Those of you in Teaching/Medical/Mentoring....

[Moonlamp]

I feel like I'm having an existential crisis.
I'm genuinely challenging my approach, my beliefs....everything.

I have worked in my field for 25yrs, I'm mid-40's and in a traditionally male dominated field, if it matters.

I've recently moved into a Training/Mentoring role, largely because I feel that there's still huge work to be done in building trust in our industry and serving our customers in the best possible way but I just feel completely beaten by it.

I help people progress and essentially get paid more. I am there as a mentor, motivator, examiner, progressor......but people don't give a shit. I'm dragging my mentees through and their departmental managers don't care either. My emails are ignored, largely- wether it's me sending congratulations or advice or asking for more.

How do you manage to put your everything into something and get little return? Or be blatantly ignored. It's so rude!

Help.

I was a teacher and I mentored some trainees.

Some trainees were enthusiastic but to be honest that largely wore off after a few weeks of doing the sort of hours teachers do.

We had several trainees who were there just for the bursary.

Mentees/trainees not giving a shit is normal.

In teaching it's part of your job to enthuse the students.
Less so mentees.

Thank you @Octavia64

The bare minimum to collect the wage seems the absolute normal right now...

I have welcomed two new menteea to the program only today, helped a department with ways to be quicker, more efficient and easier.... not an acknowledgment. Silence.

I don't know where I'm going wrong. Maybe I care too much, maybe I'm in the wrong. It certainly seems so.

helped a department with ways to be quicker, more efficient and easier.... not an acknowledgment. Silence.

I think people in general can be quite shit at saying thanks and giving praise, unless they're prompted and required to do so.

Some of them will be commenting to others about how great the changes are, or thinking to themselves that they're glad of your support, or singing your praises to anyone who'll listen, but thinking to communicate that to you and then actually communicating it to you? Less likely.

I wouldn't take it as a measure of your performance or value.

Ignoring your emails... I also wouldn't take that personally. It's not a good feeling, but some people have ruthlessly efficient approaches to emails so won't reply to acknowledge or thank, others are so overwhelmed that nobody gets a reply (or at least not any time soon), others forget to check their emails or they forget the person sending the email is a human with feelings.

The common struggle when people move into a helping job because they want to help people is that they want to also feel the gratitude of helping people. Unfortunately most people don't express that to those who help them. They take it for granted that their mentor will show up, that training will be arranged, that someone will review their processes, that they'll receive the congrats emails that make them feel good about themselves, etc.

It's probably not that you're doing anything wrong, just that you're expecting too much back. You need to be able to give yourself the pat on the back for making a difference.

Thank you @atticstage there's a lot of sense there and I can relate to it.

I'm not really one to look for praise as such, and little things make a huge difference, like simply being acknowledged.

I don't know how to care less about what I do, and I'm beginning to think that's a fault actually. Maybe I need to look at my style of communication....