level of dumbness

  Today I would like ramble about the phase "level of dumbness". I don't know if anyone knows what I am referring to but it deals with everyone to some degree. I get sick of this but have know I have no glue how to fix it. I see it everyday everywhere and have become numb to it except on rare times. I will tell you about this one time now
 The level of dumbness is simply. Take anyone put them into a place of work and they will do great. Then they get moved up or promoted and then if they do great they move up or promoted again. Sounds great till they move up until they reach the "level of dumbness". Somehow they move up to this level and now they can not preform. They seem lost, confused, or even dumb. The coworkers will wonder why are they in this position. This is where they can not "get a handle on it" or "figure it out" but they have made it to this position and now because they can not handle it they do not get move back down.
 This happens a lot but the employer doesn't want to punish the person. They want them to learn the new spot. Sometimes the employee just gets fired even though one level down they were great maybe even the best. So now that I have said this I wonder when this will happen to me? I hope never but hey I am only human and I do make mistakes to. It is a shame this happens I have a friend who just went through  this I felt so bad. They did the one thing so well and when they were letting them go they did ask if they could have the olds job back and was told no (it had not been filled).
 I now look at a promotion as a scary thing. Is his something I can do? Am I really ready for this? Will this be my "level of dumbness"? Is there a way to work past this or is this just the end of our limits? How would we know or even figure this out? How do you tell your friend they are they? The "level of dumbness" sooner or later we all face it and the only difference is how we deal with it.