I just started a mentorship/side job situation. Background: I found this person online & asked for some guidance. They offered me the opportunity to work for them for a while so they can mentor me. They are starting a new company. This was about a month ago. Fast forward to now they finalized things for the company & we start doing virtual meetings. I get on the meeting & there's another person there, let's call them Jay. The boss does the “X this is Y, Y this is X” thing. Then they go on to explain my background to Jay (my work history, how we met etc.) but don't explain Jay's background to me. That threw me off bc I wasn't even expecting another person to be here so if anything I should be the one knowing who they even are. Anyway, I don't say anything and the meeting continues. The boss proceeds to say that this person is my backup in case I can't get something done or if there is a lot of work that 2 ppl need to do. Throughout the meeting, this person is just giving total dickeating, opportunist vibes. Like I don't even like to say that but they really were. It all was just weird to me & now I'm kind of on my toes. I feel like I have a person as “backup” lowkey trying to like infiltrate a situation that was created for me & I don't like it. Like when I was introduced to this mentorship situation we were speaking as though it would be 1on1. It's kind of annoying to have some random tagging along and also asking for us to record sessions and send it to them if they can't make it to the meeting. Like I had questions I wanted to ask that relate to documents that I wouldn't want to show this other person. Like stop being intrusive & go back to whatever you were doing before. I get it the boss needs their work done & is looking out for themselves. 2 employees is better than one & they're probably trying to kill 2 birds with one stone by training us together to save time & also so that I'm not the only one who knows how to do it. But don't make it seem one way and do another. I'm currently being cordial and acting as though it doesn't phase me. I plan to continue to do that & do the work & do it well so there is no space for them to take over. Or if anything leave the minute repetitive tasks for them to do.
Anyway my question is how would you go about this situation? Wouldn't you be annoyed at this too? Does anyone have advice of how to get this person out of the picture? Minimize time w them etc? Any 48 laws of power, work politics type of advice?
TLDR got a mentorship/side gig, was advertised as 1on1, got to meeting another person, opportunist vibes