"I get mail; therefore I am." - Dilbert
Laurence J Peter authored Peter Principle (published 1968) in which he contends that "In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence." At the time it was published, the Peter Principle might've seemed novel but now we have Scott Adams' Dilbert who encounters the Peter Principle every day at work.
Increasingly, the world is being run - workplaces, factories, institutions, and entire nations - on the Peter Principle. Simply put, with a few exceptions, most people "running the show" are collectively mad, insensitive, and clueless about the implications of their madness on their immediate subordinates.
The Peter Principle's hypothesis (now a fact) is pretty simple: Promotions are made like this: I excel at my desk job, so I'm made manager of my department. There is absolutely no logic or coherence to this decision. I've only proved my prowess at the desk job and nothing else; I know peanuts about people, let alone managing them. But this unexpected windfall makes me seriously believe in my nonexistent capabilities and I go ballistic. I wreck the system with well-thoughtout, carefully debated mismanagement. To achieve this feat, I spend hours in my cabin summoning other incompetents (who have been similarly promoted) to my desk to tell me what I wish to hear based on which I make decisions that are either completely irrelevant or unnecessary (or both) to my immediate subordinates and are guranteed to obliterate any ounce of happiness they might have previously possessed as workers. They can't shake me up, they can't take me out, so they quit.
But I'm a manager, so I can't be demoted, therefore I'll get promoted again - in a bid to disable my capacity to do direct damage to the grassroots. But in my new role, I'm an unstoppable megalomaniac. My motto is "It's either my way or the highway." Here, I'm not doing direct damage to the grassroots, but I'm causing enough grief to my fellow incompetents in middle management for them to do serious damage to their immediate subordinates, the grassroots, which they do with impish glee.
But now, I'm unshakeable. People under me just have to pray for divine intervention. Morale has plunged, everyone is cynical about everything, workers are desperate, my contribution is there for everyone to see, but I sit royally ensconced in my cabin surrounded by my yes-men telling me things never looked better though there is not an iota of data to prove this hypothesis; customers are baying for my blood, workers are quitting like rats deserting a sinking ship, those who stay are simply biding time, but I sit firmly with my rose-tinted blinkers on because now I'm so far promoted, the world I inhabit has no connection to reality.
But the unhappy people who're actually slaving for me to earn my monthly bomb keep slaving miserably at their unproductive best. Their nonperformance makes me belligerent towards them but it never troubles my nonexistent conscience that I'm the cause of their misery because my incompetence is earning me a paycheck that is 10 times fatter than theirs. Instead of keeping these people happy and trying to address the cause of their unhappiness, I do everything I can to alienate my workforce even further. I can't be demoted for my incompetence, so I demote them if they don't give me what I demand - regardless of how unreasonable my demands are. That's secondary. I'm the BOSS - that's primary.
At an organizational level, the story might end with either the organization running itself to the ground or with hiring and firing the right people. With larger playgrounds, like cities, states, or nations, the story never ends. It's easier for me to perpetuate the damage across larger areas by simply getting lost in the system and installing other incompetents like me to both cover my own back and to avoid having to deal with the mess that that has now snowballed into unmanageable proportions. I should've been at my desk job - where I was doing good work and out of everyone's way. Or I should've been shot after my first promotion. If I'd been shot at the right time, I would've become a martyr (eg. Mahatma Gandhi). Now, I'm just a royal pain in the wrong place (eg. Sonia Gandhi).
That's how Popes are made. That's how High Priests are made. That's how Mullahs are made. That's how Presidents and Prime Ministers are made. That's how the WORLD runs. And you, you miserable nincompoop, you crib about your workplace! HA!
Go read Dilbert and be happy. You're not alone.
