Happy Mentor Stories

Anyone have any happy Mentor stories they'd like to share? Maybe why you like being a Mentor, or what good things you believe you're accomplishing?

I'll start:

One of the great joys I get from being a Mentor is helping someone who is completely lost and unsure about our world - then bumping into them 3-6 months later, and find that they've become a 'success' at whatever it is they enjoy about Second Life.

How about you?

What a wonderful idea Travis. I have two quick ones.

I had a person I had worked with months ago contact me a while back asking to come see me. When she arrived she rated me and said, “I just wanted to do that to thank you for helping me when I was a newbie.” That make me feel so good inside.

I had another person whom I had introduced to SL be selected as a greeter. That made me feel like a proud mom.

Jen

When one of my newbie children becomes a mentor in turn, and comes to me for more orientation. That's quite a few of you now.

I think it's not being a mentor itself that makes me happy, but rather when I help someone and get a warm and heart-felt "thank you!". The internet and computers can be very impersonal. It's nice to feel I can help is a 'personal way' to people all over the earth.

I test video games for a living and the designers rarely "thank" me for finding bugs.

re: Tat's note I too was finally witness to someone I helped from a fresh start make it to "mentor".

*sings * the ciiiiircle of liiiiiife *cough cough choke...

I've been a scripting mentor for a good while now (we have our own list on the scripting wiki). People are always asking obscure questions about how something is implemented; and I tell them but I always ask what they are trying to do. More often then not I can find them a better, easier way. I enjoy the problem solving, and they get the advice they needed.

Never had a bad experience with it.

Having done software development, i'll make it a habbit to thank the testers more often (by the time things get into testing everyone is tired and overworked; and in life it's the little things that make it worth living).

This we really need this thread thank you for starting it.

Lots of them!

I mentor this way, and the scripting wiki. I have good memories from both (as well as a huge range of friended up people!).

Most recently:

Someone I mentored about a safe-zone combat script invited me to come and see it in action for a scripting one.

bought an outfit from someone I'd met and helped with building and making attachments on HI - it's a prim/attachment heavy outfit and I was editing to fit me. A friend showed up when I was wearing part of it... and commented on how good it all looked unprompted. 99% of the talent is the builders, but that little glow of "I helped her get started" was good.

Oh, I have too many to tell... and my memory is soooo bad...

1. the newbie that comes stumbling right into SL, and establishes themselves as a top designer, and still drops me some free items from their latest batch as "repayment for all the help" (which was paid a thousand times over just in skins!)
   
2. the one who read my blog by some silly random mistake doing Google searches and is now vigorously organising a very large community with complex organisation
   
3. the "how do I make money here?" type, who started doing some sales as a travelling salesperson of my puny items, and after a few months, is a major expert in SL economy and commerce and attends the major meetings with the top content designers
   
4. the 65+ old lady that barely knows how to type or move her avatar, and after a year sells furniture and her own clothes, and has so much fun because she is never alone again
   
5. the uncommunicative newbie that becomes a (minor) land baron and a machinima producer
   
6. the talkative cyberspace enthusiast that gets to be known grid-wide and becomes a Linden
   

Some of them are anonymous to most of you, others probably well-known But I guess this is just the tip of the iceberg really. I'm reminded of the words of another well-known resident who says something like "newbies are not stupid and we should stop treating them like children; they just need a gentle nudge to fully fulfill their enormous potential".

GREAT thread! We need more positive ones like this!

