"Mentoring" is too much of a buzz-word these days, IMHO, a magic silver bullet to solve employee education issues w/ little cash outlay. Too much connotation toward the positive, methinks.

I've seen mentors who simply have their adept look over their shoulder and answer questions w/ "You'll have to figure that out, like I did" or "If you don't know that, you're in the wrong job". Nothing builds the self-esteme quite like that.

I've seen other mentors who are more motherly, in the "Mommie Dearest" vein. "NO! YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG. ~sigh~ Here ... let *ME* do it!"

More often, tho, the adept comes not with an open mind and heart but with serious self doubt, a short attention span, little patience, fear, or a (oft misplaced) feeling of superiority over the mentor (i.e. "Well, that's not how *I* would do it").

If the above offers too little complexity, the mentor can be overwhelmed with the teaching and covering the workload. Management needs, from time to time, to bite the Catch 22 bullet and sacrifice either the mentoring quality or service quality (I recommend sacrificing the service in the short term, BTW. Benefits of quality training pay off in the long run ... YMMV).

Real life example, I was a firewall and VPN admin. I was in the job for six weeks (w/o mentoring) covering twice as many devices as I should have. We were understaffed, and we finally hired some qualified people. I started with one "grasshopper", but within the week I had all four (my co-workers were if the poor mentoring metal I mentioned). It was painful, but by the end of their second week they were up and running. The adepts were open to what I had to say, took notes dilligently, asked questions, and were not afraid to drive and make a mistake. Their quality as students exceeded my quality as a mentor, tho they claim otherwise.

In short ('bout time!), the adept must show a willingness to learn, and the mentor must possess the willingness to teach. Otherwise it is all for naught.

TIMTOWTDI

p.s. - knowing where to find information is sometimes better than knowing the information (i.e. PM, NNTP, that person in the office who forgot more than you will likely know, etc. <- my mentors in a vastly unstructured and informal way) An excellent question for any adept to ask is "Where can I find out more about this?".

p.p.s. - I also believe, humbly, that mentoring is only one piece to training, like a firewall is only one piece to security. Depending on the person, classes or additional resources (books, magazines, playing with old hardware, etc.) sould come together into a "training plan" with the employee and management agreeing on time frames and resource allocation.
--
idnopheq
Apply yourself to new problems without preparation, develop confidence in your ability to to meet situations as they arrise.

In reply to Re: Who mentored you and how? by idnopheq
in thread Who mentored you and how? by jptxs

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