Blogophilia Entry - Week 1, Year 2 Topic: You Call That Half?

 

Week 53 Topic: You Call This Half?
bonus points
(hard, 2pts): Incorporate the Peter Principle **
(easy, 1pt): Mention some kind of dessert topping



Please highlight or otherwise point out your bonus points attempts. Don't forget to guess who picked the topic and the bonus picture as well as guessing the bonus secret word or phrase for a chance at more points. Send in your topic, bonus point suggestions and bonus picture for next week after you post your blog!
My guesses are;
Picture - Tyler Murth
Topic - GGP
This weeks Bonus Mystery Points - Give the dog a bone, walk the dog, fetch, play with the dog, playing games, teach an old dog new tricks
** - The Peter Principle is the principle that "In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence." While formulated by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull in their 1968 book The Peter Principle, a humorous treatise which also introduced the "salutary science of Hierarchiology", "inadvertently founded" by Peter, the principle has real validity. 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".
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There is no organization that clings to the Peter Principal any better than the Military. I learned this very early on my my 7 year stint in the Army. But the Icing on the cake came one day when my Battalion Commander tried to have bigamy charges placed against me.
You see, his office was right next to my platoon room. So whenever he looked out the window it was my platoon he saw. Not only was he one of those kind of men that thought women should not be in the Military, but private lives belonged to the Military as well. So I had couple of strikes against me in his book. I was a women (at that time, a pretty one) that lived off base, and had a child, and my Long haired, Rock Photographer Boyfriend (Significant Other that I lived with) would come by every day to pick me up from work either on his motorcycle or his Willies wagon (both were very loud). So he watched us through his window and decided I was morally corrupt simply because of loud pipes, acting like two people in love and long hair.

Well this asshole, decided he needed to investigate me, so he went through my records and discovered I was married to another service member. (He did not notice I was legally separated or that the jerk I was married too had been AWOL for at least a full year or two by that time.) He knew that Texas has a common law marriage rule (You live together for 6 months and you could technically be married). So he decided I was a bigamist and needed to be charged.
Fortunately, the law also stated something to this effect, "If you are legally married in a court of law, you cannot have a common law marriage with anyone else. Therefore no Bigamy could take place." Something I think most of us could have figured out simply by using common sense.
But until JAG was able to send a letter to my commander that I was NOT a bigamist and clear me. It was an intense, emotional, fearful and stress filled month for me. I was suspended from regular duties and made to work in the commanders office. (So not only was he pushing charges, but I had to see and work with him personally on a daily basis for one full month...I would say that was punishment enough!)
The day after the Commander received the letter clearing me. My Platoon was so happy for me (they had my back), they threw a party and bought a wedding cake that said, "Happy No Wedding Day" on it. There was so much much left over that we decided to cut the cake in half. Half for the guys that lived in the barracks to share and cut up in their leisure, the other half to be cut up in smaller pieces to go home with those few of us that lived off base. The guys in the barracks up the cake up, and one of the guys that lived off base shouted, "You call that half!!"
I turned and looked and two thirds of the cake was on one side and only a third was cut to go home with us other 3 people. Ha ha! But as one of the guys pointed out. "We don't have ovens, or a kitchen, we can't make our own cake, so please can we have more than half?" I didn't need the extra calories, so I said why not, and only took home 2 slices, and let them duke it out over the cake. I was just to damn relieved not to be prosecuted and back to normal Army work (knowing I had to watch my ass, because the Commander was going to be PISSED he lost his case against me)