The question posed to a group of young office-goers -- male and female -- was simple: What do they do to enhance their professional skills or equipment? Some of them worked in clerical positions in different places. But some of them were in technical departments in IT or other enterprises where manufacture, too, was involved. Some of them belonged to marketing and sales sections of their organisations -- and almost all of them were in employment for over 6-7 years minimum. By that standards, all of them were senior in their respective organisations (going by current standards). When the question was posed to them, most of them fell silent. They looked at one another, and then turned their gaze to their toes. One or two did talk about what they were reading by way of enhancing their skills etc, and a couple of more persons were studying to appear for examinations for higher certification. Within the group of about 45-50 young persons, there were barely 7-8 persons who asserted that they were engaged in some learning activity in the hope of enhancing their career- prospects. Minus those small numbers, none of the young people in that gathering felt it necessary to undertake any study or skill-practice to enhance their own career-prospects.

 

THIS brings us to a very serious problem of frozen mindsets of young people at the start of their career. Further probing led to some of them stating that they banked on the annual increments in their emoluments and hoped to reach reasonable levels of earnings in a few years when their needs would get settled and they would not be required to indulge in a lot of yearning. All this came up in a longish conversation the loud-thinker had with the group upon whom he happened to stumble a few days ago (in sort of an unofficial gathering of corporate employees). What surprised him no end was the lethargic approach of a majority of persons in the group. Previously, he had felt that corporate employees are driven by high ambitions etc. That experience, however, made the loud-thinker rethink about his earlier impression. Of course, there is no doubt that one need not harbour a scorching ambition to forge ahead in career. There may still be some in that category, all right. However, for most others, moderate ambitions are good enough to make sensible career advancement. But when one runs into a group of young people all around 30 years of age (plus-minus two years) with no evidence of even a moderate career ambition, then it is a time to feel not just surprised but also dismayed to a great extent. Of course, the loud-thinker’s experience in his own organisation, too, is more or less similar -- in the sense most of the young people working in his journalistic organisation make sure that they are not disturbed by career-calling of even moderate ambitions.

 

Their efforts to equip themselves with better professional skills, better knowledge-levels, better people skills etc are lying in the sub-zero zones. This is shocking, to say the least, at least for the loud-thinker who finds it difficult to contain his restless energy at the age of 74 years. He is all the time at unease with himself because he feels that he must acquire better skill and more knowledge about his multi-faceted profession. He is all the time purchasing new books, meeting experts in different fields, accumulating latest information and processed information (which is called knowledge and wisdom). Feeling rather low with the awareness of the frozen mindsets of young people, the loud-thinker opened a conversation with some Human Resource experts in the region -- in personal meeting or telephonic exchanges. Most of them agreed that because a reasonable money is available for young people in whatever jobs they hold, the need to work harder does not exist in a reasonable measure.

 

This certainly does not go well with the general impression that youth means boundless energy or restlessness in favour of moving forward. The loud-thinker agrees that his impression may still be only on a small sample. Yet, when other HR professionals also concur with him on the issue, he realises that there are some serious social issues that need immediate and serious tackling. Possibly, the loud-thinker may not have a ready answer to the problem of frozen mindsets of lots and lots of young people. Yet, he feels strongly that the youth is not youth if not troubled (positively) by burning ambition of whatever nature. He opens the subject for an open social discourse and response from the esteemed readers.