How to deal with an overly correcting mentor?

Question

I have this problem with a coworker. I do work with him for months now and the problem does not seem to go away. He is a close co-worker and also kind of my mentor since I recently started as a full employee and am still learning. (I had some internships beforehand in which I also worked closely with this person.)

The problem:

Since he is my mentor, he often has to explain stuff to me. Whenever I talk with him, he is kind of downgrading me. Yes, I'm not that long in this company, but he evens explains stuff to me that I know and he should know that I know it. If I accidentally mis-click, he immediately corrects me. He always tries to be right.

Example of a situation:

Just today he explained github to me. When ever I had a typo, he said something like: "Thats wrong, do it this way." or "Maybe you should learn the stuff more."

Or:

I ask him something like:

Me: Is it ok to take out this lines of code?

Mentor: yes

So I do delete the lines. Some hours or days later he says:

Why is there code missing? It's important, you can't just delete code.

I respond:

If I remember right, you told me it is ok to delete it.

He turns quiet and some minutes later responds with something like:

You probably remember wrong, or you asked weirdly, so I did not know what you meant.

He seems to realize he did wrong, but searches for a way I did wrong. I also see this behavior of him against others. I often try to have their backs, but he just put me down too if I do so.

Why it bothers me so much / what I want:

I'm new in this company. The way he behaves turns a bad light on me and my skills in front of coworkers and my boss. I don't have that much of courage and I'm often scared of what people think about me. So sometimes, the whole work day I'm trying to fix what he said about me when others could hear it. I don't want others to think about me as an idiot for getting nothing done.

Answer 1

First thing first : is he really mentoring you?

Where there is "If I accidentally mis-click, he immediately corrects me." + "You probably remember wrong, or you asked weirdly, so I did not know what you meant.", I wouldn't say this is mentoring.

Mentoring is really great in a company, ideally at each new step in your career you should find a mentor that will teach you things that you can only get be experience. ( my own definition, you can change it).

There can be technical mentorship : talking for hours with passion about the best way to write a code.

There can be company mentorship : talking about the other coworkers, the work-relationships, how to evolve, who to befriend, who to avoid, how to ask something to somebody etc.

When your boss, corrects you about a mis-click or disagree about remembering a line of code it is not mentoring. It is just a boss that likes to control everything.

Why he is doing this? Because in his eyes you are a junior and still need supervision.

So to your question : How to deal with an overly correcting mentor?

• You accept everything he says for 6 months or so. He is just trying to help you on his own way. If you stand out to him : either he will stop to help you or will help you but will show you he is annoyed by it ( and that is not good).

• If after 6 months he is still micromanaging you. It is because you are not doing a good job or because he is a kind of boss that likes to control everything. In this case you can tell him:

  Thank you for all your help, now I feel more confident about my work capabilities because of your support and I will try to be more independent in my daily tasks and only come to you for harder/difficult point. Thanks again for your help during my first month in the company and sharing your experience.

Answer 2

This is a nice question. I once had an overly condescending "mentor" who stressed me out since I joined the company.

The best advice here is: ask the mentor that you would like to speak with them in private (no digital chatting or emails, one on one and in person). Tell him that you are stressed out by their current mentoring approach and it would be great if he could be more positive and less negative.

To be honest I would also review the kinds of questions you are asking. Try to ask why something is the way it is or why the code is done in this specific way. By doing this you will learn the program and code, then you can solve it yourself or equip yourself with the right kinds of questions.

PS: I am completely guessing here about the types of questions, you may have the right types of questions, but I would suggest you review it (it took me around 5 years to learn how to ask meaningful kinds of questions; meaningful for myself which is the most important part).