Miss Management is a
Time Management Game, which unlike most has a plot, considering that it's the result of
Diner Dash mating with The Office. You play Denise, a young woman starting her first day as both the office manager and the
Only Sane Employee for Conkling Associates International. Denise must ensure that her infuriating coworkers complete both their tasks and reach their desired goals—which typically consist of lounging around and not doing work. Combined with the fact that all of her coworkers possess the occasional quirk, conflicting personalities and wildly different work ethics this proves to be a tough job for Denise.
This game provides examples of:
- Alpha Bitch: Pearl and Nadine to an absolutely deplorable degree.
- Berserk Button: Denise's co-workers all have dislikes that increase their stress, with something as justified as seeing other employees slack off, to minor inconveniences like turning on the air conditioner. Denise, for her part, will stress out from an overdue task.
- Big Bad: Downplayed a little bit with Pearl; she does what she does simply because she wishes for Denise and company to become better employees, but aside from that, she's a generally nasty, unpleasant person for them to work with.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Duncan and Pearl during Season 3, with Duncan being the boss and Pearl kissing up to him every chance she gets. It shifts to Pearl and Nadine come Season 4, with Pearl being the boss and Nadine being her number two.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The tasks. Green is financial, blue is technical, orange is art, and purple is writing.
- Evil Plan: Pearl's "Project PEARL", which really is nothing more than forcing the workers to do as much tasks as possible, simply because Pearl wants to stick it to the management whom she feels never rewarded her for her 40 years of working for the company.
- A Father to His Men: Parodied with Duncan. His unorthodox method of delegating work amongst his workers, including making them do tasks they are not qualified to do, only makes everyone else irritated with him.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Duncan; none of the workers like him and want absolutely nothing to do with him outside of work.
- Fun-Hating Confiscating Adult: In an attempt to keep the employees busy, Pearl forces the store to stop selling snacks to Denise for an entire level.
- Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Pearl and Nadine are two of the nastiest characters in the game... and they both smoke.
- Granola Guy: Luke fits this to a T. He's very insistent on only putting "natural" things in his body, dislikes the freon used in air conditioning, is against tobacco smoke, among other things.
- Gratuitous Spanish: Timothy when he happily quits his job says "hasta la fuego" prompting Tara to ask if he just said "until the fire". It's supposed to be "hasta luego".
- Handsome Lech: Mahavir, who flirts with every single female co-worker in the office.
- Hated by All: Duncan; Denise and her fellow coworkers have no qualms doing what he says, but it's obvious the only reason why is because he outranks them all. Other than that, not a single one of them have any love for him.
- He-Man Woman Hater: Duncan seems to have shades of this; he doesn't outright hate the female workers, but he does tend to value the opinions of the male workers more.
- Hypercompetent Sidekick: Mahavir and Winston to Denise, Pearl to Duncan in Season 3, and Nadine to Pearl in Season 4.
- "Miss X" Pun: The game's title is Miss Management, and the protagonist Denise is a newly hired manager for an office full of zany workers.
- Noodle Implements: Timothy has a thing for stroganoff. Make of that what you will.
- Only Sane Employee: Pretty much the point of the game; Denise is the most level-headed while everybody else is eccentric and over-the-top, and it's her job to keep them in line. Winston qualifies, as well, but even he has his own set of ridiculous quirks.
- Office Lady: Denise is, unfortunately for her, perhaps the only American example.
- Otaku: Tara is strongly implied to be into the Magical Girl anime "Shining Beauty Warrior Himiko X."
- Pointy-Haired Boss: Downplayed with Brooke; she's the CEO of C.A.I. and is well-liked, but she's just as eccentric and aloof at her job like all the other employees. It's played totally straight with Duncan, though; he's a total buffoon and his plans don't work, but he outranks Denise and all her employees at the point of the game where he debuts, so they have no choice but to do what he says.
- Put on a Bus: Several characters end up quitting their jobs and are never seen again afterwards (save the epilogue).
- Rage Against the Mentor: Tara, after feeling that the work Pearl has been giving her is just too much and unnecessary. After chewing her out on it, she quits with her dignity intact.
- Really Gets Around: Mahavir is implied to be this when he claims that "the love of Mahavir knows no bounds"…except for Timmy.
- Replacement Goldfish: Most employees exist just so they can replace the ones who got Put on a Bus; for instance, Tara, who quit at the end of Season 2, gets replaced by Ashley, who makes her presence known halfway into Season 3, as the artist of the team.
- The Red Stapler: Invoked and alluded to in the red "Office Classique" stapler available at the store.
- Rich Bitch: Ashley.
- Shout-Out: Amongst the several shout-outs, there's one reference to
The Red Stapler. Of course, this could be a reference to the movie Office Space instead, due to the similar settings. - Sorting Algorithm of Weapon Effectiveness: The competency of your employees slowly increases with each new one introduced, from "average at everything and hates one task type" to "good at positively anything."
- Super-Deformed: All the characters.
- Token Minority: Mahavir, to a mild extent ranging from assuming that English isn't his first language (despite being very good at it) to being called "swarthy".
- Tyrant Takes the Helm: The incompetent Duncan in Season 3... and the control-obsessed Pearl in Season 4.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Duncan wants to make Winston into this. Too bad that Winston already has a perfectly healthy relationship with his dad.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: An epilogue shows what various characters are up to after the game is finished, including characters who have quit the job during the game's events.
- Workaholic: Brooke, and it shows in-game as well, as she's above average at every type of task.
- Work Com: The game takes place in the offices of C.A.I. and nowhere else.
