Earlier this weekend I considered signing up for a mentoring program. My old college put out a call for alumnae to sign up to help third year students make that giant leap from smelling of day-old goon and wearing ruggers to lectures to being an actual professional looking employee. The brief said it didn’t matter what level in our careers we were at – any help was good help.

 

Maybe it’s the narcissistic show pony in me, but something pushed me to sign up for it. Sure, it might be a littler extra work but it also would mean a steady supply of admiration coming my way. The Idealist In Me said “you have so much to offer a supple, young student” and I went to click the link to sign up with grand visions of me, wearing a blazer and stylish but practical shoes leading some empowered-looking young ladies into some kind of celestial board room. Together we would take out our sledgehammers and smash the glass ceiling before turning and posing at a non-existent camera like the opening credits of a local news broadcast.

 

But then The Realist Inside Me started screaming, kicked in a plaster wall in and began dragging The Idealist In Me away from the “click the link” button face down by her hair so her teeth ground down to bloody stumps on coarse cement while swearing like a sailor. Think Inside Out meets Happy Tree Friends and you have an accurate representation of what was happening inside my head. This was a contentious idea.

 

The Realist Inside Me demanded I list a few concrete examples of what exactly I could offer a supple, young student. But before I could come up with that, the little bastard began listing examples of how I could significantly screw up a fresh mind. And I had to agree that some of these didn’t bode well for mentoring magic.

 

I’ve dealt with a few work experience kids in my time, and some of those outcomes were not ideal. I once got into a tense standoff with a high schooler over the difference between similes and metaphors (I know my poetic devices, don’t fuck with me). I also coerced the kid to watch Billy Maddison after Adam Sandler talk got all too real. I freaked him out by baking him a going away cake from scratch, complete with a terrifyingly bad icing drawing of an alligator (because writing out “see you later alligator” was impractical).

 

I’m also reasonably terrible at introductions. In fact, I would use the word appalling. Here’s an example of how I introduced myself to a uni student we took on as a short-term intern:

 

Me: I’m Dannielle aaaand I am …. wearing a yellow skirt.

 

Editor: This is Dannielle. She’s our senior journalist.

 

Me: Hey.

 

If you think that’s bad, here’s an actual transcript of my introduction to one of the country’s most prominent politicians. I anticipated it was going to be touch and go, so I baked one of my mother’s fruitcakes to take along as a buffer to conversational stumblings. Upon reflection, I’m glad for my fruity foresight:

 

Me: If there’s an awkward silence get into the fruitcake.

Disclaimer, I’m not great at small talk – I once started a conversation asking a guy if he had ever got a chicken wing stuck in his beard.

One of The Country’s Most Prominent Politicians: …

(awkward silence)

Me: Let’s get into the questions.

That’s not something a lamb of a journalist needs to be exposed to. That’s not something anyone wanting to not appear as an unmistakable imbecile should be exposed to.

 

Now The Realist Inside Me is getting louder. She’s yelling about my childlike insistence that the office tissue box feature Frozen characters. She’s bringing up that time I worked yanking a newborn calf out of its mother into an intro about spring. She’s raving about my most ironic typo (to date, anyway) when I wrote “education” without the “a”. With a track record like that, what could I possibly teach an emerging professional without rendering them unemployable?

 

In a final blow, The Realist Inside Me goes through my phone records for evidence of my lack of qualification to give life advice to a vulnerable young’un. Perhaps my inaptitude to provide sounds guidance on the path to success can be summed up in one text, sent from the Laundromat, which I go to because I don’t own a working washing machine:

 

I just got really excited because when I put my washing on, I changed be machine setting to a cook wash and it knocked a dollar off the price!

Things are finally looking up!

 

It’s about as impressive as a screen door. The pathetic optimism attached to the meagre saving does not exactly denote an example worth following. I’m about to give in.

 

But then, after spitting out a mouthful of blood and tooth shards, The Idealist In Me speaks up. It’s a bit muffled, but she chimes in with something only the glass half full kind of person would say: “if you’ve pulled that kind of shit and you still manage to be employed, you must be doing something right”.

 

And while her swollen face is distracting, her message is clear: sometimes you have to measure success not in wealth, rank or accomplishment, but with how much you’ve been able to get away with. And despite all your major cock ups and irrefutable character flaws, you have to remind yourself that, so far, you have avoided being thrown into a hessian sack and tossed into the sea like a litter of unwanted kittens. Maybe, you aren’t an intolerable bucket of disappointment. And maybe someone can learn from that.

 

Before The Realist Inside Me can make a rebuttal, The Idealist In Me makes a dive for the “click the link” button and I’m signing up for the program. I might not be the best example in the world, but I’m also hoping I have something to give as well. I may wear a pony belt to work most days, but at least I go there. Most of the time, I’m also wearing shoes. And if nothing else answers the question of whether I would be a competent mentor, I’ll leave them with this last question on the online form:

Is there anything extra you would like to add/offer when putting you in touch with the student you will be mentoring?

I have a business card, you know.