Experiencing the Peter Principle, Firsthand

I AM ASTOUNDED by the administrative incompetence which permitted our best employee at the senior center to resign, indeed, to force her to resign. In fact, she was fired. How many times has it happened wherein administrators or managers, wanting to avoid paying unemployment benefits to former employees, harassed an employee into resigning, to avoid terminating the person. how many times has this happened? Your guess is as good as mine, and I'll bet that whatever we guess, our guesses are large numbers. Because we all know in the United States of Avarice, the almighty dollar is king, and it happens all the time, along with many many other unsavory forms of behavior related tog reed. The funny thing about administrators, and her I am referring to administrators of public and government institutions, mainly, is that they all appear to be models of competence. Well dressed always,often regal in demeanor, administrators in general, and my experience is overwhelmingly with administrators in academia, from preschool to college, tend I find to exude a certain regal manner, an air of authority if you will, as as if they belong in their lofty positions in no uncertain terms I am now convinced all that is sheer fakery, a cover for ineptitude.those who can't teach, teach teachers, that sort of thing. According to the peter principle, taken from a popular book from the seventies, people are promoted up to their highest level of ability, promoted as high as their abilities permit. and then, promoted one step higher. In an organizational hierarchy, people rise to their level of incompetence. 1969, "The Peter Principle", by Laurance Peter. A great read. Very funny. Thus, according to peter, we end up with a society of leaders whoa re all one level above their actual level of intelligence and competence. Throughout my thirty five year teaching career, I never really liked administrators, principles and assistant principles, although i have always understood their necessity and value. it was their personalities and treatment of me which alienated me, and that is plenty. Of course, admittedly, I do not like authority, and don't always respond affirmatively to it, though most of the time I manage. As I age, my disrespect for most forms of authority and my belief in greater democracy in the workplace makes me a less and less suitable worker, so, in that respect, my advancing age is not the only factor destroying my employability. Americans in general have a distaste for authority, because of their history of rebellion against oppression, and because of their culture of individual accomplishment. workplace democracy is the perfect evolution for the American economy, and the fact that we lack it now is yet another proof that in America, we the majority of people are governed by a small minority of wealthy elite corporate power brokers. Long live the people, long live the revolution.