Murphy's Laws: The Ultimate Guide to Life's Inevitable Humor.

Paul Principle: People become progressively less competent for jobs they once were well equipped to handle.

Paul's Law: You can't fall off the floor.

Paulg's Law: In America, it's not how much an item costs, it's how much you save.

Peck's Programming Postulates (Philosophic Engineering applied to programming):

In any program, any error which can creep in will eventually do so.
Not until the program has been in production for at least six months will the most harmful error be discovered.
Any constants, limits, or timing formulas that appear in the computer manufacturer's literature should be treated as variables.
The most vital parameter in any subroutine stands the greatest chance of being left out of the calling sequence.
If only one compiler can be secured for a piece of hardware, the compilation times will be exorbitant.
If a test installation functions perfectly, all subsequent systems will malfunction.
Job control cards that positively cannot be arranged in improper order, will be.
Interchangeable tapes won't.
If more than one person has programmed a malfunctioning routine, no one is at fault.
If the input editor has been designed to reject all bad input, an ingenious idiot will discover a method to get bad data past it.
Duplicated object decks which test in identical fashion will not give identical results at remote sites.
Manufacturer's hardware and software support ceases with payment for the computer.

Peckham's Law (Beckhap's Law?): Beauty times brains equals a constant.

Peers's Law: The solution to a problem changes the problem.

Captain Penny's Law: You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool MOM.

Perelman's Point: There is nothing like a good painstaking survey full of decimal points and guarded generalizations to put a glaze like a Sung vase on your eyeball.

Perkin's postulate: The bigger they are, the harder they hit.

Perlsweig's Law: People who can least afford to pay rent, pay rent. People who can most afford to pay rent, build up equity.

Persig's Postulate: The number of rational hypotheses that can explain any given phenomenon is infinite.

Law of the Perversity of Nature: You cannot successfully determine beforehand which side of the bread to butter.

Peter Principle: In every hierarchy, whether it be government or business, each employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence; every post tends to be filled by an employee incompetent to execute its duties. Corollaries:
Incompetence knows no barriers of time or place.
Work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence.
If at first you don't succeed, try something else.

Peter's Hidden Postulate According to Godin: Every employee begins at his level of competence.

Peter's Inversion: Internal consistency is valued more highly than efficiency.

Peter's Law of Evolution: Competence always contains the seed of incompetence.

Peter's Law of Substitution: Look after the molehills and the mountains will look after themselves.

Peter's Observation: Super-competence is more objectionable than incompetence.

Peter's Paradox: Employees in a hierarchy do not really object to incompetence in their colleagues.

Peter's Perfect People Palliative: Each of us is a mixture of good qualities and some (perhaps) not-so-good qualities. In considering our fellow people we should remember their good qualities and realize that their faults only prove that they are, after all, human. We should refrain from making harsh judgments of people just because they happen to be dirty, rotten, no-good sons-of-bitches.

Peter's Placebo: An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance. Peter's Prognosis: Spend sufficient time in confirming the need and the need will disappear.

Peter's Rule for Creative Incompetence: Create the impression that you have already reached your level of incompetence.

Peter's Theorem: Incompetence plus incompetence equals incompetence.

Peterson's Law: History shows that money will multiply in volume and divide in value over the long run. Or, expressed differently, the purchasing power of currency will vary inversely with the magnitude of the public debt.

Phases of a Project:

Exultation.
Disenchantment.
Confusion.
Search for the Guilty.
Punishment of the Innocent.
Distinction for the Uninvolved.

Phelps's Laws of Renovation:

Any renovation project on an old house will cost twice as much and take three times as long as originally estimated.
Any plumbing pipes you choose to replace during renovation will prove to be in excellent condition; those you decide to leave in place will be rotten.

Phelps's Law of Retributive Statistics: An unexpectedly easy-to-handle sequence of events will be immediately followed by an equally long sequence of trouble.

