03 May 2001

The Peter Principle

Tonight, I finished reading The Peter Principle, a book that was recommended to me ages ago and which has been sitting on the bookshelves for ages. There were some individual observations in the book that seemed useful and accurate, but for the most part I didn't find it to be very compelling. That's not surprising, given its subtitle: Why Things Always Go Wrong. I did find one quote that was pretty good though:

Some employees, on final placement, stop thinking, or at least sharply cut down on their thinking. To mask this, they develop lines of General Purpose Conversation or, in the case of public figures, General Purpose Speeches. These consist of remarks that sound impressive, yet which are vague enough to apply to all situations, with perhaps a few words changed each time to suit the particular audience.

I was reminded of this journal entry from a while back.

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So, it seems Steph has her own version of Cro-Magnon living downstairs from her and that they were in rare form last night. So was Cro-Magnon for that matter, but I'm too lazy to cut and paste the details. Go check out the discussion here.

[Posted @ 11:05 PM CST]