MENTOR? YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME...REALLY, DON'T DO THIS TO ME...I'VE ONLY BEEN HERE FOR 10 MONTHS...OH, OK.

We ended up with an extra apprentice today. Let me rephrase that, I ended up with an extra apprentice today. I like the guy, and he has some maintainence man experience but is two or three months new to the game of electrical work, but the most important thing is, he has interest and listens. My journeyman gave us the assignment of connecting "stub ups" (imagine the plug under your desk or the switch by your door and the conduit that runs up inside the wall and out into the suspended ceiling...ok, don't.) Those are the stubs, and they get connected to the "home run"...that conduit that runs across the deck above the suspended ceiling and ends up at the panel, where the power comes from.
To accomplish this, measurements are made, conduit is cut and bent and installed from atop 8 (and in my case 10) foot ladders, bodies poking through ceiling grid that is 2x2 ft. and limiting your mobility. To say that it can be a bitch is understatement.
Now, my journeyman and I can do this with relative ease. We have a good system going, he's the leader and I'm the erstwhile apprentice. Today he made me the leader, and as much as I was worried about making a complete mess of it, it turned out nicely. I remembered that I had been a manager most of my life and acted accordingly. As much as I didn't want to, I took charge, and by the end of the day I had completed a task as the lead guy and taught a new guy some electrician stuff.
It's kind of like I'm getting pushed out of the nest, little by little, or more to the point, tested. Granted, it took us twice as long, but we got the same results as if I had done it with my journeyman. Except he'd have run a 90 instead of an offset and been done with it.
That's critique, by the way.