Ask HN: Is it common for mentoring to feel like a waste of time? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is it common for mentoring to feel like a waste of time?

3 pointsenumjorge3 comments

I’m a senior dev with lots of industry experience, love to teach, and have been wanting to do something extra curricular in a way that helps others. Over the years I’ve volunteered to help people how to code, most recently thorough a non profit bootcamp. When I get in front of students I find it very rewarding and I get really positive response from students/mentees. However, it often feels like I’m pulling teeth to get people to reach out or follow through e.g. I might have a session where the mentee gushes about how useful it was, I mention that I’m happy to do another one in a couple of months, mentee says they would love that but then I never hear back. I’m willing to establish that initial connection/trust, but after that I need the other person to take the initiative.

I talked to a co-worker recently and she said she largely stopped mentoring because she founded it to be a waste of time.

I’ve been thinking about throwing in the towel, and I’m curious if others have faced similar challenges. If this is common, I’ll need to invest my time in something else.

Opinions: I have found that less serious mentees filter themselves out. The people who really want the mentorship are the ones that come back. As great as it is to mentor people, the ball is always in their court. I can't make somebody want to do something -- if they really want it, they'll ask for it, and they'll chase it down.

Those are the best students, anyway! Because things that are worth doing are often hard, and especially with programming, it takes lots of work to learn. You necessarily have to want it, and have to be taking it rather seriously. Then, the people who keep coming back for more are the ones who really want it.

I am writing this from my own experience.

The worst mentor is someone who mentors others without being asked for it. The worst of the worst is someone who does that and thinks about himself as a mentor.

The best mentor is someone who doesn't know he is one. A person who is doing their own thing and is always there to help. When someone comes to them with a problem. This person solves the problem. Without playing a teacher or something what imposes teacher-pupil labels.

As a beginner I've meet the first type of mentor. Something that could be a 20 minutes long conversation, became 1,5h "I will give you riddles instead of telling you the answer and how I did it" play. I have never wanted anything from this guy. I meet him again years later. Turns out there was nothing to learn from him in the first place.

I,ve meet people who were the second type of mentor. They would always help me. No playing, no teacher-pupil vibe. Always I would keep in touch eith them, I would work with them. I've learned from them a lot. They had the biggest influence on my skills.

I had to handle interns/juniors myself. I would give them straight answers. I would prepare some tools or docs for them. I would only check with them if everything works. I would encourage them to break things, take their time with work, ask me if anything, and I would just leave them alone.

That worked great for some, and we had a great time working together.

For some it didn't work at all, but they didn't want to work in the first place or ask me for help when they had problems. I would still give them the answer if they asked, tell them to ask me with anything, and leave. They were not worth my time, and I wasn't the owner of the company - not my circus, not my monkeys.

How about mentoring junior devs in your org ? How has the experience been there ?

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