It's the bullshit where to move up, you have to get "management" experience, so the lowest available management positions -- at least in retail and customer service -- are full of largely unqualified people who rarely earned the position, and often negatively impact the business's performance, if at all. But if you want out and can't afford/stomach a total career change, getting something that says supervisor or manager on your resume is your only ticket out of the trenches. Companies exploit that, since odds you'll continue to climb typically suck, and the idea of actually climbing often sucks even worse (my last was in a call center of 500-600 agents. Supervisors were a mix of competent and cockups, but managers above them were almost entirely selected for their ability to smile and lie -- the most competent supervisor I knew was shockingly promoted to manager, and it seems it was so she could handle the 3 other managers' technical duties while they split her share of the lying).

Might be untrue, but it seems we're at least supposed to believe that you could be the most capable employee and/or qualified leader in the history of retail, but if you don't stick in one spot and kiss ass long enough to get a management title, you're going to have a hell of a time improving your career. I have a friend who is a hell of a guy, but no formal education, who's been likable, loyal, and lucky enough to go from lube tech to a manager in manufacturing -- doing better now than many people I know with academic/vocational degrees -- but man, the fact that he actually deserves it makes his story twice rare.

I enjoy the role of being a skilled resource for colleagues - everywhere I've ever worked, I've excelled in my duties and helped train others -- but the people I see in those roles rarely find financial reward. I've heard at some tech companies, they've started to solve this by offering non-management trees for advancement so that they can retain skilled people who have no talent/desire for management.