B, The Mentor

Today, as I was polishing the sides of a faux leather ottoman, in an attempt to get back onto the good side of my deranged boss who is suddenly hell bent on canning my 'desperate for cash' self, a teenage boy interrupted me, with a pen in hand, asking for some loose leaf. After questioning his reasons for the paper (out of sheer boredom), I learned he was planning to jot down his contact information for my manager, who he was also seeking in order to apply for a position. "Do you have a resume with you?" I asked. "Well, I don't have a resume, but I can just write down my name and number for you to give her" he replied with soon to be shattered confidence. "You know I think you might be more successful if you had a resume printed from your computer" I informed him, and soon began explaining what a resume was, and how to make one, clearly filling in the gaps for a student that clearly fell through the cracks of the public education system. Normally, I would have just ignored the fact that he wasn't going to get a job, and get back to my faux polishing.. but for some reason I felt like I needed to take this poor soul under my "wing", perhaps in hopes that one day he could take over my position, and I could have a real person job instead. I explained that he should go online and look up resume templates, and then type his actual information into the blanks to create a semi-decent beginner resume, and then return tomorrow to hand it in. "Our manager will be more likely to hire you if you follow those steps" I emphasized. As his grim face turned and wandered away I began to feel like I had my first real mentoring experience, but then I started to realize that perhaps I am a terrible mentor, being as I myself have an entire team of mentors, and my life is in shambles. I am now anticipating to wake up to my protege being found dazed and confused in a ditch by the authorities, suspecting that he had just been returned to Earth by aliens, straight from an episode of the X-files.


B