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Dora

8 (18.6%)

Roko

11 (25.6%)

Beepatrice

0 (0%)

Beatrice

0 (0%)

Marten

1 (2.3%)

Claire

0 (0%)

Bubbles

6 (14%)

Faye

0 (0%)

Tai

4 (9.3%)

Dr John Ellicott-Chatham

9 (20.9%)

Jim

2 (4.7%)

Corpse Witch

0 (0%)

Other (please specify in comments)

2 (4.7%)

Total Members Voted: 41

[BenRG]

We've seen many characters in Questionable Content either run their own business or take charge of some organisation. Some have done well, some have done badly and some have shown a complete lack of suitability for the role.

This poll is for you to tell us: If you had to work under a Questionable Content character's management, which one would you prefer?

Me? I'd prefer Dora. Okay, she's a bit of a paranoid terror sometimes and I think that I'd very quickly earn her wrath because of my problems with slacking off at quiet moments. However, I think that she knows where the company is going and isn't so egoistic as to completely refuse to accept other's thoughts and suggestions.

What do you think? Let us know below!

[shanejayell]

Also Dora, as I work retail and would want a capable but not micro-managing boss.

Admittedly, if I was in sciences I'd want Robot Dad as my boss.

And if I worked a charity or maybe a political campaign, Roko....

[Zebediah]

I’ll go with Dr. E-C, because:

1. I’d get to work IN SPACE.

2. There are advantages to having an absent-minded boss who can provide unlimited funding. “Hey Doc! I could use a budget increase!” “What? Oh, sure, what were you working on again?” “Vacuum-hardened spider droid chassis for exterior station maintenance.” “Oh, that does sound cool! Tilly, give him a hundred million.”

[Gyrre]

Thanks for making the poll this week, BenRG.

My sleep cycle is too janky to think up anything.

[Is it cold in here?]

Bubbles was a close second because of her leadership qualities and integrity. Jim has the practical experience and I'd get to work with slightly less crazy people than Dora would hire.

[notStanley]

Should not the "crazy people Dora would hire" be counted on the plus side?

[Tova]

YMMV

[Gyrre]

YMMV

Fair. But they'd be a nice break from the Walmartians I currently have as coworkers.

[Zebediah]

Comic's up.

Beepatrice has turned benevolent incompetence into a performance art.

[Scarlet Manuka]

I think it's being taken too far. Nobody's this inept all the time.

More to the point, how does their chronically underfunded agency have money on hand for Beepatrice to go out and buy an expensive pen? Surely they don't have it just lying around in petty cash.

[shanejayell]

I think it's being taken too far. Nobody's this inept all the time.

I have had co-workers like this. So, yeah...

More to the point, how does their chronically underfunded agency have money on hand for Beepatrice to go out and buy an expensive pen? Surely they don't have it just lying around in petty cash.

It's not like they're spending the cash on acomplishing anything....

[DSL]

I understand, Beeps. I'm a sucker for a nice fountain pen, myself.
However, my wallet's counsel is not to be ignored.

EDIT: And my wallet would definitely be counseling me against the Pilot 74. Not a cheap pen.

[Tova]

I think it's being taken too far.

Yeah, not the first QC character that's prompted this thought. Jeph seems to lean into some of his characters' indiocynracies a little too heavily, like he doesn't quite trust his audience to get the message.

[Killspree]

It makes writing easy breezy!

[cybersmurf]

Given the general naivité Momo shows, and Raven's gullibility, it was obvious there would be some combination of both at some point.
Beeps is not that, as she's not gullible. It's more like a lack of confidence and trying to do right by everyone?

[BenRG]

I'm pretty sure that Beepatrice's monologue in panel 5 is word-for-word the salesman's patter on the pen. She might have even used his voice tone, inflections and other characteristics.

The problem here isn't that she's gullible or incompetent (although she is the latter - Remember that printing out the forms seems to have been an outgrowth of learning to install a printer rather than a necessity). The problem is that she's too nice. She doesn't like disappointing or disagreeing with anyone. She just doesn't like generating any sort of conflict, no matter how much she should and how much it's a harmless sort of conflict that leads to balanced interactions.

I also think that she maybe over-thinks things when it comes to choices. That is actually a bit more worrying because I could see her fatally delaying simply because she's overwhelmed by multiple options and possibly feeling that choosing any particular one would be slighting those involved with the other choices!

More to the point, how does their chronically underfunded agency have money on hand for Beepatrice to go out and buy an expensive pen? Surely they don't have it just lying around in petty cash.

"Does not understand that petty cash is finite" is a completely valid characteristic. I encounter it enough at work!

[pwhodges]

It makes writing easy breezy!

So Jeph is still referencing the same anime as he did with that recent picture of the three AIs.

[JoeCovenant]

It makes writing easy breezy!

So Jeph is still referencing the same anime as he did with that recent picture of the three AIs.