Theory of the International Society of Philosophic Engineering:

In any calculation, any error which can creep in will do so.
Any error in any calculation will be in the direction of most harm.
In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from engineering handbooks) are to be treated as variables.
The best approximation of service conditions in the laboratory will not begin to meet those conditions encountered in actual service.
The most vital dimension on any plan or drawing stands the greatest chance of being omitted.
If only one bid can be secured on any project, the price will be unreasonable.
If a test installation functions perfectly, all subsequent production units will malfunction.
All delivery promises must be multiplied by a factor of 2.0.
Major changes in construction will always be requested after fabrication is nearly completed.
Parts that positively cannot be assembled in improper order will be.
Interchangeable parts won't.
Manufacturer's specifications of performance should be multiplied by a factor of 0.5.
Salespeople's claims for performance should be multiplied by a factor of 0.25.
Installation and Operating Instructions shipped with the device will be promptly discarded by the Receiving Department.
Any device requiring service or adjustment will be least accessible.
Service Conditions as given on specifications will be exceeded.
If more than one person is responsible for a miscalculation, no one will be at fault.
Identical units which test in an identical fashion will not behave in an identical fashion in the field.
If, in engineering practice, a safety factor is set through service experience at an ultimate value, an ingenious idiot will promptly calculate a method to exceed said safety factor.
Warranty and guarantee clauses are voided by payment of the invoice.

Phone Booth Rule: A lone dime always gets the number nearly right.

Pierson's Law: If you're coasting, you're going downhill.

Pike Law of Punditry: The successful pundit is provided more opportunities to say things than he has things worth saying.

Axiom of the Pipe. (Trischmann's Paradox): A pipe gives a wise man time to think and a fool something to stick in his mouth.

Plotnick's Law: The time of departure will be delayed by the square of the number of people involved.

Law of Political Erosion: Once the erosion of power begins, it has a momentum all its own.

Politicians' Rules:

When the polls are in your favor, flaunt them.
When the polls are overwhelmingly unfavorable, either (a) ridicule and dismiss them or (b) stress the volatility of public opinion.
When the polls are slightly unfavorable, play for sympathy as a struggling underdog.
When too close to call, be surprised at your own strength.

The Pollyanna Paradox: Every day, in every way, things get better and better; then worse again in the evening.

Potter's Law: The amount of flak received on any subject is inversely proportional to the subject's true value.

Poulsen's Law: When anything is used to its full potential, it will break.

Pournelle's Law of Costs and Schedules: Everything costs more and takes longer.

Powell's Law: Never tell them what you wouldn't do.

Law of Predictive Action: The second most powerful phrase in the world is "Watch this!" The most powerful phrase is "Oh yeah? Watch this!"

Preudhomme's Law of Window Cleaning: It's on the other side.

Price's Law of Politics: It's easier to be a liberal a long way from home.

Price's Law of Science: Scientists who dislike the restraints of highly organized research like to remark that a truly great research worker needs only three pieces of equipment -- a pencil, a piece of paper, and a brain. But they quote this maxim more often at academic banquets than at budget hearings.

The Principle Concerning Multifunctional Devices: The fewer functions any device is required to perform, the more perfectly it can perform those functions.

Law of Probable Dispersal: Whatever hits the fan will not be evenly distributed. (also known as the How Come It All Landed On Me Law)

Laws of Procrastination:

Procrastination shortens the job and places the responsibility for its termination on someone else (the authority who imposed the deadline).
It reduces anxiety by reducing the expected quality of the project from the best of all possible efforts to the best that can be expected given the limited time.
Status is gained in the eyes of others, and in one's own eyes, because it is assumed that the importance of the work justifies the stress.
Avoidance of interruptions including the assignment of other duties can be achieved, so that the obviously stressed worker can concentrate on the single effort.
Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling that there is nothing important to do.
It may eliminate the job if the need passes before the job can be done.

Productivity Equation:

The productivity, P, of a group of people is: P = N x T x (.55 - .00005 x N x (N - 1) ) where N is the number of people in the group and T is the number of hours in a work period.

Professional's Law: Doctors, dentists, and lawyers are only on time for appointments when you're not.

Project scheduling "99" rule: The first 90 percent of the task takes 90 percent of the time. The last 10 percent takes the other 90 percent.

Proverbial Law: For every proverb that so confidently asserts its little bit of wisdom, there is usually an equal and opposite proverb that contradicts it.

Public Relations Client Turnover Law: The minute you sign a client is the minute you start to lose him.

First Rule of Public Speaking: Nice guys finish fast.

Pudder's Law: Anything that begins well ends badly. Anything that begins badly ends worse.

Puritan's Law: Evil is live spelled backwards.

Corollary: If it feels good, don't do it.

Putney's Law: If the people of a democracy are allowed to do so, they will vote away the freedoms which are essential to that democracy.

Putt's Law: Technology is dominated by two types of people -- those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand.

Q's Law: No matter what stage of completion one reaches in a North Sea (oil) field, the cost of the remainder of the project remains the same.

Rakove's Laws of Politics:
The amount of effort put into a campaign by a worker expands in proportion to the personal benefits that he will derive from his party's victory.
The citizen is influenced by principle in direct proportion to his distance from the political situation.