Peter Principle

In 1968 Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull put into print a book called The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong which describes a simple observation that states anything that works is often used in progressively more challenging applications until it fails. This means that a machine will only function optimally at the tasks it was specifically designed for and once it is used beyond its intended task its usefulness will degrade or the machine will utterly fail. This also applies to people in a work environment. A person which was trained as a master metalsmith and excels in his duties and only his specific duties would likely be an incompetent manager of the company. Especially if his judgment is poor and his leadership skills are lacking.

The Peter Principle is an important subject of discussion it is very common that employees get promoted to a more important position in the hierarchy of a company based on the aptitudes that apply to their current job, instead of the additional aptitudes that would be required if they were to be promoted to a more important position in the company. As such they are likely to be incompetent and if the number of incompetent employees is greater than competent ones the business will fall into disarray.

During the summer of last year I worked at an ice cream shop named Cold Stone Creamery nearby where I live. I made a few good friends there and one of which was a girl named Molly. She had been working at that particular shop for almost 2 years. Her ice cream mixing skills were impeccable and no one was able to make a faster batch of ice cream cakes than she could. She was extremely kind but a little quiet and it was often difficult for her to express herself because she was always so worried she would offend someone. Regardless, she got along with everyone in the store.

Another one of my coworkers named Jeremy had started working there a few months before I did and was one of the more popular people who worked at the store. He wasn't very good at making ice cream cakes and he didn't make the most appetizing batches of ice cream but he made a lot of friends very quickly and often found himself leading the closing shift so well that they would get everything cleaned and put away about half an hour sooner than it would normally take to close up shop.

The manager picked up on his ability to manage other employees and made him a shift supervisor a few weeks or so after I was hired. The main focus of this new title wasn't any different than what he was doing previously, he just earned a small pay raise and was given a new title that would force other employees to listen to him. Of course no one needed to be forced to listen to him, he was the most popular person in the store.

A month or so later the assistant manager quit so that he could pursue a new job with greater pay and a better work environment. Obviously the store manager needed to find a new assistant manager to help maintain the more