The best supervisors in my plant came from the ranks of the production workers.......
Once the corporation started hiring "college degreed" individuals for supervision, without an ounce of plant production experience, it went downhill from there......
A college degree may work in the corporate office, but on the plant floor, there is no substitute for actual experience......
Bump. Essayist James Fallows once wrote a long article on "credentialism", the new official religion (with statist "scientific" materialism), and pretty much took it apart like a broiled chicken. Think it appeared in The Atlantic Monthly back in, umm, about 1984. How dare he.
I have a degree and work as a records manager/archivist in a government office. Yet the most knowledgeable person in our office started here fresh out of high school over 40 years ago. She has knowledge that can only be gained by coming up through the ranks. I have great respect for her.