Give me some time to set the prologue. "The first American," as he was called and the youngest of 17 children, he grew up in Boston, and was raised by a father who made a living by making soap and candles, and one remarkable mother. This boy was taken out of school at the age of 8, was apprenticed to his brother, a printer, and was expected to work for him until the age of 21. Benjamin – I take the liberty of calling him Ben – seems to have taught himself how to read, failed two classes of math (my kind of guy) and could do about anything he set his mind to do. Anyway, he decided he couldn't stand the abuse of his brother and snuck off at the age of 16 with not much more than the clothes on his back and some loose change in his pocket and wound up in Philadelphia.

For the next 25 years, he started a printing business, learned three languages, helped start a volunteer fire department, police force, library and a college. Please get a book on our history and read everything you can about this Benjamin Franklin. He was amazing! Oh, some sayings of his, "Well done is better than well said." "Being ignorant is not as bad as being unwilling to learn." "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." "Hard work is the mother of good luck." Keep reading.

One of my favorite books is "The Peter Principle" and its central point is, "In a hierarchical organization, employees will typically be promoted until they reach a level where they are no longer competent."

In other words, the guy/gal did great as a salesperson, but was not capable of being a sales manager. Hang on.

A good friend of mine – who happens to be a great professor of mathematics – told me a story one day. He happened to be working on one of those off-shore oil platforms as an engineer when one of the workmen asked him, "What are you doing with all that paperwork? It looks like all you do is to look at gadgets, equipment, gauges and scribble something on a notebook. I'll bet you make a lot of money. Heck, I could do that. How'd you get the job?"

I told him, "All you have to do is to get a degree in math, engineering and work for 10 years learning everything you can about the risks involved in off-shore drilling operations."

The workman said, "Forget that I asked."

The final paragraph in my beginning is that there is no such thing as luck for most folks. My definition is pretty simple. Real luck is when preparation and opportunity meet. We can all sit around and wait for the money train to come our way, spend a pile of money on a so-called sure thing, win the lottery or just be in the right place at the right time, or ... the list can go on for a very long sentence.

Now for the reason. Too many individuals are given positions of great importance, in leadership or powerful control of extraordinarily critical jobs that these appointees have absolutely no training, discipline or experience to even pretend to know what they must know. Their only requirement is to be completely loyal to the boss, do what they are told to do, show up for work and stay out of the limelight. I just don't want to hear such stuff as, "Maybe we'll be lucky enough that he/she won't burn the place down." "Perhaps he/she will get some really good on-the-job training." "Pray that nothing really bad happens."

Here's a possible solution. Work very hard to help those in charge do a good job by criticizing in an effective way when necessary, provide as much help as needed, make certain that the job is structured in such a way that little damage can be caused and work very hard to replace a truly incompetent boss.

Now, folks, if we're stuck with appointees and we can't change what we get, then let's put on our boots and slickers and tough it out.

God has brought us this far and He will be with us all the way.

Thanks, God!