It's not that they can't do the routine work, the problem comes in when there is a non routine or out of the usual context problem.
I worked in a place where I was not responsible for engineering issues relating to testing before units were sent off to final assembly and calibration. But... Components were backed up about 45-50 deep, and each assembled unit sold for $25,000 for a base model.
Now, if I solved the problem, I'd get a pat on the head, and a $5 starbucks card. Whee! If the line lead somehow "solved" the problem, she'd be awarded some astounding compensation, because she went above and beyond. So, it took about 20 minutes to BS up a way that she could discover the problem based on what her skillsets were, so as not to look suspicious about how she would know what a boot up sequence was, where the code was loaded into the CPU, etc, etc.
Now, the engineer, and employee number 5 in the company was stumped, completely. He was getting on in years though, so oh well.
It just so happened that the chips that should have been programmed did not have the stickers on them to say what they were programmed with. Not a single one of 5 chips on each board, and each different chip was on a roll of about 500. Doing the math, that averted a disaster of probably several MILLION in delayed sales, or possible canceled orders. And god knows how many WEEKS of engineering time before someone checked to see if there was code on the eeproms, etc.
So, 3 weeks later, the line lead and her husband were off on a vacation to Hawaii, she looked red as a lobster when she got back, but she seemed happy.
Of course, everyone knew who solved the problem, but nobody was going to tell the corporate nitwits, and cheat someone out of a five figure award so I could get my $5 starbucks card.
Still, on another incident, I got kinda pissed, and lit a fire under an engineer to get something done, because otherwise, one cell that had about 30 people scheduled for the weekend, that time would be pissed down the drain. I happened that I could solder, so I helped bang out like 60 boards on a friday, in about 2 hours of overtime. The cell lead made sure I got my starbucks card. Which was lots of laughs all around. I saved the company a mid six figures, and got $5 of sweet sweet starbucks. :D Plus the gal who was soldering next to me. Everyone was red faced because they knew what total bullshit it was to get such a chickenshit reward for such a big game saver. lol!
After that, they started putting pressure on the fearless leaders of the company to revise the rewards system. Because one person, that being me, had saved the company about $1.5 mil on two incidents, and got a whopping $5. Both incidents, I had to do work that was way way the hell out of my area of responsibility. The head of the factory was glad to have me there, the second in command, just gave me the stinkeye all the time, and figured I was some sort of spy, slacker playing possum, evildoer, or general ne'er do well. What can I say, Ted was a dick. lol!