"There'd be things he would say, and I'd ask him about it later. I didn't really ever say, 'I think you were rude.' I didn't get that direct.... I guess there'd be times when I'd say, 'I wondered what was going on with you when you said that. I wondered what was happening?' I remembered we were standing there, and I said 'Why don't we do a map?' and you said something like, 'Oh, we already talked about that.' Something like that, dismissively.

"It would be in the context of sort of a general meeting we'd have about lots of things. And I'd say, 'What happened, remember when you said that?' ... And sometimes it would just go nowhere. I wouldn't be clear. Sometimes he would say, 'Oh I guess I was feeling,' either he'd relate it to something that had happened that had caused him to feel tense, or he would even say 'I've been in a pissy mood, I'm sorry' and apologize. So I thought that was progress."

Mentor uses questioning by involving youth in troubleshooting, "'What do you think is wrong?' The bottom line is when we build a transmission, we run it through a test and if it passes, it goes into the box and it's shipped (to the company who placed the order). If something fails, I find out what it is and I have him investigate too by doing different inspections."

"I have an apprentice now who, when he first started with me, he was rambunctious, hyper. The first time we went to a company function, he was kind of loud and rambunctious and crazy. I asked him, 'How comfortable do you feel around all these people?' He said, 'I feel real comfortable. You know they're all real nice and cool to me.' Then I said: 'Do you know what I'm getting at? You're here at the company function. You just started maybe three months ago. Why don't we keep it on a low key for a little bit?' He looked at me and he goes: 'Well, what do you mean? Everybody's having a fun, gay old time.' I said: 'Well, you know first impressions to a lot of people are never ending. You're never going to live down your first impression.'

"So then we went to this baseball game. We're both having fun and his attitude basically flipped over to a kid again. He was enjoying life and I was having fun, and we were hootin' and hollerin' and all that fun stuff. I said, 'See, now I'm here with you and I'm outside. I'm having fun, but I'm not acting like a complete jerk. But now when you're there with the company, maybe one of the people brought a client with them. You don't want a client to get a bad impression of you or anybody else.'"

Mentor describes how he discusses career plans with youth. Mentor first asks youth about their interests (one youth interested in police department, another the military) and then asks them questions leading to a dialogue about possible career paths: "What do you want to do? What do you like doing? What classes do you like?"

"We're trying to talk her into college. She just doesn't know if she sees a need for college. (My colleague) and I think she should. And she's got the grades to do it. We've talked about it quite a few times, on down times. I'll say, 'Okay, what do you think your plans are? You're a junior, you've got to start.' ... Our investment specialist (at a going away party) said: 'Well, what college are you going to?' And then we had this big long discussion. And I think just having men involved with the conversation too, (the youth is) just really thinking about it now." Mentor also tells youth about her son going to college.

"We went to the yard, which is where the field service inspection station is, and I say, 'This is what they do and this is a meter and here are the posters and this is where they sit.' It does two things. Number one, it gives them time to be alone with me so I can ask them,'How's school? What do you like about school? What do you plan to do?' We talk about school a lot and then it also gives them an idea of different roles they could play. We were driving and (one youth), one of my success stories, told me she was going to apply for Upward Bound. And I took her to the yard. And I said, 'So how did your interview go?'"

"Yesterday he came in, and I could tell right away something was wrong. He came up on the unit but he said when we got talking, 'No, I'm just really tired. I had a lot of things that I had to do.' And I say, 'Well, I knew something wasn't right.' Because he walked in and usually he's bouncing, but he was very subdued.... And he was able to say to me, 'I'm really tired today.' I thought, 'Are you going to be able to do anything?' And he said, 'Oh, yeah, I can.'"

"You try and make them stop and think about a minute. 'Something doesn't go right, well, stop and think about it a minute. You walk over and ask 'How do you do that like that?' I've been (at it) a few more years, so I'll show them, 'Try it that way, hand me the tools, make the tools work for you.' I'll ask them, 'How would you do it?' They tell me. I say, 'No, I wouldn't do it that way, I'd do it this way.' (Or) I'd say, 'Yeah, that's exactly how I'd do it.' Let them decide or let them tell me."

Mentor asks youth to reconsider her initial response to an army recruiter to enter military in return for part of college tuition. Mentor suggested she think about the decision, to consider her reaction to authority and regimentation. "I said, 'You really need to think long and hard about that. I know what your situation is at home, that you are looking to get out and it's a way out. It's a very easy way out. Just think it through and be very, very careful.'"