I thought that was quite a clever little call-back!

Would be interesting to see how he incorporates Roko's pose though...

(Holding out something horrific/dead/slimy away from herself?)

[Perfectly Reasonable]

I wanted the bag to say 'the PEN Store'. That would make Beeps sound less ditzy in 4201.

Now I want to make a wallpaper of Beeps selling pens. She should do commercials!

[Pogopotamus]

Not sure about where this current storyline is going, but it's odd that bakery boss who doesn't seem to have the vaguest comprehension of appropriate personal or sexual harrassment boundaries when it comes to her employee Elliot, is full of lectures directed at him about his past associations.

On a separate note, Brun was kind of interesting once as a newly introduced quirky unknown quantity, but as we have gotten to know her.... she's honestly really not all that interesting as a character. She's just a convenient bag of Aspie behavioral tics that others play off of. I get that she has her challenges but if her response to Elliot's semi-infatuated, hovering behavior is utterly disinterested obliviousness where is that supposed to go as a story dynamic?

[Zebediah]

How about we stay away from words like “aspie”? Just an idea.

[shanejayell]

New strip up.

Ah, Beeps....

[Case]

"I hereby promote you to being my boss so I can beg you not to fire me"

Remarkably ... practical? 

[Gyrre]

I think it's being taken too far. Nobody's this inept all the time.

More to the point, how does their chronically underfunded agency have money on hand for Beepatrice to go out and buy an expensive pen? Surely they don't have it just lying around in petty cash.

Intellectual lazinessness is easily argued to be worse than actual stupidity. Anybody who's had to work with or slightly above temps in the 'States in the past decade can probably back me up on that. (I'm a QA line inspector. Roughly adjacent to machine operator, but bottom rung of QA.)

EDIT: typo fix

[BarGamer]

Welp, Beeps just crossed the line into full-on submissive. Call Veronica, so she can teach you about proper dom etiquette!

[St.Clair]

Take the promotion, Roko.  It's the only way you, and this entire organization, are going to get anything done.  Beeps is manifestly unsuited for the position, and at this point I'm starting to question whether she's even capable of functioning as a legal adult.

[SeattleCrochetWoman]

I think it's being taken too far. Nobody's this inept all the time.

More to the point, how does their chronically underfunded agency have money on hand for Beepatrice to go out and buy an expensive pen? Surely they don't have it just lying around in petty cash.

I just thought the whole thing was exaggerated for comedic purposes. Maybe I’m just stupid or something though. I don’t seem to pick up on stuff like this.

[TRenn]

Take the promotion, Roko.  It's the only way you, and this entire organization, are going to get anything done.  Beeps is manifestly unsuited for the position, and at this point I'm starting to question whether she's even capable of functioning as a legal adult.

^^ This.

It would be one thing for Roko's normal agressiveness to cause her to unintentionally mount a coup in her workplace, but Beeps is literally asking for it here.

[Scarlet Manuka]

I think it's being taken too far.

Yeah, not the first QC character that's prompted this thought. Jeph seems to lean into some of his characters' indiocynracies a little too heavily, like he doesn't quite trust his audience to get the message.

I know others have expressed similar views about certain characters in the past, but it hasn't been the case for me previously; this is the first time I've seen it taken far enough that I have real trouble believing it.

If she really is as she's been presented recently, how did she ever get hired for the job in the first place? Why isn't Nelson the manager instead?

(Now, that last one does present some possible answers. Nelson could be happy working as an employee; an employee with an ineffective boss and nobody else to answer to can get a lot done. Of whatever activity they prefer to do, which is sometimes a problem!)

I think I'd rather see Nelson take over than Roko, though. Nelson in authority might be able to teach Roko how to handle being under authority properly.

Not sure about where this current storyline is going, but it's odd that bakery boss who doesn't seem to have the vaguest comprehension of appropriate personal or sexual harrassment boundaries when it comes to her employee Elliot, is full of lectures directed at him about his past associations.

It's always easier to see other people's issues than your own.

[BenRG]

I think what we are dealing with here is what I think of as "situational incompetence". In her area of expertise - evidently materials engineering - Beepatrice is perfectly competent. However, working at the advocacy group requires her to go far outside her comfort zone. She needs to have negotiation and administrative skills, neither of which she has. Indeed, the scenarios in which she needs them make her really uncomfortable, even frightened!

It's sad because she really wants to help people but she doesn't have the skills to do so. I think that, even though she never knew it, she's been waiting for Roko to come along and take charge for a while!

Not sure about where this current storyline is going, but it's odd that bakery boss who doesn't seem to have the vaguest comprehension of appropriate personal or sexual harrassment boundaries when it comes to her employee Elliot, is full of lectures directed at him about his past associations.

Oh, she's aware, especially after Jim pointed it out to her! It's just that she's so attracted to Elliot that little intimate gestures and actions keep slipping out.

