Working World

In Working World, I argue that the terminology of “mentor” and “protege” is archaic and not up-to-speed with my generation, the younger generation, the “on-demand” generation.  I even go so far as to suggest that the whole idea of a mentor taking a protege under his or her wing is dead.

So it’s ironic that I’ve found myself, in the presentations Sherry and I have been giving in connection with Working World, more or less reversing course and admitting that I have indeed benefited from the counsel of mentors throughout my career (Sherry being a prime one) and thus I am, in fact, a protege.  I still firmly believe that the terminology of “mentor-protege relationship” is outdated and stuffy and you won’t find me readily throwing around these terms.  But I’ve found that once you get past any generational or personal bias against the terms, you’ll find that mentors are in no way dead for the on-demand generation.

It’s also kind of ironic then, given my aversion to these terms, that for the past seven years, I’ve been driving a Mazda Protege. It might also be ironic (it was certainly dismaying and the main reason blogging for me has been nonexistent in the past several days), since I have argued that the protege is dead only to realize that the protege is really alive, that my trusty Protege is now in fact dead. I know this is all a bit of stretch, but I wanted to be able to eulogize my car and so needed a way to relate it to careers in international affairs.  It’s a pretty good effort, I think.

The Protege and I were in an accident on Sunday on the way home from Thanksgiving.  Nothing too serious, just a hard rear-ender really.  Everyone was fine and at first glance at the damage on the exterior, I figured the Protege would pull through just fine.  Turns out the damage underneath was a bit more extensive than anyone imagined, repair costs began to exceed Kelly Blue Book values, and the Protege is no more.

It was a great car. The Protege stuck with me through the best and worst—through long, stinky road trips in college, through my time abroad while it waited patiently in my parents’ driveway, through the series of cavernous potholes that DC calls roads.

RIP, trusty green Protege. I hope I was a worthy Mentor for you.

With some things knocking around in my brain that I want to get out, I’ve been trying to grab onto a few substantive thoughts and corral them into a semi-coherent post.  Alas, at ten-to-five on the day before Thanksgiving, with the office already deserted, tis not to be.  I’ll save the substance for later.

For now, one last thing before before I get in the car and drive home to Cincinnati for the holiday. I’d actually stumbled across this G.L. Hoffman post (G.L. Hoffman being the chairman of JobDig.com) back in early September before we’d even launched the Working World blog and put it in the archives for later. Now, as I prepare to head back to the birthplace of cornhole (Cincinnati, in case that wasn’t clear), seems like to the perfect time to resurrect it. My favorite of Hoffman’s six reasons why he loves his 28-and-under colleagues:

6. They can organize anything, and love to just get together. Certainly, there are “groups,” cliques even; but I am struck by how many softball teams we have, how many parties they seem to organize, and even the stupid bean bag game they have organized in the parking lot.

Nothing stupid about cornhole. Happy Thanksgiving:

Over at The Atlantic, Ta’Nehisi Coates, who I sort of read before but am now reading quite a bit more, laments the laziness of writers who don’t engage a subject enough to come at it with any kind of originality. He specifically gets worked up by those who use the now-hackneyed “team of rivals” to describe Obama’s early appointments. To him, this is tantamount to: “I quit. I refuse to respect my subject enough to think about what he specifically represents.” Coates continues:

The best thing about the human brain is that it’s original. None of us think the same. When thinkers amd (sic) writers refuse to employ that originality, when they opt against telling us what is particular, what is specific, what is unique about this moment in time, when they decide to go with the easiest received wisdom at hand, as opposed to deliberating, as opposed to banging their heads on the wall until they arrive at something new, than they are not writers or thinkers any more, but henchmen in the employ of propagandists.

I want to join him on his soap box even while I am humbled by his accusation. I am certainly one who has fallen into the Rancor pit of writing in (meaningless) cliche, especially when it comes to writing on international careers, a fairly new endeavor for me. “Cast the net wide.” “See what’s out there.” “Extend your network.” “Follow your gut.” Do these things really mean anything beyond the worn-out image or association that comes with them? Perhaps they mean something to me, the writer, when I use them, though because the phrases have already been beaten into the ground by repetitious use, they may come to mean something completely different when digested by a reader. And thus, my job of honestly communicating a thought about careers in international education, exchange, and development has not been done– largely because I have not taken the time or energy to express what I am thinking or feeling in any way other than the most expedient.

The point, brought on by Mr. Coates’ mini-rant: a reminder to challenge myself, to bang my head on the wall, in order to make original and unique contributions to this ongoing discussion of international careers, rather than simply say what is easiest.

There were a few points during my presentation at the University of Notre Dame’s “Contributions” career event last Tuesday when I wondered if I’m really a lot older than I like to think. Case in point: I wove into my presentation, when talking about the importance of trying to uncover your cause when you search for a job, this clip from the influential and timeless cinematic classic, Office Space:

I showed this not only because it is actually relevant to a point I was trying to make (in Working World, Sherry and I talk about two different ways to go about finding your cause: the “Magic Wand Wand Test” and the “Million Dollar Question”), but also because I think it’s pretty damn funny. Now, I know Office Space is (it’s hard to believe) more than ten years old, but I also thought it was one of those cult classics that regardless of age is something that every college student has seen and would appreciate. Thus, I expected laughter, or at the very least some amused and appreciative chuckles, at my inclusion of this video.

Instead the reaction I got was: blink, blink. I admonished the crowd: “Come on, you guys have got to know this movie. I’m only 28. I’m not that old.” But I later realized it wasn’t just my (sometimes lame) attempts at humor and levity that got little reaction. The audience spent most of the presentation in what looked like a state of semi-stunned silence. It’s not that they weren’t listening or engaged, I don’t think– they were just listening and engaged in a way that I wasn’t quite accustomed to after having done a number of similar presentations to students and interns around DC.

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Last Saturday I had the opportunity to drive out to Gaithersburg, Maryland and visit my mentor, Dr. William Olson, and his wife Betsy.  They live in an apartment at Asbury, an attractive assisted living facility.  Bill recently celebrated his 88th birthday.  We no longer have our monthly breakfasts at the Cosmos Club so our occasional visits are particularly special. 

I thought a lot about Bill and other mentors who have contributed so much to my own career as I read this article from the November 2008 issue of “Associations Now,” published by the American Society of Association Executives and the Center for Association Leadership.

Seeing Bill on Saturday reminded me of all of the ways he helped me these past 25 years – inviting me to write a chapter for a book he was editing, offering to be my primary sponsor nominating me for membership in the Cosmos Club, counseling me when I considered a job change…

There is no way I can ever repay him, but I can help others the way he helped me.  When I invited Mark to coauthor Working World, I was doing what one of our profilees termed “paying it forward.”  One of the marks of a true professional is that she or he is conscious of the debt owed to others for the teaching, training, and encouragement received.  Take a moment as Thanksgiving approaches to thank a mentor.  I’m so glad I can still tell Bill how much I have benefitted from his wisdom and counsel.  Last Saturday I got to tell him again how, though I cannot properly pay him back, I’m doing my best to “pay it forward.”