I've experienced all the trouble you describe. But really if a person is truly interested in learning something, there is nothing really stopping him. It hardly takes anything to go to the internet download python, a tutorial and start building something. If a person can't even do as simple a thing like this for his career, than I seriously doubt he will go through the grind and do all tough work required for success.
By all means, complain about getting put into a shitty project. But you can't blame the the company for all your troubles. Because career management really is up to the individual, waiting for somebody else to do it for you really shows lack of seriousness on your part.
I know of a few friends who work on COBOL/Mainframes. Quite few times I had advised to pick up a language like Python for their own good. But often the answers are 'What will I get', 'Will I go onsite doing that', 'Look the other guy did nothing and is still at onsite, why cant I get lucky like that'.
Trust me these people never want to learn. They just want to have it the easy way. Fast forward when they see a good programmer making it big in a product company suddenly they start cribbing about how company/manager didn't help them grow technically. While the fact is all the while they themselves didn't want to go the technical way.
The other parts I totally agree with you. I have faced the same frustration as you do. I even know of managers who had never heard of version control systems. Who never knew what a unit test is, or even simple things like a Excel Macro(Which falls into much of their own work).
Coming to those kind of managers, most of them are now facing the heat. Big Corps are cutting down on managerial layers big time. The 90's and early 2000's rush is over. Every one knows that.
By all means, complain about getting put into a shitty project. But you can't blame the the company for all your troubles. Because career management really is up to the individual, waiting for somebody else to do it for you really shows lack of seriousness on your part.
I know of a few friends who work on COBOL/Mainframes. Quite few times I had advised to pick up a language like Python for their own good. But often the answers are 'What will I get', 'Will I go onsite doing that', 'Look the other guy did nothing and is still at onsite, why cant I get lucky like that'.
Trust me these people never want to learn. They just want to have it the easy way. Fast forward when they see a good programmer making it big in a product company suddenly they start cribbing about how company/manager didn't help them grow technically. While the fact is all the while they themselves didn't want to go the technical way.
The other parts I totally agree with you. I have faced the same frustration as you do. I even know of managers who had never heard of version control systems. Who never knew what a unit test is, or even simple things like a Excel Macro(Which falls into much of their own work).
Coming to those kind of managers, most of them are now facing the heat. Big Corps are cutting down on managerial layers big time. The 90's and early 2000's rush is over. Every one knows that.