Fred, if you're afraid, you'll have to overlook it. Besides, you knew the job was dangerous when you took it.
— George of the Jungle, from the Expository Theme Tune for the "Super Chicken" segment.
Being a hero, even an everyday hero like a cop or firefighter, has risks. Most people take the job knowing those risks exist.
So, by and large, it is not the hero(es) complaining about the consequences of the job, but those around them, possibly including the Big Bad, The Dragon, or even Mooks. That's not to say that the hero(es) won't complain from time to time.
When this happens, someone, usually the hero, though one of their family or allies can suffice, will point out that it comes with the job.
Naturally, the Heroic Sacrifice is one of the most well-known occupational hazards, be it for a police officer, detective, firefighter, member of the military, or superhero.
However, other potential consequences of a job include long, sleepless nights, not having a social/romantic life, physical disfigurement, or a Loony Fan.
Other kinds of occupational hazards:
- It's Not You, It's My Enemies
- The whole Injury Tropes, especially Career-Ending Injury
- The Call Knows Where You Live
- Despair Gambit (your enemies target your loved ones/belongings instead of you)
- The Masquerade Will Kill Your Dating Life.
If their friends or family are ever endangered, count on them to point out that while they knew and accepted the risks of the job, their family was not part of the deal.
With some occupations, such as Great Detective, this is the foundation of a Busman's Holiday.
See also Mentor Occupational Hazard, when The Mentor has to die to show that the protege is ready to stand on their own two feet and can't return to their teacher for advice and instruction.
Compare All a Part of the Job, where a person accepts danger as an integral part of the job. Also related to They Knew the Risks. May overlap with It Sucks to Be the Chosen One. Related to Dead-End Job (a job position gets constantly replaced by whatever new character the work wants to introduce). Compare Dangerous Workplace.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- K-On!: Played for Laughs. The girls all volunteer to do a traffic study in order to help purchase Yui's guitar. The job involves clicking a counter whenever a car passes. They discover that Mio is still clicking her thumb when Ritsu is saying "Watch it" in rapid succession and call it an occupational sickness. Later, both Mio and Ritsu are clicking their thumbs as clouds pass by. "It really is an occupational sickness."
- My-Otome: As the Otome system works on nanomachines that are killed by male hormones, those who sign up to be Otome must choose between 1). A life of celibacy, 2). Lesbian relationships, and 3.) Retiring to have children with a male lover, with the caveat that there is no going back once the nanomachines are neutralized. In addition, as living weapons defending various nations, Otome know that they may be called on to battle and possibly even kill other Otome that they'd gone to school with. On the flip side, Otome form contracts with a master, and the master involved in the contract knows that if the Otome dies in battle, they will share their fate (useful for preventing world leaders from carelessly and callously causing a war).
Films — Animation
- The Castle of Cagliostro: When Lupin comes to rescue Clarisse, she tells him that Cagliostro will have him killed if he's found there. He tells her that it's "Just an occupational hazard, Comes with the job," as a part of being a thief.
- How To Train Your Dragon: When Stoick tries to put together a force to find the dragons' nest, one of the other Vikings mentions it's dangerous, to which Stoick retorts that they're Vikings, danger is an occupational hazard.
- Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse: Summed up by Spider-Ham, when he somberly says, "Miles, the hardest part of this job is knowing that you can't save everyone."
Films — Live-Action
- Licence to Kill: After Felix Leiter is maimed by Franz Sanchez and his wife Della raped and murdered by The Dragon, James Bond insists on going after Sanchez to avenge them. M tries to talk Bond out of it, arguing that Leiter "knew the risks" of the job. Bond pointedly replies, "And his wife?!"
- Rush (2013): It's established that the drivers are so used to the possibility of death, at a time when Formula One saw at least one death a year on average, that they've conditioned themselves to accept it as part of the job. Early on, a driver is shown to have been decapitated in a crash at Watkins Glennote , and barely anyone bats an eye.
James Hunt: There's a lie all racing drivers tell themselves: death is something that happens to other people.
- Lampshaded in The Student Prince, by the armed policeman Barry who is guarding the Prince while he is at university.
Grace: If it came to it, would you take the bullet?
Barry: It's an occupational hazard.
