You’ve got that right. I remember we had a teacher that was not only unliked by his colleagues, but the kids couldn’t stand him either. He was constantly out in the hall berating kids in the harshest, mean-spirited way. I suggested to the superintendent that this guy was a liability to the school and district. Then I was the one being berated! Turned out the principal of that school was a close personal friend of the superintendent, and I was “questioning“ her hiring capabilities. We all got treated to a few more years of this idiot until he finally left. Personal friendships over ride doing what’s best for kids. Nothing new here.
Thank you. This is why, when people argue that "personal relationships" will get you the job
and that should be the criteria, I just want to roll my eyes
as loudly and blatantly as I can because if "personal relationships " are all that matter in hiring,
WHAT ABOUT MERIT?
We are told (or were told) to go to college and get various degrees, get a high GPA if possible, and that achievement will open doors for you in the job market.
Then we get to the job market and NO! Merit matters not. Your degrees only matter if, in my region, they came from a
Name Brand University (Yale, Harvard, Boston, Penn State, Brown, UCLA, Stanford, etc.)
But I have a cumulative 3.5 GPA. It's on my resume. I repeated that degree-earning process three times while also taking care of one to six people, depending on what year it was, and usually working PT or FT.
Is that not meritorious?
But then some guy will come along and he also went to the state colleges (2.9 GPA), but he can talk about SPORTSBALL and go drinking after work with the team, while a woman has to rush home to take care of her kids, so he will get the job.
Or a pretty, thin young lady in her 20s will come along, competeing for the same job, and she also went to the state colleges (3.2 GPA) and she will get hired because she is potential dating material. They never say they are hiring dating candidates, but all women know that's how it really works at some workplaces.
I learned all this in the Sociology class I took. Learned all about Thin Slice impressions and Confirmation Bias, and many other types of biases that go into hiring decisions.
So now, when economists argue America has a "merit-based" economic system, I just want to yell at them. They are usually White guys who attended the Name Brand Universities, and they think the economy they have experienced, and their college pals experienced, is how it works all over the nation. Nothing could be further from the facts.