Mentoring Musings

Wherever I work, sooner or later it dawns on me that I’m not the new person, and indeed am looked on to be teaching the tricks of the trade to new people. Even more interesting to me are the situations where people that I have trained and coached are then in a position to be showing the ropes to new people.

I’ve had a lot of that recently at the library on both fronts. I have new starters that I’ve been setting to shadow staff to who I only recently taught the basics and helped past anxieties of dealing with the unexpected; and I have new deputies to who I am unveiling some of the “dark arts” of rotas, branch admin, and how to handle certain personalities among staff and customers.

I think I’ve been more gratified by watching how well people I’ve mentored be able to instruct and teach…