There was an actual Mr. Peter (Laurence J., I think) and he wrote a few books. The Peter Principle, from which his first book took its name, says that workers in an organization each rise to the level of their incompetence. Each time they do well, they get promoted, until they reach a job they can't do competently. Then they simply stick where they are, because they can't be demoted and they can't (by then) be fired either.
Nosnivel