I LOVE to see the little light go off above a n00bies head when they learn a little something about the game. When they say "wow! thanks elliebob!" That really gives me the warm fuzzies. I look at how long it took me to learn what I have in SL, and wish I had landed on Help Island surrounded by the great volunteers we have. I've had a LOT of really GREAT people teach & help me along the way so here I can give a little something back Some of the ppl I have mentored have become great friends & I really value that as well

GREAT thread!
Here's my L$0,02 (ok about L$ 1,00 worth)

Things that make me go MMMM!!!!
* I have a growing list of new friends, people I meet while mentoring. There are so many nice new people around and some of them become quite close
* Recently a couple of the people I mentored signed up to be one too. And remembering the ones that already joined the volunteers, just makes me smile.
* The lovely 'Thank you' when I could really help someone.
* The compliment of 'wow you must be really patient'
* The fun we have at the start of a 'new second life'.
* The awesome feeling when one of the people I helped get started asks me to come to their part / new house / new build or when they just send a message to let me know they are doing good.

The best thing of it all, I think, is to be able to meet so many wonderfully, different people and see how they all help eachother out.

But there is much, much more that is impossible to explain.


To end this with a 'quote' from Eek the Cat: It never hurts to help!

That's been the best part of being a mentor for me so far. The first thing i made in sl was this little giraffe skin pattern chair and i was that proud of myself, i sent copies of it to damn near everyone on my friend list.
It's great now to hear from other residents starting out getting as excited about something seemingly so simple as i did. Makes me stop and remember the big picture for a second, what an amazing place SL really is.

p.s
anyone want to see my giraffe chair? i still think it's pretty damn cool

Ok this is the bestest thread EVER!!

I have a few stories tooz.

I ran into one of my first "students" the other day. When we met I took him on a tour of my favorie secondlife places and even taught him how to build. Well he has a whole SL family now and makes and sells great tattoos. He has done well for himself! He told me he got a few friends on second life to join too.

One of my more recent "students" is now my closest friend on second life. Together we have opened a buisness and are currenly working on a house. He's even planning to vounteer soon!

Mentoring is the best!! *hugs for all*

When I mentor, I usually spend some time on HI or in the WA answering questions and being generally friendly . . . until that certain new resi comes along: the one who really wants to understand the potential here; who asks probing questions; who is as exicted to know as they are to do. I will often take them on as a long-term project, spending days with them, showing them around and giving them a one-on-one experience.

A couple of months ago, I was going through a tough patch, feeling generally useless IRL, blah, blah. I came across a young man on HI who was funny, sharp, and interested in all the things I look for when I take on a new "project." We spent the next week together, rooting out some really fascinating places in SL. Each day when I logged on there was another message from him: "Hey Flutter! You gotta see this new place I found! IM ME!!"

He has now become one of my closest friends. A week or so ago we were sitting on top of my mountain (very zen-like) and talking about how cool SL is in general. It was only then that I learned he is handicapped, and home-bound. There is a huge set of experiences that we (or I, at least) take for granted that he's never experienced. He said to me:

"Sky-diving, hot-air balloons, golfing, swimming - with sharks even! Oh yeah, and flying! Who'da thunk it? thanks for not writing me off as hopeless a long time ago, Flutter."

Just that simple thing brought me to tears. I was so touched, so very moved by his thanks, when I felt like I was the one who ought to be thanking him for helping me to once again see just how much FUN SL is.

I wouldn't trade that feeling or that moment for anything in the world.

Wow, Flutter, I guess it's hard to follow that one. That makes my eyes damp just reading it, but then I'm a total sap.

Most of you have hit on the general ones, so I thought I'd share a notably different one.

One of the new players I met on HI once had joined SL seeking an adult-oriented (D/s) community and said he had heard great things about SL.

I couldn't personally offer him any recommendations to that aspect, but I helped him learn the basics of SL and how he might use the search features and explore to find what he's looking for.

I honestly thought he seemed a very mature individual and wished him the best, even though his lifestyle does not match my own.

I don't think it was even a week, more like a matter of a few days before I get an IM from him saying he'd just had a threesome and that things really do happen in SL, and that he truly thanked me for all my help.

I found that oddly touching.



Ah yes, I still have fond memories of Blue singing back when I was first on Help Island. Only then it was Miya-Hee; I still think of Blue every time I hear that gesture.

~Az