Trope, eh? It’s merely a day to day reality, in most job environments (that I have worked in). A very small percentage of people work on “cutting edge” stuff. What is required of the majority is both the level of technical skill to keep something working and the perseverance/discipline to do that without mental suffering and in a consistent and timely manner. Which is exactly what a high score at a sufficiently ranked institution predicts pretty well. And this is true and independent of changes fomented by “capitalism” (*).
This is not about the kind of change many of us would like to see, such as organising workers or demanding ethical behaviour from the corporation, etc. I am talking about some of the kind of changes that are celebrated in business schools and in empty rhetoric from upper management. The stuff about disruption, innovation, best practices, etc., (example: “Agile methodologies”). It’s all bullshit and lip service.
Joanna offer herself up as an example: she has aced every standardised test she has taken, and I will add, she graduated with an advanced degree from one of the most premier institutions in the world (IMHO, pretty much the #1). Yet, she says, she wants to blow everything up. But, the question is, does she? Or does she instead turn in acceptable or better work, on a consistent basis? I bet it’s the latter.
There are outliers, no doubt. High academic performers who do poorly at their job. But this is not an exact science.
—ravi
(*) If at all some monolithic entity called “capitalism” is out fomenting “incessant change”, it is quite possible (and likely) that that is done not ground up through workers who are incessantly introducing change, but by pitting one set of workers against another.