| To play devil's advocate: ------------------------------ > As a senior engineer she was in a mentor role. Being in a mentor role does not mean you have to right to mentor. Assuming you have a superior position, and deciding to use it to explain something obvious to someone else as "educating" them is not a good social interaction for the other person, and may make them feel trapped and uncomfortable. The author never said the junior developer expressed interest in mentorship, merely that "this teammate seemed to be benefiting from it." Not willing engaged, but "benefiting." Without context, it is imaginable that said mentoree didn't want these interactions or this relationship and the author never identified this social cue. > I don't think that directly communicating a relevant fact - that trans is not a gender - to someone contributing to a survey intended to collect data about marginalized people is the same as expecting her peers to walk on egg shells. That's just asking them to get their facts straight. The article starts by complaining about "drive-by issue comments", then described opening what might be considered a drive-by issue. That could be construed as contradictory. Moreover, said issue may be construed as a (company-)public dressing-down. A developer came though and, in a public manner observable by all their peers, informed another that they were not being sensitive enough. It's reasonable, I think, to be upset in that context. > A simple one-on-one conversation probably could have resolved that situation very easily, but GH management seems in this case to have insulated that person from learning from their mistake The author could have initiated such a conversation herself in lieu of the issue. ------------------------------ My point is that a lot of things are a matter of perception, and one person's is seldom the whole story. Caroline clearly had a bad go of it at GitHub, that isn't deniable. But individuals' perceptions are fickle things, and it is seldom the case that any one tells the whole story. |
Exactly. For what we know, the junior could have actively complained to the manager (wrongly or rightly) about her mentoring. OTOH the junior dev might have appreciated it. We can't say for sure.
Some people (myself included) prefer to get a general direction and then later to come back for further questions. Too much information in a short amount of time can be overwhelming, I need some time to absorb and read it up in the internet. A few keywords might be good enough to get someone going and figure it out themselves.
"learn at her own pace, without any pressure from you." This really sounds as if the manager had the junior dev's best interest in mind. I don't see how the manager said this to get back at Caroline, as was kind of implied in the article.