There is a stereotype in the US of the corporate executive who boasts about his common origins and especially the fact that the first job he held at the company was as a peon in the mail room, implying that hard work, tenacity, and humility are the key to a successful career, rather than pompous diplomas, mad leet skillz, and uber prior years of experience in the position sought. Keep your head down, work hard, kiss any ass that comes your way, and eventually a promotion will come your way. Take it, bide your time, and keep riding up, and up, and up!
This is even a stereotype outside the US - Gilbert and Sullivan wrote a song for one of their plays about an “office boy” who advanced to a super-high civil service position by just keeping his big mouth shut and doing as he was told.
Is it still meaningfully possible for the “common” person to this (e.g. not a super-genius, not the CEO’s son, etc.)? E.g. how often is a person able to get promotion after promotion and end up in a lofty corner-office position without worrying too much about college, grad school, or external training? You might eventually do those, but they would be on your own time and schedule, not to “qualify” for any specific promotion.
Was it ever possible for an average person to work their way up from the mailroom to the boardroom?
The CEO of Walmart started out as a teenager doing manual labor, or so they claim. I have no idea if it’s true.
To what extent it’s possible, I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to become the president of a giant multinational corporation without being exceedingly intelligent (and having all the other right soft skills).
Only if you’re good enough. Few mailroom employees are. In fact, I actually knew a guy who was a bus boy, who was hired on the spot by an executive dining at a table he was busing, worked his way up to second in command for a large company, went into politics, and became a cabinet minister in the federal government.
My mom worked her way up from part-time teller to corporate bigwig in banking during the 90’s. It helped that she was a smart, professional women with an encyclopedic knowledge of in-store banking during the height of in-store banking growth. At the same time, she always felt that her lack of a college degree (and kids anchoring her to a location) was a detriment to her upward momentum.
Depends where you are, as well. Different countries have different rates of social mobility. My understanding is that social mobility in the United States is lower than some other places, but not zero. Wikipedia sez mobility increased in the US 1950-1980 and declined since.
Yes it was possible. There are a number of documented cases of employees progressing up the chain to senior leadership roles and even CEO’s.
Is it still possible? I think possible but with the emphasis on requiring a degree to make a sandwich these days it’s becoming increasingly difficult and less likely.
My mother started out as a switch pump operator (for an oil company) and retired as VP for a fortune 500 company. And she somehow managed to do this through the 60’s to 90’s, a time when women weren’t allowed above the glass ceiling. All with nothing more than a HS diploma.
That said, I think the baby boomers were the last one to ride that train. These days companies require a degree before they will even consider you for management.
Yes it is technically possible to win the lottery, too. It doesn’t mean a society is healthy or functional when only a few people are able to do such things. They are considered extraordinary for a reason.
The William Morris Agency is famous for starting people in the mailroom, and eventually move them onto higher positions. But the Wikipedia article makes it clear that this is a formal training program that starts with a position in the mailroom. So the trainees aren’t kids off the street, but presumably are university graduates who compete for the positions.
Most decent companies have scholarships and other programs to encourage and help finance their employe’s education so they can move up the ladder. They will often look for volunteers to get free training and days off if it’s for something they need. So starting in the mail room is not a life sentence.
IMHO, no one who works their way up to the boardroom is an “average person.” Even if the CEO didn’t go to college, he or she would have to have above-average ambition.
I worked for a major bank at the time I went from teller to officer to specialty to teller to mailroom and out. (That’s a long and irrelevant story.)
What sticks with me are the various people I worked with - a woman who was the best branch manager I ever knew, among many, and who had reached that position without a college degree. She was one of the last, as her junior was the opposite: a woman who had been hired on the strength of her finance major and was one of the most inept, stubborn and difficult people I ever met; totally unsuited to a public-contact management job.
Over on the operations side, I knew an ops junior who had absolutely mastered every page of the shelf-long operations manual, not just in letter but in understanding. He could do any task, deal with any situation, smoothly and without ever losing track or composure, no matter what the pressure. He was never going to make operations manager or higher; no degree. I worked with his counterpart, a nice young sprog about my age with a still-wet MBA; I doubt he ever made any mark in the company, the industry or life except on slowly rising business cards.
I think the idea of working your way up from an entry level to C-level was a narrow possibility in decades past, just as it was possible to go from E-1 grunt to officer in the services, but few companies will let anyone into upper ranks, especially the top slots, just because they started off as a hell of a mail clerk, receptionist, delivery man or whatever. Unless Horatio goes through college and development outside the company, he (or she) is going to find a very solid ceiling at an unsurprising level.
There are a bunch of very successful CEOs (Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Michael Dell, Steve Jobs, etc.) who either never went to college or never completed college. What they all have in common is that they headed companies they started themselves.
I suspect it is, but I’m also sure that it takes some formal education along the way.
For example, where I work, it’s not uncommon for the 1st level help desk goons to work their way into higher level help desk positions, and from there, into various other positions in the IT dept. I imagine that it’s possible that given enough time, and some formal education in an IT area along the way, they could become CIO or something.
To me, the biggest impediment wouldn’t be anything specific about the guy, it’s the fact that so many companies look outside these days when looking for upper management positions. So our Mailroom Mustang would probably top out at the point when the company starts looking for outside candidates, because he wouldn’t have the resume to get a similar position elsewhere, and they probably would compare him to outside candidates with more impressive resumes on paper.
Which is unfortunate; the internal guy would likely be an excellent candidate for most positions like that.
Looks like the direct question was answered. Yes, it was and is possible for somebody to work their way up to the top.
A related concept is social mobility. There is some debate about whether or not it’s harder to move up the social or economic ladder than it was a generation ago. Somewhat mixed data, though income inequality (which is increasing in the US) is observed to be correlated with social immobility.
What is less unsure is that the US is not the country where you want to try it. There’s less social mobility here than in the UK, Australia, Japan, Canada (!), or most western European countries, though our stereotype is that some of those countries, the UK in particular, are more constrained by class than we are.
The lottery example may be apt. Yes, it’s possible to win the lottery. That doesn’t tell you how common or easy it is to do so.
I know someone a generation younger than I, who got an English degree, much to the amusement of one all. Ha, ha, ha!
Started at a talent agency as an assistant. Worked up to agent, then to director of foreign rights. Came across a manuscript in the slush pile, asked boss if they could take it on, represent the author, etc. He said, “Knock yourself out!”
They did, in setting up a two book deal with a major publisher, they launched a best selling, award winning author, and was hired by that publisher as a senior editor, shortly after. Promotion followed promotion.
Within five years their title was Publisher, now it’s Publisher and President.
Yes it’s possible, even today, don’t believe people who say otherwise.
(I guarantee you have several books on your bookshelf, from this large, international publishing house. Also, what most people think they ‘know’ about publishing, is often horribly misguided! FYI )
The problem with the lottery example is that all players have the same odds. That isn’t the case in the “work your way to the top” scenario. The “average” person isn’t going to have any chance of hitting the top. In this case it’s pretty safe to say that it takes an extraordinary person to achieve extraordinary results.