Yes, but there are also a lot of things not under your control. You might be able to pull ahead quickly of the easy paycheck people, but then you're surrounded by other people with proper drive and dedication. To get ahead of them you need luck to have been given the right opportunity (in hindsight) that payed out, or to be liked more by those who promote you than your colleague, or to be the right sex (which is often irrelevant for the job), or be more beautiful (which often is irrelevant for the job), or being promoted just before the economic down turn and getting another turn when the economy comes up again, or having a family with some problems (like a sick child or spouse), and so on. A lot of these things will have unconscious effects on yourself, your colleagues, and the people that can promote you. It isn't a clear cut choice to perform well anymore to get ahead.
I tried to write my comment very precisely to prevent this type of counter response. You are not saying anything that is different from what I said.
My central thesis is simply that playing the lottery is foolish because it is completely luck and the odds are against you. Entering the corporate world as a means to success is a reasonable move for many to make. It's not about "perform[ing] well to get ahead", it's about how are you going to make your way in life. You could join a corporation and be a backstabbing prick and perform terribly and still get ahead, and maybe that was your calculation and it worked...
The thing that bugs me about the article is the attitude of throwing up of ones hand and succumbing to fate. There's a difference between acknowledging the chaos in the universe and simply being a loser tossed about by circumstance powerlessly.
If that's not a one true scotsman, I don't know what is. Life happens. No matter how hard you try to roll with the punches, sometimes you get hit, and it's foolish to say that you really didn't want to dodge the punch that knocked you out.