[Perfectly Reasonable]

Another reference to the unseen 'Arthur'. Perhaps Jeph meant 'Nelson'?

[DashaBlade]

Okay. I'm going to wild guess that the little guy is either named Arthur Nelson, or Nelson Arthur. Because with the newest comic, that's the same little guy, isn't it?

[Autistic Vulture]

Maybe Bubbles renamed him.  (Would you disobey such an instruction?)

[Killspree]

Poor Beebs, no wonder she's overwhelmed.

[shanejayell]

........

Well, that at least explains things. Youch.

[Gyrre]

[snip]
On a separate note, Brun was kind of interesting once as a newly introduced quirky unknown quantity, but as we have gotten to know her.... she's honestly really not all that interesting as a character. She's just a convenient bag of Aspie behavioral tics that others play off of. I get that she has her challenges but if her response to Elliot's semi-infatuated, hovering behavior is utterly disinterested obliviousness where is that supposed to go as a story dynamic?

Some of us like having a character we can relate that's a human instead of another robot or alien character.

[St.Clair]

I suspected it might be something like this.

[Tova]

Some of us like having a character we can relate that's a human instead of another robot or alien character.

You can't relate at all to the AI characters?

[awkwardness]

...is it too early to nominate Arthur as the best new character in the strip in 2020? He's a great addition and a nice counter to Beeps and Rokko

[BenRG]

Somehow Beepatrice having been the person running the show up to now explains so much. Most importantly, it explains how Arthur got to be employee of the months for eight or nine months in a row. I mean - Can you see her risking offending someone by making a choice? She probably just cut-and-pasted the previous email and hoped that no-one would notice!

Something tells me that taking over this organisation would be a bit of a nightmare. From what I've seen of Beeps so far, just about everything must have been left on 'hold' whilst she has a panic attack over it!

Okay. I'm going to wild guess that the little guy is either named Arthur Nelson, or Nelson Arthur. Because with the newest comic, that's the same little guy, isn't it?

It is, to the point where I think we can safely retcon all mentions of 'Nelson' to mean Arthur. Jeph either decided to change the name or has totally forgotten that he ever named the character 'Nelson'. I wonder if any of the few contacts whom he listens to has mentioned this to him yet?

P.S.:
Something I forgot to mention: The thing is? I suspect that Beepatrice's role is as outlined in panel 3. She's going to be Roko's conscience. She's the one who is going to stop Roko's thundering sense of mission from steamrolling over everyone and everything and making enemies where they don't need to be.

[Gyrre]

Some of us like having a character we can relate that's a human instead of another robot or alien character.

You can't relate at all to the AI characters?

I'm guessing that's meant in jest (it's been an off day). But if not, I meant within the broader scope of fiction. Data, Lal (his daughter), and Warf in Star Trek TNG, Spock and other Vulcans in the original run, Draxx in Guardians of the Galaxy (especially vol. 1 for me), Sonny from I Robot. Just to name a few. There are parts in the Terminator sequels where the T-1000 is relatable for some folks on the spectrum (no, not the murdery-fighty parts).

EDIT: Hell, Red brings up the easy autism comparison for some AI portrayals in this Tropes Talk.

EDIT2: adding some clarification to 'off day'.

[Case]

Really?

I guess I can see Spock and Data - but the T-1000?

I'll admit that I don't have much contact to 'spectrumfolk' outside of this site, but it's not obvious to me that 'they' would naturally identify with 'robot' characters.

No critique or objections on the wish for representation, mind you - just curiosity.

[Zebediah]

I’ve seen things like this happen at small nonprofit organizations that are mostly volunteer-run - sometimes the wrong person winds up in charge simply because there is no right person within the organization.

[JoeCovenant]

Personally, I generall y don't even think of the AIs as AIs until the context of the strip is something inherently robot-y .

[Somebody]

Beeps is manifestly unsuited for the position, and at this point I'm starting to question whether she's even capable of functioning as a legal adult.

I reached that point a while back.

[Tova]

Some of us like having a character we can relate that's a human instead of another robot or alien character.

You can't relate at all to the AI characters?

I'm guessing that's meant in jest (it's been an off day).

Nope. My bad. I was genuinely confused but missed the fact that by "some of us," you meant folks on the spectrum, and by "can relate" you meant, I guess, more specifically "feel represented by." Apologies.

[David F]

Nelson's quip about "not" manipulating the straw-drawing process makes him feel a lot more like Pintsize to me.  Less of an outright jerk, but using similar approaches to get what he wants.

[Tova]

Yes, I felt that way too, though I was probably influenced by the shared chassis design.

[Blackjoker]

I half wonder if the kindness or support to beeps might also be him trying to avoid the shift rather than actual belief in her abilities

[Perfectly Reasonable]

Does this comic need a third Arthur? We already have support-group!Arthur and Arthur!companion-of-Melon.

( did i do the !thing! right? )