Does meritocracy exist in your workplace?

[canary1990]

i once worked at a large MNC (200-300 headcount in the local office) and there was a young european man who was working at a pretty low-level position. you could tell he was having a hard time because the office was mostly Singaporean or Asian and his first language wasn't English. 

more recently, I decided to see how he was doing and turns out he's now the MD of one of the major European offices of the MNC.

so I think what happened is that he was pretty much handpicked or at least shortlisted to be in senior management from the start but he was also made to go through a "trial of fire" by working in a very junior position in a foreign country. 

in a way, i guess there's no pure meritocracy but like what NewtonsAdamsApple wrote, it's still not easy for the "selected" people to achieve success.