My Peter Principle

"The original (Peter) principle states that
in a hierarchically structured administration, people tend to be
promoted up to their "level of incompetence". The
principle is based on the observation that in such an organization new employees
typically start in the lower ranks, but when they prove to be competent in the
task to which they are assigned, they get promoted to a higher rank. This
process of climbing up the hierarchical ladder can go on indefinitely, until the
employee reaches a position where he or she is no longer competent. At that
moment the process typically stops, since the established rules of bureacracies
(sic) make that it is very difficult to "demote" someone to a lower rank, even
if that person would be much better fitted and more happy in that lower
position. The net result is that most of the higher levels of a bureaucracy will
be filled by incompetent people, who got there because they were quite good at
doing a different (and usually, but not always, easier) task than the one they
are expected to do."  --Prof. F. Heylighen, Free University of Brussels

My first thought/concern was that after 7 years I've really gone nowhere
and although I've bounced into a few lucrative short-term contracts, nothing's
actually worked out that way on a more permanent scale.  That's not to say
in the union environment I'm not permanent --I am--  but I'm on the second
lowest tier of the entire hierarchy.  That hierarchy, last time I checked,
went to at least a 14th level.  In the grand totem pole here, I'm somewhere
underneath the weeds surrounding the base.

My second thought is that I've just kept my usual amount of dumb luck and any
opportunities I've had I've run into bad luck and here's where I've ended up. 
My big mouth opens at the wrong time and I'm relegated here.  But then,
that does show a level of incompetence, right?

If people were to ask me to rate my job satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 10, then
most days (usually when it's just me or my boss & I working) it's at least an 8
or 9.  When the Co-workers From Hell are there, it can easily be a 2. 
Maybe. 

F-Bomb has been told by the boss that she has skills, but her main weakness is
in the details and details is a major part of our jobs.  you miss the
details, then things fall apart.  When she is responsible for scheduling,
why are there so many schedule conflicts?  If Whiner says she can do the
scheduling blindfolded and has proven that her math skills rate below those of a
goldfish, why doesn't she do the scheduling?  And why, oh why, is my boss
convinced that F-Bomb is the going places?  Who has he talked to
about this?

One word I try very hard to keep out of my "work vocabulary" is 'can't'. 
There's nothing I "can't" do, but there are things that I may not understand how
to do and I'll find someone who does to show me how to do it.  No "can't"
there.  The other step in the Peter Principle is that you need to make the
others around you look good in order for them to be promoted and therefore, out
of your hair.  Hopefully.  So, the best thing for me to do is make my
Co-workers (From Hell of course) look good and then they have the opportunity to
move on to something else and get out of my hair --at least while I still have
it.  If they look good then they can move on and I have an opportunity to
make them look good.

I can't.