Carley the bartender who attracted us all to Shaker has moved on! She is waiting tables at Lazy Jack at the Marina. I visited her, even had a casadea diner Monday and Tuesday. Her shift has always ended at 5pm so she can begin work as a mother! By 5 at Shaker she had a group established that would last for another 2 hours before the bar becomes for young people and music. Carley had many daily customers but the xpat community was fairly centered on Jimbo who had an assigned seat at the end of the bar closest to the door. You can see him, in his seat, on my other of my Lagos pages.
So far, at least in my 2025, Jimbo is still holding court but outside, as long as it is not raining. There is only one low table and 4 chairs! There are 2 or three high tables with high chairs, like the ones in the bar, but only the one table and 4 low! Besides Jim, there is an older French man who always has a book. There is a French? woman who is fairly focused on him, though she usually croshes by him or stand but does not sit. There is another woamnwho we wil call Portugese. She is talkative. One of her tricks is to ask you to choose a song and then she plays it on her phone on the table. Not loudly.
There are two other men. Frank usually sits at the table. He is a year or so younger than Jum. Taught elementary in Califoria. Retired for 20? year in Hawaii but now is moving with his wife to Lagos! Mike is brand new. He came a year or so ago and really liked it. From Canada, around Toronto? He is a retired surgon. Like Frank, he also has a wife!! She is still working for another 2 years?
The conversation is usually pretty light. I did ask Frank about what he would tell a new teacher. He said the best thing that worked for him was having the more experienced elementary teachers who were willing to mentor him. I think that is probably a key concept for any job! In software, in building social networks, it is hard in that the best ideas often come from the new employee!
The gates preventing the mentoring from working are high. First you have to have someone willing to be the mentor. Someone who wants to give away all of their secrets as fast as possible. Someone with the confidence to know that growing is the real answer to job security and that sharing all your best ideas is the only way to really grow those ideas, to make them eve better! Being open yourself to seeing what the mentories say.
The old idea, even from Princeton Engineering back in 1964, we can not teach you the engineering you need. Things are changing too fast. We can only teach you how to learn and how to think, using the poor understanding of engineering that we have today.
A mentor is willing to invest everything in having you be a success AND in being willing to have you fail. Letting you be your own person.