Hello,

I have worked in IT (mostly programming) for over ten years. I just started a new job with a very large (global) company about two months ago. My assignment is on a team that is responsible for an extremely complex system. The system itself is based on a programming language that I am very familiar with, but architecturally, it is not intuitively easy to understand and therefore very difficult to troubleshoot or modify.

My biggest problem is that I have received little or no formal training in this system since day one. For the most part, I have been left to learn the system on my own. There are two or three other people that I can consult when I have a question (and I have a LOT of questions), but they are not always available. The documentation itself is not very well-written or organized, in my opinion, which leads to even more confusion. My supervisor has told me that he can also attempt to assist me as much as possible, but not to any great extent because he also does not clearly understand the system himself.

After a couple of months of constant trial and error and non-stop questions to my coworkers, I have really made very little progress in regard to understanding how the system works at all. I am finding that it is now adversely affecting my confidence and morale. In every other job that I have had, there has been at least a moderate amount of organized training, where other employees have sat with me for extended periods of time and actually walked through procedures with me whenever necessary. That is not the case here, and I think that is mainly because my other team members are so overburdened with their own responsibilities, they simply don't have time to formally train a new employee. Even more oddly, nobody seems to care that I am pretty much being paid a decent salary without really having any clue about what I am supposed to be doing (at least not yet). However, I care a great deal about it. This makes me angry and frustrated, and feeling abandoned (and also in doubt about my future here). I want to be productive, but under these circumstances, it's just not possible.

I really don't know what to do. I have a meeting scheduled with my boss later in the week, but I'm not totally comfortable with telling him that I have no idea of what I am doing after two months. Sometimes I feel that they are taking for granted that I should just already know some of the things that have me perplexed, but if that is the case, then their technical evaluation (which I passed prior to being hired by them) is lacking, and they hired me for a position that is over my head - which is their problem, not mine. I just don't know.

I guess I'm really just venting here more than anything else. Hopefully the meeting with my boss will help the situation, but I'd still like to know if my scenario is common elsewhere - and how others have dealt with it.