Find my way?

Deadlines and clients and bugs! Oh My!

Seriously, if your friend is looking for mentoring, one of the local Perl Monger groups, or barring that any local computer oriented group might be a place to start. There are lots of them in different flavors. If your friend is web oriented, the Cold Fusion user groups are fairly friendly (at least IMHO) if there isn't a Perl group around.

Your friend might find someone or some guidance here as well. I'm sure with all the nice friendly folk who inhabit these electronic stone halls there would be someone who would benefit from some mutual dialog.

But to answer your question directly, my mentors were my fellow brothers in the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers LU #164. I learned more about making things work from those folks (most of whom never touched a computer) than anyone else.

Fraternally,

EEjack