The students of Lawndale High take a career aptitude test and Daria's results come back as "mortician" because of her lack of people skills. Disturbed by this, Helen insists she go out and get a job to improve her social skills. Quinn is sent along as well, since Helen is sick of hearing her beg for money. Daria ends up at It's A Nutty Nutty Nutty World, the nut stand at the mall. The job comes complete with embarrassing uniforms, ridiculous slogans, and horribly inept coworkers in the form of Kevin.
This episode provides examples of:
- Accidental Truth: Jane goads Helen into pulling Daria out of her job by implying her boss is treating her unfairly despite being more qualified than her male coworker. The thing is, Daria's manager does indeed appear to be sexist and is far more critical of her than he is Kevin even with admitting Daria's a better employee.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Helen threatens to invoke this trope unless Daria coughs up her test results.
- Burger Fool: Daria and Kevin's job at the nut hut.
- Exact Words: Daria's parents said she had to look for a job, not that she had to find one.
- Helping Another Save Face: Trent realizes that Daria is working her new job selling nuts in the mall, and pretends that he wants to look for a snack elsewhere so that Daria won't be embarrassed being seen by people she knows.
- Irony: Daria and Quinn are both much more well-suited to the job the other one ended up with. Quinn's perkiness would have made her a good fit for working directly with the public as Daria's job required, while Daria's responsible nature would have been good for handling the pet store and averting the crisis Quinn ended up causing.
- Though Quinn having an allergy to one of the nuts (pistachios) would have been too much of a health risk since everywhere in the little area has very close proximity to nuts.
- Literary Allusion Title: To It Happened One Night.
- Mama Bear: Jane exploits this trope to get Daria out of her job at the nut stand. She calls Helen and tells her Daria's been shunted into the back room despite being more qualified than the guy manning the counter, making it sound like Daria's being discriminated against by her boss.
- Pet the Dog: Trent suddenly starts craving some peanuts, and Jane tries everything to dissuade him from going to Daria's job and seeing her. When Kevin inadvertently exposes her, Trent realizes that Daria is hiding out of embarrassment and pretends that he is craving burgers now to save her from the shame.
- Plot Allergy: Quinn's allergic reaction to pistachios only gets mentioned in this episode to close her side plot and it's never brought back again in the show.
- Rage Breaking Point: Daria can only take so much of Tiffany's slow reading before she actually loses it.Tiffany: Friends can be... verrry...Daria: Useful? Supportive? Purple? WHAT?!
- Too Dumb to Live: Quinn, you don't ever remove the lid off a snake tank...
