Mentor Interview

For this weeks Blog I interviewed my mentor, Wendy. I followed the list of questions Dr. Hirshorn suggested.

• What types of challenges do you face? mainly work/family balance issues

• How do you deal with deadline stress, difficult people, and internal politics?It's actually a really nice group of people so I don't have to deal with difficult people or many internal politics. In terms of deadline stress, I just do whatever it takes to get things done. Also, I do my best to prioritize so the most important things get done when they need to.

• What do you like or dislike about your position? I love the people I work with. I like knowing just about everything going on in the office. I like serving in a role that supports others in the office both practically and strategically. I like thinking through challenging problems with other people on the team and I like working closely with our executive director and the rest of our staff members. The only thing I dislike is the pace of the work. That is, people work too many hours in my opinion. Most people on the leadership team work 60-80 hours a week and a good week is 50-55. We are doing great work, but I don't like that people feel like they have to work so many hours to do their jobs well.

• What do you feel can be done to make work go smoother? I think we need to do a careful analysis of everything we do and see what we can cut out so we can spend more of our time on the most important things.

• How do you feel about working with others? I enjoy working with others and I especially like working with my co-workers and other like minded people who work towards social justice and equity.

• How do you separate the personal from the professional? I try to get home early to be with my son and then I work a few hours in the evenings and on the weekends when my son naps so I can make the most of my time with my son. It's really challenging to balance a more than full time job and a family. It's hard to feel like I am doing both well but I try.

• What is your ideal work environment? I like having good role models and mentors to learn from. I like being busy and I like working with other hard working and motivated people. I like having a certain amount of freedom with what I do.

• How does your personality help or hinder your communication with others or your conflict resolution approach? I think that I’m kind and open-minded. So, that helps my communication.

• How has your education and experience prepared you for your current job? I've had a number of different jobs. I've taken different things from each that have prepared me. The skills I learned in law school and with preparing cases helped a lot as I learned to juggle a lot of things at once.

• After whom do they model your work behavior? Or who do you most respect? I most respect my law school professor who supervised me in court and a judge I worked for.

• Have you ever reached out to mentors and has the mentorship system worked for you? I've never specifically participated in a program where I was mentored, but some of my supervisors have been very good mentors.