Letter from Lhasa, number 128. (Peter 2009): The Peter Principle. Why Things Always Go Wrong
by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi
Peter, L. J., and R. Hull, The Peter Principle. Why Things Always Go Wrong, Collins Business, 2009.
(Peter 2009).
Laurence J. Peter,
Raymond Hull
This is an amusing, although very serious, book on hierarchiology.
The morons at the top must be paid to waist as mush taxpayer money as possible. Final Placement Syndrome. Abnormal Tabulology. Tabulology Gigantism. Teeter-Totter Syndrome. Cachinatory Inertia. Incompetence knows no barrier and no place. The skills to get a job often have nothing to do with what is required to do the job itself. Extremely skilled and productive employees often face criticism and they are fired if they don't start performing worse. Structurophillia. Staticmanship. Percussive Sublimation. Peter's Circumambulation. A Theory of Decline. Individuals perform worse after having received a promotion. Organisations rarely fire incompetent people. You have to show you have reached the required level of incompetence. In a hierarchy, a promotion is from a level of competence to a level of incompetence, or from a level of incompetence to a level of more incompetence. You have to rise in your level of incompetence. In time, every post tend to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry on its duties. The percussive sublimation is a pseudo-promotion for deceiving people outside the hierarchy. The larger the hierarchy, the easier is the lateral arabesque. You have heard of the nurse who says: “Wake up! It's time to take your sleeping pill!” Professional automatism: the paperwork is more important than the purpose for which it was originally designed. The superior will rate his subordinates in terms of his level of incompetence. Internal consistency is valued more highly than efficient service. The case of the brilliant, productive worker who not only wins no promotion, but is even dismissed from his post. Super-competence is more objectionable than incompetence. Super-competence often leads to dismissal because it disrupts the hierarchy. Hierarchal Exfoliation. The Paternal In-Step. Find a patron and motivate the patron. Multiple patronage is better: many a patron makes a promotion. Nothing fails like success. Nothing succeeds like failure. Good followers do not become good leaders. Hypercaninophobia Complex: fear that the underdog may become the top dog. Capitalistic, socialistic and communistic systems are characterised by the same accumulation of redundant and incompetent personnel. Any government/State will fall when its hierarchy reaches an intolerable state of maturity. When an employee reaches his level of incompetence, he can no longer do any useful work. Creative incompetence. An employee is judged by his appearance. If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else. Negative thinking has health-giving power.
Peter, L. J., and R. Hull, The Peter Principle. Why Things Always Go Wrong, Collins Business, 2009.
