It depends on the job. If you are interested in the American caste system you should read this classic

https://www.amazon.com/Remember-me-God-Myron-Kaufmann/dp/B00...

Which tells the story of a Jewish person who fails to persevere against prejudice in a multifaceted and sensitive way. In one scene he gets a job as a bank teller and then realizes in some jobs you’ve got the potential to screw up but no potential to distinguish yourself. The world needs people to milk cows every morning, a job you can screw up but not do it 10x better than competent, there is no Pareto or other “exceptional events” distributions for many essential jobs. ER doctors, taxicab drivers, astronauts, etc.

(Productivity is a product of the system + the people)

I worked on one system that had a 40 minute build if you wanted it to be reliable, the people I picked it up from could not build it reliably which is why the project has been going in circles for 1.5 years before I showed up. With no assistance (and orders that I was not supposed to spend time speeding up my build because it didn’t directly help the customer) I got it to a 20 minute build.

Other folks on the team thought I was a real dope because my build took too long and I was always complaining but they couldn’t build it reliably at all.. I mas two major releases of a product with revolutionary performance in one year at which point I felt that I’d done the honorable thing and that I’d feel less backlash anywhere else whether or not I was creating more value —- so I moved on, and was told by recruiters that they hadn’t found a replacement for me in six months.

Had the place I was working at had a 2 minute build they might never had hired me because they would have had the product ready long before.