Employed.. Need Work

In the movie 'Pearl Harbor', there is this scene where Ben Affleck justifies the reason for flying one of the jets which one of his Sr.s referred to as a flying coffin through a single line - 'Not anxious to die, Sir. Just anxious to matter.' which brings me to the power of youth and fresh blood infused into companies each year.

Its amazing the sheer number of people who i have come across, in all the companies that i worked for so far - this one feeling that unites most of them, especially when it is ones first job. The sheer frustration of not having to do anything productive within a company. Most companies recruit freshers - engineers or MBAs with no immediate plans of keeping them occupied. The sheer burning desire to set the world on fire is at its peak at the beginning of ones career, but more than 90% of the freshers are never given any kind of reasonable direction to work and learn. Instead they are just suppressed saying, hey guys - 'this is your honeymoon period so dont bother about work'. Like all things in nature that humans come across, these freshers get used to the idea of not doing anything productive but just whiling away their time. After a while this becomes more of a habit than anything else.

I think all companies need to give a perspective to all these newbies at work as to what is expected of them - in terms of showing them the means to learn, improve themselves and actually set them of path of continuous learning.