While having my daily shot of RSS feeds this morning, I came across the
Securology blog and an excellent post
I found there. It explains why NOT to get a job in Information
Security, and attempts to convince the reader to think again if InfoSec
really is what they want. Although I honestly don't agree with
everything they write, it does have a layer of truth underneat it: if
you are drawn to it because of the salaries, don't do it.
Thanks to said blog post I also got to know the Peter Principle, of which I hadn't heard before. It made me smile, as again I can quite agree with it. For your information, according to Wikipedia, it basically is the principle that "In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence." It holds that in a hierarchy, members are promoted so long as they work competently. Sooner or later they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent (their "level of incompetence"), and there they remain. Peter's Corollary states that "in time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out his duties" and adds that "work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence".
As yearly performance reviews are currently in progress in my company, I forwarded the explanation of the principle to some colleagues who didn't get their review yet. You know, might help them to convince the boss, right? ;) Apperantly there's another principle that could be even more relevant, namely the Dilbert Principle. Again according to Wikipedia (I know, I should learn to use better sources!) The Dilbert Principle claims that incompetent employees are intentionally promoted to prevent them from doing harm (such as reducing product quality, offending customers, offending employees, etc.). It draws upon the idea that in certain situations, the upper echelons of an organization can have little relevance to the actual production and the majority of real, productive work in a company is done by people lower in the power ladder.
Must be a very satisfying job to work in a company that 'implements' both principles!
Thanks to said blog post I also got to know the Peter Principle, of which I hadn't heard before. It made me smile, as again I can quite agree with it. For your information, according to Wikipedia, it basically is the principle that "In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence." It holds that in a hierarchy, members are promoted so long as they work competently. Sooner or later they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent (their "level of incompetence"), and there they remain. Peter's Corollary states that "in time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out his duties" and adds that "work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence".
As yearly performance reviews are currently in progress in my company, I forwarded the explanation of the principle to some colleagues who didn't get their review yet. You know, might help them to convince the boss, right? ;) Apperantly there's another principle that could be even more relevant, namely the Dilbert Principle. Again according to Wikipedia (I know, I should learn to use better sources!) The Dilbert Principle claims that incompetent employees are intentionally promoted to prevent them from doing harm (such as reducing product quality, offending customers, offending employees, etc.). It draws upon the idea that in certain situations, the upper echelons of an organization can have little relevance to the actual production and the majority of real, productive work in a company is done by people lower in the power ladder.
Must be a very satisfying job to work in a company that 'implements' both principles!
