Tips on being a mentor but not sounding bossy

[Raqrie_Tohka]

This is only a few of them, there is plenty more.

Hmm don't take it personally but even if your intentions were probably reasonable, what they perceived, and what I think they perceived if I tentatively try to see it from their theoretical standpoint, is that reminding them about rotations is being the efficiency police.

I don't know how to put something as delicate as this thought I'm trying to express, into reasonable words, forgive me, but ... hmm, try to "empathize"? Er, to be there as help, for them, as a person, than to "offer" help, as a transaction? No that didn't come out right either. I'll come back when I've actually got it straightened out. Ugh, at least one point I want to bring up is, if they think your motive is to be the efficiency police, then no matter how well worded an advice is, they will encounter it with hostility. So sometimes the right thing to do in a conversation is just to "listen" ... if that'll be the one takeaway I would will myself to remember from this thread. There are many intrinsic details to the art of conversation but I think "to listen" is as simplest and straightforward as it could possibly get. To "listen" not just to words, but to the situation, to them, both in their actions and as a whole, to the tone and atmosphere, or if nothing, just to silence, for silence is golden. And humbling.

At any rate, I'd rather mentors be viewed as "friends for (free) hire" than "efficiency police" anyday.