An important key to be successful is a mentor. The mentor is a person who’s been there, done that. The mentor is a source of wisdom. The mentor is guidance for what is right and what is wrong. I believe if I ask 100 very successful and household name people how important a mentor is, I’m confident I receive at least a 95% yes response.
I didn’t have a mentor. One person who looked at my resume said I never worked at a position above entry level. My career has been supporting other people. I fell through the cracks. I had nobody next to me supporting my career. I had nobody telling me what I’m doing right and what I’m doing wrong. I had nobody calling me out when I’m really screwing up professionally or personally.
I was on my own believing I was a bad ass. I believed I was the best. I didn’t need training. I learned it fast. There was nothing I couldn’t do. I read a book and I mastered it instantly. I was respected for being me, an all-star who did everything the best. I realized today I was wrong. I know some of my co-workers were angry at me for mistakes I didn’t know I caused. Nobody corrected my errors.
I received small corrections from people either not my manager or from another team. One co-worker who visited my building from another country corrected my emails. I was too polite. I should write my emails asking the question immediately. The recipients didn’t have time to read a lengthy email. Another correction came from my senior manager, a dotted line manager. She corrected me on reports saying I don’t need to include the data. Reports should have the bottom line numbers only. The readers didn’t care about the data. They wanted to see the bottom line numbers. The data could be requested separately.
Those two lessons are examples of my career lacking a mentor. I learned a lesson on posting financial numbers from one of my accounting instructor. I submitted an Excel assignment. The teacher corrected me the numbers in a financial statement are aligned right, not aligned center. I aligned center the numbers for all my reports. Nobody told me I was doing it wrong. The correct way is always align right numbers.
How Did I Fall Through The Cracks?
The manager who hired me at my first job went on vacation for two weeks. The co-worker I replace trained me for a week. The majority of the on the job training was how to handle the brokers and taking it easy. I failed to learn those lessons. Two weeks later, my manager returned and we worked together for a month. He didn’t mentor me because a few weeks later, he went to another company. He gave me a crash course on real estate statistics. Otherwise, I learned nothing about working from my office space.
The manager who hired me at my first job hired me at his second company three months later. He stayed with the company for six months because he moved to Australia. He didn’t have time to continue my training and mentor me because he was busy with a big database project. One of his assignments was to create a new database, a criteria for his hire.
A new boss was hired two months later. She did nothing with the research department. No leadership. No communication between me and my co-worker. We had a few meetings in the beginning months; thereafter, no meetings, no lunches together, and no bonding. There were discussions between my new boss and the managing partner about setting up an internship for me to mentor. Nothing happened. My boss was fired two years later.
The rest of my years at my second job went without a direct manager. My co-worker and I didn’t get along. The office manager and the managing partner did nothing to mentor me and did nothing to make amends with my co-worker. I went to my third company after working at my second company for eight years.
My third company my department was spread out in the world. My immediate boss and my immediate co-workers telecommuted most working days. I believed my experience in Crystal Reports was the reason my third company hired me. I think again and I realize working independently was another reason my third company hired me. I never saw my team at least 70% of my working days. I didn’t receive any mentoring.
My contract was terminated because of the real estate bubble. I went back to school and I earned an AA degree in Accounting. My job skills and experience are stale. I’m reviewing my Microsoft Office skills: Access, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007. I’m researching learning SAS software. I should have access to online courses from Accountemps at the end of June. I learned SQL for Access, learned MySQL, and refreshed my Crystal Reports earlier this year.
Trial And Error Are My Friends
I learned two huge mistakes on my own. The first mistake I corrected in March 2006 was talk and socialize with my co-workers. Open your mouth and smile. Take a break and have a conversation. The second mistake I corrected was in 2009. I realized I actually had people supporting me in my second company. I never realized it while working. They supported my thoughts about the company not supporting my needs and not receiving help for my struggles and lack of experience. They supported my difficulties working with my co-worker. I believed I was lonely. I believed I was on my own and I had to be strong. Truthfully, I was a coward.
These lessons I learned and the lesson I’m learning today are valuable. I realized I must grow up on Sat Oct 4, 2008. The life lessons I have been learning and the life mistakes I have been correcting are useful for my next workplace. Don’t take anything for granted.
The Personal Side Of Me Finding Raymond Mar
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