Discussion Main / DepartmentOfChildDisservices

I'm not sure whether one example falls under this trope or not. It's obviously related, but not really an inversion: In the webcomic Ennui Go!, Izzy Pritchard and her sister manage to contact social services about their abusive mother, known as the Morrigan (who has hideous multiple personality issues and bad drug addiction, among other things). When the social services lady arrives, their mother happened to have randomly slipped into her least psychotic personality and cleaned the house, and sweet-talked the SS worker into leaving and resoundingly ignoring the situation, despite many obvious issues like puncture wounds all over her body from the drug addiction (including her eye...) and the sisters' many pleas, as well as some other subtler signs like ripped clothes. The arc ends with their mother attempting to kill them in horrid ways, so the social worker was obviously in the wrong for not investigatimg further. Just Playing With, then, or a different trope entirely?

> 23rd Feb '12 10:30:51 PM ysanne > The tropes Beleaguered Bureaucrat, Department of Child Disservices, and Social Services Does Not Exist overlap since they all involve the same problems. The employees are often overworked, underpaid, lack resources, and suffer the public’s wrath. They then turn into the Obstructive Bureaucrat and use Bothering by the Book to slow down the workload or get revenge on the people who make unreasonable demands.

Well, no. Most examples aren't about poor bureaucrats suffering from too much stupid peasants dumping on them too much of (non-negotiably prepaid) work, but about bureaucrats stomping in jackboots where they weren't invited and creating problems.