"Fuck Up & Move Up"

[blues]

LSP recently had a Superintendent leave in disgrace. His entire career was spent basically as a PIO and PIO supervisor. We knew he was destined for great things when he made Sgt. In 2 1/2 years. To think working troopers actually made fun of him taking the then Superintendent's clothes to the cleaners and kids to school.....he showed us.

During that time it was pretty much unheard of someone making Sgt. with less than 10, and that was unusual. Took me 12 in Investigations....short bus material

I sometimes wonder if the dumb fucks at the HQ level just want to be surrounded by some dumber fucks they can feel superior to. (Or aren't threatened by.) You gotta admit, it's a pretty universal syndrome and there's gotta be an underlying basis to explain it.

I mean, have you seen some of these mooks in positions of authority at the local, state and federal levels? Fercryin'outloud.

[LSP552]

I sometimes wonder if the dumb fucks at the HQ level just want to be surrounded by some dumber fucks they can feel superior to. (Or aren't threatened by.)

I think they surround themselves with people like themselves. You know, the ones with no shame, no honor and no integrity. That way they aren't reminded what they lack.

[blues]

I think they surround themselves with people like themselves. You know, the ones with no shame, no honor and no integrity. That way they aren't reminded what they lack.

Good point. I was thinking too narrowly about the lack of ability. I completely glossed over the lack of integrity. Thanks for bringing me back to my senses.

[GardoneVT]

I think they surround themselves with people like themselves. You know, the ones with no shame, no honor and no integrity. That way they aren't reminded what they lack.

It's a cycle of organizationational dysfunction.

The clusterfuck starts like this :there's Boss A who likes their post - unfortunately ,they like it too much. Boss A has to promote people as part of the job : but they don't want to promote someone more talented then they are. Someone above Boss A might ask why the hell theyre in charge,and we can't have that. A talented person is a threat, especially if that talented candidate is a bad ass worker bee.

So Boss A fills a promotional post with Candidate B who's a total muppet- but the muppet won't challenge Boss As authority. The guy who shoots his toe off accidentally isn't likely to out-perform the existing supervision,and a checkered work record makes them easy to control. Eventually Boss A Retires, and Supervisor Muppet becomes Boss Muppet. The cycle then repeats.

There's legit business research into how self destructive org chart incest like this happens. Orgs with rigid promotional criteria and little to no peer review appear to be vulnerable to this dynamic.

[Jeep]

Good point. I was thinking too narrowly about the lack of ability. I completely glossed over the lack of integrity. Thanks for bringing me back to my senses.

Integrity? If you were the mayor or the governor or whatever, and looking for a police chief, wouldn't you be looking for someone with . . . um . . . let's call it "flexibility" instead? I mean if the headlines aree bad and it would help to throw some totally innocent subordinate under the bus, this whole "integrity" thing could get in the way. Or suppose a police investigation happened to discover that an alderman whose vote you need is a wholly owned subsidiary of a local street gang? Nah, "flexibility" is what the political sphere is looking for.

[blues]

Nah, "flexibility" is what the political sphere is looking for.

As in the ability to kiss one's own ass when no one in the public will...or screw oneself when the occasion calls for it.

[LSP552]

There's legit business research into how self destructive org chart incest like this happens. Orgs with rigid promotional criteria and little to no peer review appear to be vulnerable to this dynamic.

Yep, Masters degree in Public Administration here, understand bureaucratic crap from the academic and practical aspect.

[KPD]

a checkered work record makes them easy to control.

This, this sums up so much of what I have observed it is tragic.

[willie]

Much of what's described here reminds me of the Peter Principle put forth in 1969 by an author of the same name. The gist is that people are often promoted to their level of incompetency. Furthermore, those making promotion decisions consider only how well the person performed in his current job with little thought given to how well he would do in the slot he was bumped up to. Prof. Peter published his theory before the advent of affirmative action, which sometimes has made a mockery of employee selection processes. My profession was teaching, and I often observed that school district superintendents aren't teachers, and police chiefs are not cops. I suppose it's the nature of politics.

The first year that I taught at my last school assignment, the man who was given the teacher of the year award the previous year showed up drunk on the first day of school. 13 years later the principal was drunk every day. The board knew this. No action taken.

[Highplains45]

Worked for a Chief who greatly resented my squad for doing a good and consistent job on the street. Our squad was headed by a Lt. that the Chief was extremely jealous of for his ability to meet people, develop programs and generate awards for the department. The Chief started calling our squad "F Troop" and meant it in the most demeaning way possible. Since his IT Sgt. was not very good, our network gave everyone access to every department computer. One day the Chief started his computer and the theme song from "F Troop" (60's TV show) started playing and his computer desktop has a background that was the "F Troop" show logo. This also affected all the computers in the report room. A very red faced Chief scheduled a department meeting that day and told all that there would be no name calling, etc., and would all the new music and pictures on the computers please go away.

Same Chief promoted Assistant Chief's who; one allowed to resign over using department computers for porn chat (he became a city councilman), another who was arrested/unarrested for domestic violence and another who was, as a police reserve, investigated for burglary and theft.