Have you ever had a mentor? Who has been your Merlin, your Gandalf, your Dumbledore?

My grandpa and my mom. In university, my Philosophy professor Dr. Philip Merklinger. He told me to not to let the bastards grind me down… and my mom is still teaching me to pick my battles, my grandpa taught me that even mosquitos need to eat.

The corporate office assigned an efficiency expert to our department when I was the newest manager, lowest on the food chain. Everybody told me she was really hot and must be sleeping with the bosses.

I got invited with all of the other management staff to a few off-sites. We sat around and played dumb ice-breakers and all of the other efficiency experts asked us all questions. I noticed a very attractive woman just running the slide shows.

A few days later she showed up at my desk. I said hi, told her I recognized her from the event.

She said “You are the only one with brains. You kinda work for me now”.

She set me to work doing a lot of data analysis. I gave her a 50 page report, wanting to impress her.

She read it all, then sat me down. Very pleasantly she told me: “Managers are dumb. It is our job to lead our bosses to do the right thing in spite of themselves. This impresses me, but it won’t impress anybody else. Think Marketing. Think Shiny Things.”

My 7th grade teacher, Mr Morford, realized that inside of that shy, quiet girl there was a confident wit trying to break out. He gave me so much support!

She would kill me if I ever used her name and “old” in the same sentence, but my TA mentor was such a huge help me to in not only helping me grow as an instructor and student but she has also been a wonderful friend.

The chairman of the board of the Quaker school where my husband was the headmaster. In Friends’ lingo, she was Clerk of the School Committee. She was 30 years older than I and a birthright Quaker, meaning that she dressed with simplicity and acted with directness, patience, tolerance and charity. Then when it was time to make a tough decision re; the school, she was able to.

Her wedding present to us was waiting on the porch of our house (which we purchased from her and her husband); two large galvanized metal garbage cans tied with huge red ribbons and bows and a large bag of sunflower seeds for the birds.

I admired her ability to handle the power of what was essentially the role of Chairman of the Board of Trustees. In many ways, she was the mother I had wished I had had.

So many people at different times. One was a boss of mine. He had the most amazing personality people always spoke of his manner and his way. He taught me so much about business, being a manager and being an inspiration to many. He lead by inspiration and praise. What a great man!

Virgil, although he was more of a guide

When I was a young splicer, I had the luck to work with an old timer, who knew his job better than anyone I ever met. His advice was much like my father’s: Don’t settle on good enough. Everything you do reflects on you.

I learned to play billiards from Leroy Rebhold (35 years ago). He was a drunken midget that drug an orange crate around the table tied to his ankle. Setting it where he wanted, he hopped up and made his shot. Hop down, drag the crate, hop up and shoot.

Leroy was so short, even with the crate, that he mastered the art of cue ball positioning. He couldn’t reach very far across the table. So he made sure that his cue ball always came back around to where he was, enabling him to shoot a few from his perch.

That’s who taught me the golden rule of billiards. It doesn’t matter where the object balls go. What matters is where the cue ball goes. If you cannot get position for the next shot, then you’re better off playing a safety and waiting.

R.I.P Leroy… Both you and your little stick.

I am now a tournament player. Were it not for my love of photography, and a satisfying career with it, I would no doubt pursue billiards professionally. Thanks Leroy!

When I was 17 or so, there was a 40-something female mid-manager where I worked who really wanted to mentor me. She made an active effort to be the ‘wise woman’ in my life, to take me under her wing. Secretly though, I felt I was her equal. Part of it was the hubris of youth…she wasn’t dumb or anything, but she wasn’t terribly bright either, and I thought I was hot shit in the brains department at that age. Oy, what you don’t know you don’t know, huh? Because of the life I’d led up to that point, I was hyper-mature, and that played a role, too. Most importantly, she just wasn’t really someone I admired or aspired to be like. I liked her just fine, and enjoyed her company, but the mentoring just wasn’t going to stick. I let her do it anyway, because it made her feel good.

I feel like I’ve found mentors here on Fluther, though. Some of them are participating in this very question.