Literature
- In his autobiography Going Solo, Roald Dahl describes his experience as a fighter pilot and verifies that of the nineteen young pilots who trained when he did, no fewer than thirteen were killed. He himself only survived by the skin of his teeth when he crashed in a desert, and some time after this, he was invalided from flying because of his injuries, making him one of the lucky ones. He said goodbye to his gallant friend David Coke, knowing that death would be his inevitable fate. Earlier than this, there is this dialogue between Dahl and his commanding officer when Dahl has to fly a Hurricane from Egypt to Greece.
Dahl: Does the fuel pump work?
Commander: [smirking] Sometimes it works. You press a button, and if you're lucky, a pump pumps fuel from the wing tanks into the main tank.
Dahl: What happens if the fuel pump doesn't work?
Commander: You bale out into the Med, and swim.
Dahl: No. Be serious. Who picks me up?
Commander: Nobody. It's a chance you have to take. - Lampshaded in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Soon after Arthur Weasley has been attacked by the snake, his sons Fred and George want to go straight to St Mungo's Hospital to see him. Sirius tells them that they cannot possibly go such a short time after the attack happened, because it would be very suspicious how they found out so quickly and would damage the Order of the Phoenix's reputation. Fred and George retort that they don't care about the dumb Order. Sirius explains that this is precisely why they are not members of the Order and that only members understand that some things are worth dying for, including the reason Arthur was in a place where he might be attacked.
Live-Action TV
- In Angel, Lorne can read people whenever he hears them singing and helps guide people who sing at his Karaoke bar. In "Happy Anniversary" when he enters a different karaoke establishment and turns towards the singer.
Lorne: You know, if we stop the world from ending tomorrow the scar won't even be that noticeable. (Angel looks at him) Sorry. Occupational hazard.
- Played for laughs in the fourth series of Blackadder, Blackadder Goes Forth. In the episode "Private Plane", Blackadder tries to escape from certain death in the trenches by joining the "Twenty Minuters", because he has heard that "twenty minutes is the average time new pilots spend up in the air". This seriously backfires when Flasheart affably tells the crowd that this means the life expectancy of a new pilot is twenty minutes.
Blackadder: We take off in ten minutes...we're in the air for twenty minutes...which means we'll all be dead by twenty-five to ten.
- Castle:
- The first episode, "Flowers for Your Grave" has Beckett asking Castle, a famed mystery writer, in connection with a series of murders imitating his books, if he ever received disturbing fan-mail.
Castle: Oh, all of my fan mail is disturbing. It's an occupational hazard.
- "Wrapped Up In Death". When Castle believes he's under the effects of a mummy's curse, he is attacked by a dog when they go to investigate a suspect. Beckett tries to reassure him that it's not the curse, saying that as a cop, "You go through enough doors, eventually there's a dog on the other side."
- The first episode, "Flowers for Your Grave" has Beckett asking Castle, a famed mystery writer, in connection with a series of murders imitating his books, if he ever received disturbing fan-mail.
- Doctor Who: "Victory of the Daleks", the Daleks have successfully obtained the Doctor's "testimony" that they are Daleks, having had to alter their DNA to survive long enough to activate a Progenitor Device to resurrect their species. The Doctor takes the TARDIS aboard their ship and demands they stop what they're doing, or he'll activate the TARDIS self-destruct.
Daleks: You would not use such a device. You would die as well.
The Doctor: Occupational Hazard! - The Librarians (2014): It is stated repeatedly throughout the show that Librarians die. Frequently. Jenkins even states that at one point, they were going through Librarians like they were penny candy. He states that there is a far greater risk for the Librarians, though. To be surrounded by all of the magical artifacts and knowledge and not give in to the temptation to use it all...which is why Librarians have Guardians, to help safeguard not their bodies, but their souls.
- Scrubs: After being on-call interferes with Eliot's dating life, Dr. Cox informs her that so long as she's a doctor, the hospital and patients will always come first, something he concludes by mocking her as he walks away, saying, "Forever and ever and ever..." In a later season, when another doctor offers her a chance to join his private practice, he points out that she will have set hours and never have to put up with Cox or his like again.
- Star Trek
- In the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Return to Tomorrow", Captain Kirk gathers his senior staff intending to help Sargon and two others in constructing android bodies for their powerful incorporeal selves. However, doing this means three of them — Kirk, Spock, and Mulhall — need to surrender their bodies temporarily so the beings can use their bodies to help build them. While the trio and Scotty are on board, Dr. McCoy is unconvinced, worried about the dangers, especially with the idea of letting these beings control their bodies. Kirk gives a passionate speech, agreeing with McCoy's worries, but pointing out that the potential for knowledge is part of the dangers.
