On Being the Intern's Buddy

so we got a new intern today. he's a uni student, final year. super keen. nice guy.

my manager assigned me to be his "buddy". me. isa. the person who broke the build last tuesday.

it started okay until he asked me about my uni degree. i told him i graduated early. he looked confused. then i told him i'm 21. he looked terrified.

later, he asked for help with a git conflict and called me "ma'am". i physically withered away. i am a child. i am three raccoons in a trench coat. please do not perceive me as an authority figure.

but also... i helped him fix it. and i explained why it happened. and he understood. so maybe i do know something? weird feeling.

the imposter syndrome is real

there's something deeply surreal about being asked to mentor someone when you still feel like you're figuring things out yourself. every time he asks a question, there's this split second where my brain goes "oh no, they're going to find out i have no idea what i'm doing."

and then i answer the question. correctly. because it turns out i do know things.

what i've learned about mentoring

you don't have to know everything - you just need to know more than the person asking, or know where to find the answer
explain the "why" - anyone can google the "what", but understanding why something works the way it does is actually valuable
be honest about your own mistakes - when i told him about the time i accidentally pushed to main, he relaxed visibly
imposter syndrome is universal - he feels like an imposter too. so do the senior engineers. we're all just pretending to be adults

the git conflict, explained

for posterity (and because he might read this): the conflict happened because he was working on a branch that diverged from main while someone else merged a conflicting change. the solution was to:

git fetch origin
git rebase origin/main
# resolve conflicts
git add .
git rebase --continue

simple once you know it. terrifying when you don't.

conclusion

being someone's buddy is actually kind of nice. it's forcing me to articulate things i've just been doing instinctively. and seeing someone else understand something because of how i explained it? that's a good feeling.

still not ready to be called "ma'am" though. give it at least another decade.