My Dad. He understood me and encouraged me as much as he could.

A professor I had a little while back, who was (and still is) very encouraging about my chosen field of study. He was very supportive even though most of my friends and family couldn’t seem to understand why I was changing my major.

”...someone other than a parent…”

@Jeruba there was no other

Wait, wait, I take that back. Isaac Asimov

There is a woman who is 10 years older than me. She walked into my life when I was brand new at living life sober, and it was out-of-this-world luck that brought her to me. She had been sober about 12 or 13 years at the time and knew how hard it was going to be for me to do many things at the same time: get sober, come out of the closet, and well, those two things are enough. Many more things followed, but in the beginning, those were truly enormous. Looking back, I am still astonished I survived.

She is my mentor, and now she is my best friend. She no longer lives nearby, and in fact, she lives on the other side of the globe. We manage to chat daily.

She is brave beyond measure. She is smarter than I can begin to describe. In fact, Mensa failed to calculate her IQ, and they told her so. She is funnier than any comedian I have heard working today, and she used to earn a solid living doing stand up comedy.

She encourages my writing and is editing a book I’m working on presently. We are collaborating on a web business, and her genius and wit shine brightest when we’re cooking up a new scheme. She gives me great and enthusiastic help for my new job in mental health. She also applauds from afar for my many theatrical endeavors.

It’s my pleasure to call her mentor and friend.

@YARNLADY, you knew Asimov personally? He was your mentor, advisor, and guide?

My advisor for high school, Rob. And his cousin, my English teacher, Heath. No one encourages me like they do.

Several: I’ll mention three.

Buddy Harris, owner of General Typographers [now General Imaging and run by his daughters]—he took many a young designer under his wing. He gave me a thorough education in typography just through our conversations and the type sample books he gave me. Back before word-processing was a desktop affair and one went to a typesetter for type, he kept a lot of designers’ resumes stored on digital tape, allowed us to update them, and printed them out when we needed them.

Shirley Sirota Rosenberg, owner of SSR Incorporated, a small but fine editing firm on Capitol Hill who also taught a series of editing courses at GW called the Compleat Editor. She took me under her wing, hired me and trained me, in part because my resume was well-written.

Professor Lawrence A. Leite [see page 32], in graduate school. I took his course on Christian Iconography. A brilliant and fascinating man. Once when I came in for an exam badly hung-over and took my place in one of the back rows, he looked at me and went away and came back with a very small glass and told the student at the end of the row to pass it to Miss Wood. It was anisette.

@Jeruba Unfortunately, not personally, his writings.

I’ve had a lot of that type figure in my life, not all of them were men, and none of them had a great grey beard but they all guided me in some major way.

The most obvious is my mother, but then you kind of expect that kind of thing from a parent, not that every parent steps up to the plate but my mom sure did.

Then I guess Mr. Milam would be another huge influence on my life, I went to church and sat in the back, talking only when talked to and generally being uncomfortable for most of my life. But then along comes Dick and he goes out of his way to get me involved and make me feel comfortable, He even gave me a work a few times so I would have money for church trips without needing to ask my parents, that’s just the kind of guy he was.

And the most recent would have been Mr. D. He wasn’t the one on one mentor like Mr. Milam but he was enthusiastic and loved what he was doing. He taught with such a passion that he essentially changed my mind on what I wanted to do with me life. Without Mr. D I don’t know what I’d be doing right now for sure, but it wouldn’t be graphic design.

Not yet. But I already began seeing his shape form in the mirror these past months. His full appearance will come into full fruition soon as the speed of his appearance seems to accelerate each waking day. It makes me feel both excited and sad. There is wisdom there but aged. Time soon to forget the shaver and get a pointy hat.

Let me clarify that a mentorship is understood to be a two-way relationship in which the mentoring partner takes an active, conscious role in helping the junior partner develop and progress.

Someone who is a model or an inspiration but whom you don’t know and interact with personally is not a mentor in this sense.

I have never had the experience of being mentored, but I have twice had the privilege of serving as a mentor. I have, however, had several inspiring teachers who made a permanent mark on me.