Whatever your job, mentoring is your job – and the one that matters most

When I started coding for a living 43 years ago, I didn't know shit from Shinola. I'd written a lot of BASIC, some Z80 assembler, and knew my way around floppy drives and a disk operating system. I knew nothing at all about how to operate as a junior engineer in a professional environment. I lucked out. My two "seniors" on …

[Anonymous Coward]

There's an extra reason why you want to mentor

Coaching and teaching also have a beneficial side effect for yourself: YOU learn something new as well (if not you're doing it wrong :) ).

Someone else will always ask questions about things you may not have thought about of of which you don't actually know enough detail, and through helping someone else you gain more depth yourself - knowledge wise as well as as a human being.

At least; that's my experience. IMHO, you're never done with learning, even if others consider you an expert.

To me, the true expert is one who readily shares their skills and insight. Those who do not still have a way to go..

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: There's an extra reason why you want to mentor

You learn something new every day. Even if it's just "what questions are people always asking" - and therefore what am I explaining badly / what points do I need to emphasise more. Plus when someone asks you something out of the blue, and you have to go off and learn the answer.

The other useful thing is that knowledge is mostly "use it or lose it". So if you're a supposed expert in a wide field, there's probably stuff you're not doing every day. But someone you're talking to might. And that regular use, keeps that knowledge fresh in your head. Ready for when you need it.

Not that sharing knowledge is an option for me. Our company advise on the Water Regulations and I'm in technical sales. So if I can't tell people how to comply with them, what use am I? Plus we sell kit for the purpose of complying with them - so we'd not sell much if we didn't.

During the pandemic, there were a lot fewer projects, but also engineers were working from home with much more time on their hands and so were looking stuff up rather than asking questions. I noticed for a few months afterwards that I'd be asked a question and the answer might pop into my head - like when you're at a pub quiz and you know the answer but don't know why you know it. But with that doubt of, nobody's asked me this in a year, am I remembering right? Worse, they'd issued a new version of the Water Regs guide, and my shiny new copy no longer falls open to the right pages, where I'd damaged the spine...

Although I've often had people refuse computer based mentoring. A friend of mine is a real duffer with pooters. So I fixed a problem for him, and went to explain what went wrong and how to avoid it in future. And he stopped me and said, "There's no point trying to explain this to me. I don't understand computers. I understand wood." [immediately picks up polished piece of oak from his desk and strokes it lovingly.] He's a furniture designer and cabinet maker. Immensely talented at that, computers, not so much.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: There's an extra reason why you want to mentor

"Someone else will always ask questions about things you may not have thought"

I used to be a tutor/counsellor for the science foundation course in the Open University. The best question I was asked (not at all difficult to come up with an answer on the spot) was from a student who was a science teacher* "Why do I have to use this balance** when I have a digital balance in school?" The answer, of course, was about measurement in science in general and the ability to be able to identify the reference standard on which the measurement depended.

* It was standard experience in the OU that the staff were younger than the pupils and there were a lot of teachers who didn't have degrees in their subjects.

** It was fairly primitive.

[MachDiamond]

Re: There's an extra reason why you want to mentor

""Why do I have to use this balance** when I have a digital balance in school?""

I had to get my triple beam out the other day to weigh something small. My digital one had a flat battery and I didn't have the odd coin cell it needed. I doubt any local shop has it and I use the scale so rarely that it isn't worth the money. The balance only needs some gravity and that seems to work all of the time for me, being a flatlander.

[DwarfPants]

It does go both ways

Mentoring only works if the people being mentored want to learn.

When you have to deal with people who just want to be told the answer, have not done the bare minimum to even understand what they are asking and appear to have forgotten they have asked multiple times before when they were given the answer, the why, the what you need to be able to help, and where to find the documentation etc. who then take offence that you become less helpful and less approachable as the repeat events head towards double figures. Is very frustrating, I am not a library or an AI.

People who want to know are a delight to work with. Generally first time is a question, second is "I have looked at this, know that, I think we should, do you agree", After that its can you be around whilst I do X.

It is a form of contract, where both parties need to get something from the exchange, even if is just a small reduction in future workload or reduced concern that you will be required to rapidly fix something broken by lack of care and attention.

[andy the pessimist]

Re: It does go both ways

Some people were a pleasure to teach.

Some less so.

One person thought he knew more.. i ended writing the whole test program (on a tester with no training).

If you ask i'll generally help.

I'm not doing everything for you though.

[FIA]

Apologies, you were a junior dev who made an off by one error. I shouldn't be so quick to judge.

[heyrick]

It's actually an ancient eight bit processor, not a typo.

[markr555]

How does permanent homeworking fit in with this?

