Played for Drama:
- Alice and Bob end up homeless, and other homeless people murder them several months later.
- Alice finds out that Bob lied to her, and plans to file for divorce.
Back to Unconfessed Unemployment. But don't tell it why you're home early.
