Unintentionally Unsympathetic / The Office (US)

• Nellie Bertram. Already something of a Creator's Pet from the get-go, attempts at giving her a sympathetic backstory rang hollow since they didn't come close to covering her awful behavior, and moreover, many of her problems were of her own doing, leading to this trope.
• Erin in Season 9. In the show's frequent attempts to recreate the Jim/Pam romance, the writers attempt to portray her as neglected and mistreated so she could be pushed towards the supposedly nicer and more understanding Pete instead. However, the handwave they used to explain why Andy would inexplicably start treating her that way so soon after risking his job to win her back involved him going through exceptionally difficult circumstances that made his behavior actually somewhat understandable while making Erin come off as heartless for abandoning him during such a rough period in his life, and over a temporary bout of Jerkass behavior that obviously wasn't entirely his fault. Ellie Kemper herself said that Erin's choice to be with Pete was supposed to show her growing up by choosing a more stable guy, but it feels less like Erin's actually matured inasmuch as her immaturity was just dumped on Andy, and it especially rings hollow in the scene where, in the midst of their breakup, Erin bursts into Andy's office and demands that he "just get over it", sounding like a spoiled little girl, after she had already proven in the previous season that she was completely incapable of doing that herself when the situations were reversed. And then she throws a tantrum over losing a paper airplane contest and storms off when Jim and Pam refused to go on a double date with her and Pete, making the aforementioned maturity arc fall flat on its face.
• Phyllis in the party-planning subplot between her and Angela. To show how she is being mistreated by Angela, any episode that involves a party tends to include multiple scenes of Angela berating Phyllis for a mistake she made in the preparations. However, this happens so often that it quickly comes across as though Phyllis spectacularly fails at every single task she's given, making it hard not to see where Angela's frustration is coming from. Moreover, when Phyllis starts blackmailing Angela over her having an affair with Dwight behind Andy's back in order to take over the party-planning committee, she proceeds to really Kick the Dog with how far she takes it, never mind that she spent months knowing Andy was being cheated on but decided to keep that information private for her own benefit.
• Toby's crush on Pam and subsequent resentment of her relationship with Jim in Season 4 would be a lot easier to sympathize with if he'd ever said anything to her about it.
• It can be hard to sympathize with Pam's jealousy towards Katy given that the only reason why Jim dated her is that Pam is engaged to Roy and refuses to break off what is clearly an unhappy relationship. Then when Jim finally breaks up with Katy and confesses his true feelings to Pam, Pam still refused to end her engagement to Roy until Jim has left Scranton for Stamford.
• Jim himself falls into this. His pranks are meant to be silly and amusing to the audience, but so many of them come across as downright mean-spirited, over the top, and uncalled for, making him seem like a bully instead of a lovable prankster. This was especially highlighted when he tries agitating Andy right after the guy had just come out of anger management.