This is something I've been harking on about for a while; in the rush to work from home, the entire profession seems to have turned their backs on younger developers entering the job market. You absolutely CANNOT mentor effectively if permanently working from home. As a profession, we are letting these people down. I know there'll be downvotes, and folks explaining how they mentor perfectly acceptably, or even better from home, but IMHO this is biased/flawed thinking at the minimum.

[Throatwarbler Mangrove]

Re: How does permanent homeworking fit in with this?

Agreed. Mentoring and onboarding is just less effective remotely. Someone will be along shortly, no doubt (and I'm betting I can even guess the user name), to say, "It works great at our company." That's possible, but I'm going to rate it as likely bullshit compared with the effectiveness of in-person mentoring and training for most people. In-person learning is higher bandwidth, lower latency, and less mediated, allowing for more rapid and efficient conveyance of information. Leaving aside the touchy-feely human component of social interactions, which I know to be eschewed by a certain cadre of Reg reader, you can get more data across in person; that's just math(s). QED, bitches.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: How does permanent homeworking fit in with this?

"Leaving aside the touchy-feely human component of social interactions"

Just as well. It can get you into a lot of trouble with HR.

[MachDiamond]

Re: How does permanent homeworking fit in with this?

" In-person learning is higher bandwidth, lower latency, and less mediated, allowing for more rapid and efficient conveyance of information. "

I suppose since you don't have to change the zoom on the camera to be able to wave your arms about that people can see. It seems that part of the issue is how most of us that are older were taught. I've done loads of online courses now and the ones that are set up well have access to the prof or TA's. I would usually be able to get a TA pretty quickly and be able to ask them a question, get an answer and be on my way without much fuss. Often times, their counter-question would put me on the right track or they'd remind me of something that I wasn't considering.

WFH/remote-work isn't all or nothing. When I was in aerospace, we drifted into some of that since we'd have a big project where we'd all decide on what the design was to be and then scatter to do our bits and meet again from time to time. Usually it was everybody together since we did a lot of cross-engineering, but sometimes just a couple of us to work through an issue. When we were always in the office, it was a lot like remote work since we were a small company and everybody would be stuck in to their specialty. We'd have to be in the office to build hardware so it wasn't like nobody was ever in and Mondays were the all-hands meetings to share what had been done the last week and what was going to be worked on that week. I had a much better electronics workbench at home than at work, anyway. If I needed to fab something at work, I might have to drive to the machine shop we used and borrow his lathe/mill since it was 10 miles closer than coming all the way home and using mine. I'd even had interns over to work with me rather than them going to the office. They had to put up with my cat and my music choices, but I wasn't too harsh.

[MachDiamond]

Re: How does permanent homeworking fit in with this?

"This is something I've been harking on about for a while; in the rush to work from home, the entire profession seems to have turned their backs on younger developers entering the job market. You absolutely CANNOT mentor effectively if permanently working from home. "

It can be done and should be done. WFH isn't just a policy of putting people in an isolation tank and sealing the door with glue. In the case of just about anything digital, it's not hard to share work across the planet and collaborate with a colleague. I've been on both sides of a problem from opposite US coasts or 15 miles away and never had an issue. I didn't need the other person breathing in my ear (didn't want them doing that either).

[dave 76]

Re: How does permanent homeworking fit in with this?

You absolutely CANNOT mentor effectively if permanently working from home. As a profession, we are letting these people down. I know there'll be downvotes, and folks explaining how they mentor perfectly acceptably, or even better from home, but IMHO this is biased/flawed thinking at the minimum.

I strongly disagree. My team is spread over 6 offices in 5 timezones. I have never met all the people I mentor and in all likelihood never will.

Never the less, I am guiding, encouraging, helping them solve issues, and generally mentoring for a good proportion of every day.

Makes no difference if I am working from home or from the office, I am not in the same office as them.

What makes the difference is that I am willing to teach and they are willing to learn. And I learn from them all the time also.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: How does permanent homeworking fit in with this?

I've not downvoted you because I agree in part with what you've written.

The thing is, it can work, but i.m.n.s.h.o. it doesn't work remotely as well as it works (at least part time) face-face. I'm autistic, and I find the interpersonal & communication difficult at the best of times - so take away that non-verbal element and I struggle even more (we aren't allowed to use cameras in my current office). My department was part of a re-org just as covid hit, so I literally went a year and a half without meeting any of my colleagues and by the time I moved on*, had never met many of them. While great efforts were made to work around the lack of face-face interaction, we definitely lost something during that time.

These days, we're mostly hybrid - part time at home, part time in the office. I find a lot of things much easier in the office - for one thing, it's much easier to see if someone is available rather than the contrived messaging to find out & arrange a time for a conversation. And like many large orgs, we have multiple offices, and since covid, many more people who are effectively home based and only visit the office occasionally - I find it harder dealing with people who I can't meet in person.

