Cindy:
I knew Mary before I met Mary, or so I thought. She was 7 when I met her father, who I rode the train with for more than a decade. From his descriptions of her over the years I unfairly expected that she would be entitled, and I wondered if he had prepared her for the challenges and sometimes disappointments of navigating the workplace. But parents have a way of being braggadocios to the embarrassment of their children and her dad was no exception.
It appears I have a history of people and modes of transportation. I met my first boyfriend on a city bus on my long commute to high school, my husband proposed to me on an airplane, and then there were the “long haulers” (not to be confused with COVID 19 sufferers): those of us who rode NJ transit to the end of the line (18 f*ing stops). Reminds me of the late Robin William’s brilliant description of Golf (18 f*ing holes). You end up becoming acquainted with a group of fellow commuters as you share in the challenges of a 4 hour + daily commute into and out of Hoboken.
I digress… By the time I met Mary she was a rising senior at William and Mary and was now one of the long haulers due to a summer internship at Barnes and Noble in NYC. I found her to be wicked smart and extremely upbeat, which was even more impressive as our trek began before 6AM. I usually sleep on my morning ride in, but not that summer. Making sure not to sit in the quiet car, we chatted on the way in. She was full of energy and curiosity with nary a fear, and despite being positive she did have anxiety about her prospects of a full-time job. Her aspirations were high, but she knew the competition was tough and wanted my perspective on the corporate world and my experiences in it. You could say that our relationship developed over the summer on those rides in and out of Hoboken.
My background in business is diverse. I worked in the corporate world at a few marquee brands in the financial services industry (Drexel Burnham Lambert, Merrill Lynch, Paine Webber) before I took time off to raise my son. Twenty years ago, I returned as a consultant, then 7 years ago co-founded a firm specializing in outsourced services. My varied resume/experiences were of interest to Mary, and she left no stone unturned in her quest for information. Our conversations were not entirely business focused but sprinkled with pop culture references, in particular books, music, movies, TV shows, and one of my favorite genres, standup comedy. I knew she was prepared scholastically but it’s just as important to know that “Die Hard” qualifies as a Christmas Movie, Fran Lebowitz is a NY treasure and if ever someone asked her for a “TPS Report” she would understand the reference, after all she was seeking a job in consulting.
I have a natural interest in developing people; but it never once occurred to me as “mentoring” in the traditional sense. Successful mentoring occurs when there is an active dialog between people; whereby behaviors are tweaked, and skills are sharpened. Conventional mentoring when extracted from the corporate workplace toolbox seems mechanical. Do I really need to be paired with a rando to achieve success? Reflecting on the early days in my career, I have had many mentors; it seems silly that we can only learn from seasoned professionals. As a teenager working in retail, I was unknowingly mentored by a recurring customer, who constantly marveled at how well I handled the front-end operations of a very busy store. Yet none of my “mentoring” qualified as traditional. They were bosses, fellow colleagues, clients, friends who had homed in on my skill set and pointed me in the right direction; boosted my confidence, critiqued my performance. They were individuals who I held in high esteem that I wanted to emulate. One colleague coached me on “how to ask for a raise”, a skill I nailed at the start of my career and has continued to serve me well. Who knew that in 1982, I was so far ahead of the “know your value” crowd (a campaign launched by Mika Brezinski to help working women a few years back)?
What I discovered with Mary is that mentoring can be bi-lateral. There were no rules around building my relationship with her and while I have dispensed much guidance she has reciprocated. Not once has it ever felt like coaching. We did deploy basic common-sense practices to achieve Mary’s goal of finding a job but to my surprise I found myself learning from her as well. 4 years later and I still can’t master Lizard Pose and I don’t think I ever will.
Mary:
The Summer of 2017 was not so affectionately nicknamed the “Summer of Hell” after NJ Transit announced it would reroute all trains from NY Penn Station through Hoboken for the entire duration of the summer. With this summer being my last opportunity to add an impactful internship to my resume, I had taken a job as an HR intern. At the time, it seemed irrational to electively subject myself to the transportation disaster that was about to unfold but I felt this was my best chance at building the skills I needed for the ever-elusive job offer I hoped to secure before graduating college. The first few days of my internship went by in a blur, and I’m convinced the only thing I would have remembered from that summer were the long hours spent user testing the workplace harassment software on every browser known to man had I not met Cindy.
She was one of those people I instantly connected with because she reminded me of an older version of myself. Despite the early hours, she could cover more topics (both serious and funny) in one conversation than anyone I knew. While I can remember little of our first conversation, something about that initial meeting led me to believe there was much I could learn from her. At the beginning of the summer, our run-ins on the trains were by chance. But with the chronic unreliability of NJ Transit, we started to plan our commute, as we became allies in this living nightmare. Our time together distracted us from the frequent delays and Medieval-aged trains that reeked of everything from body odor to takeout. We shared in the joy of squeezing into the last empty seat of the train only to discover the car had no air conditioning for our 2-hour ride home. We passed time playing trivia apps, sifting through magazines, cackling to stand-up videos on YouTube, and bonding over our mutual love of Nancy Meyer movies. Despite the many activities to keep us busy, we usually just talked. Knowing I was preparing to start my first full-time job, Cindy willingly shared stories of her many jobs and the different people she had worked with who had influenced her career. What most impressed me was the love she had for her team and her clients, her career brought her joy, and I wanted that same feeling. Upon returning to college in the Fall, I had a long road ahead of me to nail down that full-time job. When it was time for me to accept a final offer, I leaned on Cindy to help me weigh the pros and cons of two very different types of jobs. She encouraged me to pick a job that would provide opportunities for growth, rather than the one that was first to give me an offer.
In a short amount of time, Cindy went from a total stranger to a mentor on everything from introducing me to Matt Levine’s newsletter to building a list of TV/movie recommendations (which continues to grow). Mentoring is a topic I’ve always felt passionate about, I was actually writing my honors thesis on career outcomes for adolescents with mentors at the time I met Cindy. However, up until that point in my life, most of my mentor relationships had yielded little benefit. I considered many of my teachers’ mentors but struggled to maintain a deep connection after graduation. I’d also participated in mentorship programs but found it difficult to form a strong bond with someone who felt obligated to meet with me. My relationship with Cindy was strikingly different because I always felt it was a two-way street.
From day one, I felt comfortable being vulnerable around her. She not only allayed concerns about my future career, but she also reassured me that prioritizing my career at this stage in my life was OKAY. In contrast to my previous mentoring relationships, Cindy was as honest with me as I was with her, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that she valued my opinion. Unlike most mentor pairs where the mentee is the sole recipient of guidance, I gradually realized I also had some wisdom I could share with her. While it never felt like much of an impact, Cindy appreciated all my tech tips and tricks. From moving furniture and artwork to create the best Zoom background, to launching this website to trying (but failing) not to laugh when she needed a miner’s light to switch the SIM cards in her new phone, I’m grateful there are areas where I can be a mentor as well.
Although unconventional, I’ve always felt our relationship was unique because it wasn’t created by a program that randomly paired us together but rather developed naturally from our strong connection. Fast forward four years (and a pandemic) later and our bond has only continued to grow over Zoom yoga classes and countless cappuccinos.
