Listicle: 10 TV characters that sucked at their jobs

He’s so bad at his job, it’s inspiring. Fired as Al Pacino’s butt double for overacting. Hammed up a dying-man role so hard they rewrote him as a corpse. Yet he keeps booking gigs. Days of Our Lives, Mac and C.H.E.E.S.E., even teaching acting and playing Freud off-Broadway (badly). If he can do it, so can you. Just make a serious face and act like you smelled a fart.

Bad service is one thing. Armond, the Maui manager, masters it with wrong room bookings and workplace hook-ups. But stealing guests’ drugs and taking a dump in their suitcase is a whole other thing. Meanwhile, Valentina, the Sicily manager, is a sexual-harassment lawsuit waiting to happen. Shout-out to Gaitok, the Thailand resort’s security guard, who’s too busy flirting to prevent robberies, or keep track of his gun.

It’s always ‘bring your trauma to work day’ with this guy. Yes, his brother’s suicide, a toxic mother, and nightmare ex-boss messed him up. But instead of getting therapy, he yells at employees and places impossible demands on them (like changing the menu every day), even as the restaurant bleeds money. Know what’s better than a Michelin star? Some self awareness.

Shonda had us rooting for his red-hot affair with Olivia Pope. But it wrecked more than his marriage. He started a war in West Angola over his mistress and bungled his presidency while Olivia cleaned up his messes. Add in alcoholism, daddy issues, and the fact that he murdered a cancer-stricken old lady, and we’re just grateful he’s fictional.

He’s fantastic at diagnosing a mystery illness, and even what caused it. But he’s also popping painkillers for his leg. And he also hates people and believes that everybody lies. And he plays each member of the team against the other. And he’s forged prescriptions. And he’s sexist in a way only pre-#MeToo men could be. Yeah, you’d switch hospitals.

Bro had quiet-quit even before it was a thing. Mooney’s was the perfect lazy-guy job for Joe to follow his real passion: Stalking. Other bookstore managers might spend time on day-to-day inventory. They might host literary events. Not Joe. He turned his rare-book storage space into a personal torture chamber, where he trapped and killed his victims. What a waste of a book-lover.

Where to begin? He brought a loaded firearm to work. He fired said firearm. He cut the face off a CPR training dummy, mimicking Silence of the Lambs. He’s set the office on fire just to get everyone to take the drill seriously. Plus, he half-inflates boring brown balloons for birthday parties. And yet, everything he touches makes money.

Kendall is a train wreck (drug addiction, suicidal tendencies, actually killing a young man). Shiv is a girlboss who doesn’t know how to wield power or reward loyalty. Roman fires people on a whim and was single-handedly responsible for botching a rocket launch, at which three people lost limbs. Even daddy Logan admits they’re “not serious people”.

Even before she cut Denny’s LVAD wire and killed him out of love, she was Grey’s worst doctor. She got let off easy the first time, so she returned to almost kill another patient. When she wasn’t letting her romance with Denny, George and Alex get in the way of work, she’d whine about Meredith and Christina getting better cases. Well, they weren’t the ones hallucinating ghost sex!

He’s the best husband and dad. But the best realtor? Let’s see. He stalks clients and flirts with divorced buyers (“You are a beautiful woman with a lot to offer. Shall we make an offer?”). He plastered real estate ads featuring wife Claire and daughter Haley on vans, with the line - ‘Let me make your dreams come true’, then wondered why people thought he ran an escort service.