Last week I had my first meeting with my mentor. (7th August). It was incredibly helpful, especially as she used to work with me, and gave me lots of advice about problems I wasa currently experiencing at work. I came out full of enthusiasm and focus, although it doesn’t seem to have resulted in an awful lot of action. It did, however, give me a few more ideas to add to my PPDP which I intent to send off by the end of the week. I also need to get cracking on my CV, and get my mentor to sign a form confirming she exists.
The main thing I drew from the meeting is that it can’t hurt to try for something ambitious, and that my original goals were perhaps a bit too dull. She enabled me to look outside the minutiae of the day to day departmental business and think about more long term aims. I was particularly won over by her arguments about the need to raise my profile within the company, to network more with other departments, and to market the resources we have on offer more effectively.
I’ve been very stressed over the last week about a data audit project I inadvertently became responsible for. I realised within days that the task I had been set was, effectively unachievable (another skill I need to develop: managing expectations) and that I needed to work with people who worked directly on the website to stand any chance of providing some meaningful results. This, in turn, made me realise I had absolutely no idea who I would need to speak to. Our department, although familiar with a number of journalists, has very little day-to-day contact with the rest of the behind-the-scenes workers. My mentor was able to give me some names to start me off, and made me realise that this exercise should be seen as a positive means of forcing me to get to know a bit more about the wider organisation. She also suggested I try shadowing some work mates and attend some meetings with my manager, to enable me to get a feel for the diverse range of people within the organistion.
I realise that all her suggestions were spot on, and need to be addressed. Now it’s a question of pushing myself into meeting more people, something I’m usually reticent to do. The only way I’ll get better is through practice, so I intend to approach my manager about shadowing as soon as he’s back from his holiday.
Mentor meeting 7/8/2008
Helped focus and expand my PPDP. Enabled me to see long term benefits from short term tasks.