As the previous poster pointed out, some would say it's working for them. Well great - if it works for you then carry on. But it definitely doesn't work for all, and it definitely is a worse arrangement for the youngsters** having to learn without that personal interaction.

* It was made clear they didn't need my post any more, so I found somewhere else in the organisation where I was wanted.

** Generalisation - in our case, trainees are not all young people. I'm still learning and I'm counting down to retirement.

[Gene Cash]

Re: How does permanent homeworking fit in with this?

Especially if you're stuck with something like MS Teams.

It randomly hangs up. It randomly just ends meetings after a couple hours. It won't let people dial in. It won't actually call people to get them into the meeting. The machine hangs when you share your screen. When you go to share a different window THE GODDAMN BUTTON MOVES WHEN YOU TRY TO CLICK IT.

Teams is so damn bad, I've just driven in so I can work with the DBA.

And a co-worker in a different state has been reduced to tears by the amount of sheer hell Teams has put her through, just to have me show her how to create a report.

[Vocational Vagabond]

Quid quo pro, every village needs it's idiot

[DrewPH]

"Whatever your job, mentoring is your job – and the one that matters most"

I'll go ahead and take issue with the article's title.

I'm a self-employed developer and consultant, working remotely to build and support private cloud apps (they used to be called intranets!) for clients. Apart from scattered video calls I work alone, I research alone, I have no junior devs, and I report only to my clients, most of whom operate thousands of km away from my physical location.

There is no mentoring of any kind in my life, and as a neurodivergent person, that's exactly how I like it. I certainly don't have the patience or desire to teach anyone or get someone to learn from me, and my preferred learning mode is reading and experimentation without being observed or monitored in any way.

TL:DR; When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me.

[SundogUK]

Re: "Whatever your job, mentoring is your job – and the one that matters most"

Absolutely this. The article is all extraverts thinking everyone should be extravert and behave like an extravert.

Nope. Not happening.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "Whatever your job, mentoring is your job – and the one that matters most"

So let me guess, you were either born an expert coder and consultant, or you were self taught in everything you know (and if you claim that latter, I'll call bull....)

Everyone has, whether they recognise it or not, benefitted from some form of mentoring or knowledge sharing during their career development. That you do zero to pass anything one makes you, in terms used in some areas, a leach - you've benefitted from others, but are doing nothing to pass that on.

But that's OK, the world can cope with some leaches - as long as the numbers don't reach the point where they consume more than the ability of those who are sharing to support them.

[MachDiamond]

Re: "Whatever your job, mentoring is your job – and the one that matters most"

"here is no mentoring of any kind in my life, and as a neurodivergent person, that's exactly how I like it. "

And there are plenty of people like you that gravitate towards professions where that works. For a company, there's a need to preserve institutional knowledge and have some shade of duplication or at least awareness of the jobs going on in case somebody leaves, goes on holiday or gets hit by a bus.

I'm the sole person in my media and product dev businesses mostly due to the nature of the work and how there would be too much dilution of money to have somebody else involved. I've been there before and prefer to stay small and only be responsible for myself. That could be tough on customers if something happens to me, but I try to keep them up to date. The media work is often short turn-around so it's not an issue. The product dev stuff I document as I go and when I'm paid for a milestone, the customer gets the WIP documents to that point rather than a whole package at the end. Doing that helps me secure work as clients know that if anything were to happen to me, they'd have access to everything they've paid for and could replace me at that point with only a little loss of time while somebody new gets up to speed.

[Gene Cash]

Re: "Whatever your job, mentoring is your job – and the one that matters most"

I'm neurodivergent too, and yes, one of my major faults is banging on for hours trying to do something when I could ask a colleague.

To quote my long-suffering DBA: "No, your WLS is 12.2.1.4, and that's the patch you're looking for... it's FORMS that's 12.2.1.19..."

I have been very lucky recently to have a co-worker show me the meta of patching, as in "here's how you find the patch, here's where you download it, here's what you look at once you unzip it" instead of the usual "here's the URL to the current patch, download it and type 'foo, bar, baz'"

[Anonymous Coward]

I've also had reverse mentoring recently

We have a new guy hired on 6mos or so ago.

Just recently he showed me some incredible tricks that Oracle can do with REST and JSON that I didn't know about, even after 30 years of tangling with Oracle.

He wrote about 20 lines of PL/SQL that did stuff I figured was going to take a huge pile of code.

Not only does he know his sh*t, but he communicates well and does not have an "attitude" - he's one of the most easygoing blokes I've ever met.