As a polymath my natural instinct is to learn by observation and doing rather than engage a teacher directly. Fortunately I can also learn by interviewing, so I’m not completely hopeless. If I’m asking you a ton of questions odds are good I think you’re a mentor or I think you need one.
The problem is that I’ve worked for a couple places that I thought could teach me a lot more than they did, I mistook individual attributes as a pattern that wasn’t there, and what I saw was more (or less) what I got. So at the end of the day I am probably the wrong person to ask. Thankfully other people replied.
And then it’s suddenly invalidated by some high-up rando on the other side of the world deciding we need to go back to the bad old way of doing things.
But the bigger thing I’m coming to grips with is that I have to stop entertaining offers from companies that give me an “I can fix them” vibe because I will only be able to fix half the things I know to fix before everyone else decides they’ve changed “enough” and would I kindly shut up now. Hello ossification.
Eventually having half good, half bad is going to drive me nuts and take other people with me. I need a higher bar where they are already doing at least half and I can settle for reaching 2/3 or 3/4 instead of fighting uphill to get to 50%, only to give up and start the cycle earlier. If this were dating I was talking about, someone would have sat me down by now for an intervention.