About ants and birds

During a recent lunch...

Senior manager: We need more guys with just a professional training in our country instead of youngsters with a lot of useless degrees from the university.
Me: With due respect, sir, I strongly believe that young graduates can add more value to our economy than people without a bachelor degree. Fresh engineers have learnt new ideas and methods during the academic period. Have you heard about knowledge economy?
Senior manager: Nonsense. You seem a bit elitist and full of prejudice. What society wants are people like those Portuguese labourers. In fact, they may be earning more money than you.

Needless to say that the old manager knows little about the remuneration and working conditions of the Portuguese manpower. Needless to say that he comes from a bourgeois family while my family is full of on-site workers that have never had the chance to go to the university, like my beloved uncle in the above picture.