You can't see it when you are within it. If you want to discuss this further, then please open a thread.
Perfectly okay to discuss it here, as it goes to the "evidence" you want to introduce to support your position.
I will say for avoidance of doubt that I know exactly how it works. I was a 'suit' and a haughty schoolgirl myself. I walked into jobs without even being barely interviewed.
That's more to do with upper management, most likely being upper-middle class themselves, picking a grammar school candidate over others of supposedly lower classes. Just the opposite of what you've been arguing. (Not entirely relevant, but you might also want to have a look at the grammar of that last sentence, I'm sure your Grammar school English teacher would have been appalled.)
Where I live now, a car mechanic with years of experience in the car industry would be treated respectfully and his opinion treated likewise. Only in the UK do people sneer, 'What are his qualifications?' (code for is he astablishment?).
Actually, "what are their qualifications?" is a perfectly valid question when someone is opining outside their actual field of experience or expertise. How many full on vehicle fires does the average car mechanic see or have to deal with during their career? I'll take the testimony of someone who has direct experience of a lot of vehicle fires or has made an academic study of such fires as more authoritative.
Similarly, although firefighters deal with a lot of vehicle fires, I wouldn't trust a firefighter to fix my car unless they could show me that they had relevant qualifications. No thanks, I'll go to my local garage who I know have highly qualified car mechanics and years of experience fixing cars.
I respect the ability and knowledge of people
within their field of direct expertise.
What made me see the light? We had a supply teacher for maths when the usual one was away for some reason. To my shame, my class mocked him and refused to take him seriously because he had what was considered a 'common' accent. He left a nervous wreck after one term. When I chatted to someone in later years about Mr. Tyler (sorry, Mr. Tyler!) they said, actually, he was a really good teacher, he really knew his stuff.
Thank you for once again giving us an example (and merely anecdotal at that) of "upper class" people looking down their noses at "lower class" people. Nothing to do with "lower classes" showing deference to "upper classes".
Not to mention the fact that your anecdotes are some 40 to 50 years out of date.
By way of counterpoint, I offer my own purely anecdotal evidence, from the opposite side of the class divide.
I went to a state comprehensive, and one of our supply teachers had a decidedly "posh" accent. He was mercilessly teased and didn't even last a term. Another teacher we had was mercilessly teased for having a lisp, whilst yet another for being bald.
What do these anecdotes have in common with your anecdote?
They are all about ineffectual teachers being unable to control a class full of schoolkids. And my first one shows that there is no special deference for the "upper classes" from the "lower classes", so at least that anecdote was relevant to your basic argument, unlike your anecdote.
So, yeah, this very British idea that people commenting in the DM or youtube as experienced people in the car industry for years can be safely ignored and we should obey the command of someone writing copy instead to stop speculating the fire at Luton Airport car park was a lithium-ion one, is based on pure snobbery IMV.
Nope. It's based on
relevant experience and
relevant qualifications.
Harpenden Fire Stn picture r by Username Vixen, on Flickr
