I didn't realise that Mentor was a buzzword now. I shall ignore that for the purpose of this post.

I often think that when people think that they need a mentor, what they need more is a 'sounding block'. Somebody to 'bounce' ideas at. From the definition (as previously posted): "A wise and trusted counselor or teacher". Not necessarily somebody who knows more than you, not necessarily somebody more knowledgeable in a specific field, not even someone who knows the right answer. But a person to comment and give sound criticism on your thoughts.

This can be anyone. You parents, your friends, your colleagues, your children, newspapers, the internet. All are sources of information.

Life is like Perl: TIMTOWTDI. If you want a mentor, then ask yourself "why?", then look around at the people surrounding you and put your problems to them. You will often be surprised by the answers they give. If you want a teacher, or somebody to tell you the 'right' answers, then I suggest reading a book.

I would say that I have mentor here at work. He doesn't know any Perl. He is more of a business analyst, but he has coded in Fortran (which helps). He can often shed light on a problem - and I then if I need to I refer to the documentation on how to implement it with Perl.

So, in short, there are many mentors out there, they just all have their own topics and their own way of understanding what you need to know. Many of my mentors never knew the role they filled.

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Graq