By: James Daniels

Have you ever seen the Simpson’s episode titled Homer’s Enemy? It is about a man named Frank Grimes who has worked hard for his entire life to get essentially the same job as Homer Simpson. Although their routes in life were very different, they ended up at the same place: the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant.

Frank, abandoned by his parents as a young age, delivered toys as a child instead of going to school. In a ridiculous accident involving an explosion at a silo on his eighteenth birthday, he is seriously injured and spends a long time in recovery. He goes on to eventually earn a degree in nuclear physics at the age of 35.

Mr. Burns, who any Simpson’s viewer would know as the owner of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, notices Mr. Grimes’ story on the local news program. He orders his assistant, Whalen Smithers, to bring him in and wants to make him the Executive Vice President. Soon after, he notices a story about a heroic dog and orders Mr. Smithers to do the very same thing as he did for Frank Grimes at the same time that Smithers introduces Frank Grimes. Mr. Burns orders Smithers to just put him somewhere out of the way and find the dog.

While at work, Frank learns that fellow coworkers, Lenny and Carl, have masters degrees, but Homer just showed up the day they opened the plant. He then goes on to work hard while seemingly everyone else at the plant slacks for most of the day. While trying to save Homer’s life by knocking a beaker of sulfuric acid out of his hand, Frank accidentally knocks it into the wall, causing a large hole to form. Mr. Burns scolds (and hilariously the dog barks at) Frank for the incident, and then Frank is permitted to keep his job…at a reduced salary.

Later in a meeting at the Simpsons’ residence that Homer arranged under false pretenses, Frank is appalled that Homer has a large house, two cars, a wife and two children (one of which owns a factory in that episode) and has been to outer space, among other things. He lashes out at Homer and tells him that he is what’s wrong with America.

Things finally come to a boiling point when Homer, who joins a power-plant design contest that Frank misled him into joining, wins.  Despite that the contest was for children, nobody seemed to notice that Homer was not a child and there was another model that was clearly better than his. Frank loses his temper and goes on a tirade in which he imitates Homer’s reckless and puerile behavior. He eventually dies while grabbing high-voltage equipment unsafely.

Now that we are done with the summation of this story, let’s examine the moral of it. It appears clear that the episode is intended to show that there are a lot of people who get by doing the bare minimum while decent, hard-working folks often do not reap the rewards of their efforts. There are countless stories of people out there who are fired for lame reasons while someone who has the right connections or just dumb luck gets away with murder. Do you or does anyone you know feel this way? Do you feel that you have worked hard only to see others get promoted ahead of you for political reasons or because he or she knows the right person? Do you see people sitting around at work while you work hard and do not get any recognition for it; or even worse than that, do you feel that you take the blame for things that are not your fault? This way of business may be more common than one may expect in the working world today. 

While The Simpsons clearly parodies the issues of nepotism and favoritism, it is clear that such an issue exists beyond the cartoon world. We as a society should not have to bear to grit our teeth as clearly unqualified people move up the proverbial social ladder. The pie should be cut according to the amount of work put in, or whatever other aphorism and/or analogies you can come up with. Such events like the recent economic crisis has shown that by giving these undeserved people, or arrivistes, the entitlement and sense of accomplishment when they accomplished nothing can be detrimental to the very core of society and have a much larger impact that previously believed. While we can all laugh and find some sort of catharsis within Matt Groening’s creation, we should not forget the importance of people like Frank Grimes and his plight to constantly improve our station in life through legitimate, industrious ways.  Maybe it is time for managers to be less concerned with politics, and reward their employees for what they do and what they know, not who they know.