Agreed. As the above type of eager young developer, I can say it has been rather disappointing the lack of mentoring and direction at my first job. Junior programmers are just assigned to a task and expected to complete it. Programmers that don't ask questions and bug other more experienced developers don't survive. Developers like myself learn the ropes after a while, but it's frustrating to have no real direction or encouragement.

I know this probably comes off as the comments of a naive young programmer, but I sort of expected that companies would have some level of formal or informal training. I thought I might even be sent to attend developer events or conferences. At the very least I expected there might be some sort of formal internal forum for knowledge sharing, presentations, etc.

Because of (what feels like) a lack of skill advancement, I spend the majority of my free time playing around with technologies I feel like I should be learning at work. But at most companies there seems to be this "We're not paying your to learn" attitude. It's very disheartening coming from a university environment. Plus it seems kind of self-destructive in some cases; if a company as a whole falls behind its competitors technologically, how can it be effective as a business in the technology sector?

I suppose by posting this i'm just making an argument for why i'm a nailgun/drywall saw type of guy. Hopefully the transition to a working environment will only get easier.