Kirk: Risk... risk is our business! That's what this starship is all about... that's why we're aboard her!
- Star Trek: Voyager: In one episode, the eponymous spaceship, and everyone on it, gets duplicated, so when Harry and Naomi on one ship die, they are replaced with the duplicates. Harry talks about how "weird" it is being on the "wrong" ship technically, but Janeway tells him that "weird" is part of the job with Starfleet.
- In the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Return to Tomorrow", Captain Kirk gathers his senior staff intending to help Sargon and two others in constructing android bodies for their powerful incorporeal selves. However, doing this means three of them — Kirk, Spock, and Mulhall — need to surrender their bodies temporarily so the beings can use their bodies to help build them. While the trio and Scotty are on board, Dr. McCoy is unconvinced, worried about the dangers, especially with the idea of letting these beings control their bodies. Kirk gives a passionate speech, agreeing with McCoy's worries, but pointing out that the potential for knowledge is part of the dangers.
- Thunderbirds: In "Thirty Minutes After Noon", Agent Southern is held prisoner in a plutonium store, with a time bomb that is about to cause an explosion big enough to destroy half of England. He pleads with everyone he contacts to forget him, and to concentrate on evacuating the area. After he is rescued, he tells Lady Penelope how dangerous it is to be a secret agent, and that death is constant companion, not knowing that she is a secret agent herself.
Video Games
- Dawn of War II: One of the inter-mission conversations after beating the ork warboss
has Cyrus saying he'll remember this victory when the end comes for him. Thaddeus (a relative Naïve Newcomer) asks why Cyrus is thinking about his death on a day of triumph. Cyrus tells him that as a Space Marine, his death is not a probability but an inevitability, and that he should save some of that triumph for when he dies, when he'll be feeling very little joy.
- Genshin Impact: In a sidequest focusing on the Shuumatsuban ninja named Momoko, she was captured by the Fatui soldiers she was sneaking behind, but later manages to escape by using a makeshift explosive — and some of it flew to her left eye, rendering it blind. When you later talk to her about it, she thinks of it as an occupational hazard and that the Shuumatsuban should compensate her later.
- Limbus Company: The City is filled with dangers and people willing to kill for a living, even if their job isn't focused on the killings themselves. Even the titular company isn't free of this, as one of their secondary departments has their High Turnover Rate mentioned in job contracts and training manuals to the point of near indoctrination.
Web Original
- The Magnus Archives: Working as an archival assistant at the Magnus Institute involves helping stop horrific rituals that will plunge the world into unending horror unless prevented, being continuously menaced by various supernatural beings that exist to inflict fear and suffering, and you can't quit without committing Eye Scream on yourself. The main cast are all informed about this by their insufferably cheerful and evil boss, who also reminds them to keep any receipts from their trips to stop said aforementioned evil rituals since, if they survive, they can get their expenses covered.
- The Magnus Protocol: Only once Gwen Bouchard is promoted to a new position involving contacting externals does she learn that these "externals" are horrific monsters or serial killers that she's sending to kill people. When she confronts her boss about this, she's told that there's nothing to be concerned about, since the possibility of being eaten is just part of the job she wanted so much.
Western Animation
- Batman: The Animated Series: "I Am the Night". After Jim Gordon is shot, Bruce, as Batman, gets a brutal "The Reason You Suck" Speech from Harvey Bullock, and Bruce decides that the Jerkass Has a Point. He broods in the Batcave, and Robin tries to give him a You Are Better Than You Think You Are speech.
Batman: I chose this life. I use the night, I became the night, sooner or later I'll go down. It might be the Joker, or Two-Face, or just some punk who gets lucky. My decision. No regrets. But I can't let anyone else pay for my mistakes.Robin: Jim Gordon's a cop, Bruce. He knows the risks.
- George of the Jungle: The Expository Theme Tune for the "Super Chicken" segments informs the sidekick character, Fred, that he knew the job was dangerous when he took it.
- The Real Ghostbusters: "The Collect Call of Cathulhu", Peter is about to take a girl out on a date, when Egon tells him they have to go to the New York Public Library because someone has just stolen a copy of The Necronomicon. Peter laments having to drop yet another date, to which Winston quips, in a Shout-Out to Super Chicken, "Besides, you knew the job was dangerous when you took it."
