I have read the messages above and let me narrate the experience of a friend in UK.
In his first job in an engineering company, he was given the Blue Book - a book about rules and regulations - and asked to read and digest all about it. He was not a HR person. At the time he joined there were some problems with the development of a new product and all the efforts were towards solving that. So, it was well over a month before he got his first proper assignment of testing a product.
Much later in life, after being appointed as the Regionsal Asst Manager, he was not allowed to do the job that he did as a Principal Productivity Services Analyst and as the Assistant Manager he had practically nothing to do. Whenever he asked the Manager for work, he would say "Be patient, young man, all in good time". Then the work he got was to check some summary reports before despatching. When the manager suddenly died one day, and he had to step into his shoes, he did not know what his boss did. But over two weeks he realised that the manager did not have much to do either. The manager used to spend a lot of time travelling between sites (there were 7 sites where analysts worked) talking to analysts and the warehouse managers.
So, he decided to get higher qualifications and finally quit the place.
Have a nice day.
Simhan
A retired academic in UK