Maybe not their occupation, per se but rather their knowledge (of their trade/skill/profession) and quality of work. How many successful surgeries has this intern waiting to graduate medical school preformed?
One my friends has a PhD in math from Stanford. For his thesis he rewrote every grade of the CA public system's math books. But the whole time while he was studying, he worked as a dishwasher and loved it.
Look at the US government. There is a perceived buffoonery thats attached to some level of government because there's a lot of people in government that are f***ing idiots. Like there's a lot of people that work at UPS and DMV that are idiots. But if you get to the highest levels of the organization, they know what they're doing. I mean if you're gonna ascend to the highest levels of the CIA or the NSA you're gonna probably be brilliant. You're gonna have a deep understanding of whats going on of foreign policy and how to manipulate things and intelligence. To be fair, the CIA has a lot of pencil pushing bureaucrats, too…
Connections and luck play a big role. Some people are too smart for the role they are in. Some aren't smart enough for their current position.
What jobs do you like down on and what do you look up to?
My best friend's grandfather is a career master electrician, has a bachelors degree electrical engineering, owned his own electrical company. He teaches classes at one of the top public universities in the country. But he's "an electrician," not a true engineer
