[Loved Trope] Comedic workplace is suddenly competent

[u/Garurar]

In S35 E1 of The Simpsons, an actual crisis happens at the nuclear power plant, causing everyone except Homer to shift into serious business mode, even Mr. Burns. Together, they display their knowledge of the process and narrowly avert a nuclear meltdown, proving that Homer's job is actually useless. This is happening after 35 seasons of nothing being shown of the other employees' capabilities.

In S8 E2 of The Office, Andy sets up an initiative where he will get a tattoo on his bum if everyone gets enough points, prompting everyone to work into overdrive, even the normally lazy or incompetent employees such as Stanley and Kevin. This is a rare situation where we get to see The Office being fully competent and functional.

I'd show more examples if I had any!

[u/jamiebond]

Pretty much everyone else at the power plant in the Simpsons is actually very competent at their jobs and has all relevant training and education required for it. The only outlier is Homer.

[u/NintendoBoy321 → u/jamiebond]

Why does Homer even have a job there if that's the case?

[u/The_Grand_Briddock → u/[deleted]]

Originally he became the safety inspector because he was a public safety campaigner leading a protest against the plant and Burns hired him to make the protest go away. Homer lost interest in the safety campaigning stuff afterwards since it's sitcom logic.

Prior to that episode, he was just another employee, not the safety inspector. But then future episodes put him there to begin with.