The Issue: A Guilt-Plagued Mentee

While an editor's star rises, her mentor crashes and burns. Should she have done more to help him?

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When local TV news producer Christine Hong* changed careers by joining the fact-checking department of a major news Web site in New York City, she was excited about working in a different medium for a bigger, more prestigious organization. But she didn't know a soul at her new job. "Anytime you start at an organization, you need someone to guide you on everything from where can you get a good cup of coffee to 'what's the corporate culture here?" Hong says.

She could hardly look to her new boss for any guidance. He was a poor communicator who'd often expect her to fulfill duties he didn't adequately explain. When Hong asked him for help in learning the Internet technology necessary for the job, he referred her to a short-tempered, seemingly unstable colleague who answered yes-or-no questions with baffling 10-minute treatises.

Then she met Angelo, a managing editor based in Philadelphia who often visited the New York office. "He was someone higher up in the hierarchy. I worked with him a lot but didn't report directly to him," Hong recalls. "We hit it off professionally right away, and he was the first person to give me any guidance or feedback on my work. Also, he was the kind of person who would try to get to know people as human beings."

Winning a Promotion

Soon he turned into a highly effective, if unofficial, mentor. "I could go to him and say, 'Look, XYZ person is giving me bad vibes. What do I do?'" With Angelo's help, she learned to compensate for the foibles of co-workers in her department, which freed up time to pursue her real career goal: to become a full-time editor and writer.

Angelo gave Hong writing assignments and editing duties—and advised her on how to take on the extra responsibility without rankling her manager. Thanks in good part to his guidance and constructive criticism, Hong won a promotion to senior news editor and began reporting directly to him.

Then the Christine-Angelo juggernaut came to an abrupt halt. The editor-in-chief, Helmut, decided to move Angelo's job to New York. He gave Angelo the choice of relocating or quitting. When neither option suited him, the situation became unpleasant. "I was sympathetic to Angelo, of course," Hong says. "I told him I really wanted him to stay at the company. But once lawyers got involved, Helmut told me not to discuss the situation with Angelo."

A Cold Farewell

The awkwardness grew when Helmut assigned some of Angelo's duties to Hong. "In a way it was good for Angelo—it freed up some of his time so he could hunt for another job," recalls Hong. "But he also resented it. And he'd say negative things about Helmut and expect me to agree. I really couldn't, because I liked Helmut."

Angelo started taking it all personally, according to Hong. "I could tell Angelo felt I wasn't supportive enough—he thought I should have gone to bat for him and try to persuade Helmut to let him keep working from Philadelphia. But it just didn't seem my place to do that, and it wasn't right for the business, either."

By the time Angelo left the job, coldness and formality had taken the place of openness and friendship. Hong now had his old job, a position she found fulfilling and enjoyable in many ways. But how things turned out between her and her former mentor and boss still bother her. Had she simply done the best she could in a difficult situation? Or had she failed her mentor in an unforgivable way?

*This case study is based on a true story, but names and identifying details have been changed.

Reisner is an editor at BusinessWeek.com .