Steph, they still send you work. That's the biggest clue that you're doing something right, especially as a freelancer. Also, what -t said.

It seems like, from out here totally uninvolved, you are very hard on yourself. Steph.

I am, yeah. But I also don't have any kind of metric to tell if I'm improving, beyond "fucks up less." I guess that's improvement.

If I had been doing this for years and still needed reassuring, that would be nuts. But it's only been 6 months, and I just can't tell if I'm making any progress at all, or if they're just keeping me around because it's more work to train someone new than it is to keep pointing out that I forgot to ask the author about XYZ.

It's only been 6 months and you are getting fewer corrections. That's good. That's progress.

I do think it's okay to explicitly ask for positive feedback (although maybe not in those terms)

I am all for metrics for performance, by the way. Well, in theory I think they are great. In practice they rarely actually measure performance, so I have some ambivalence.

Do you have the same errors on every thing you do? Or is it new situations that come up that you have to learn how to handle?

Agree with Amy on that one!

When I made the decision that I was ready to commit to a dog (and all the lifestyle changes that resulted from that) I went around to the humane society and area shelters, but didn't find a dog that worked for my situation. I ended up using petfinder, which is a great resource heavily trafficked by rescue/shelter organizations. I had been looking for an adult female dog, but the few times I tried going forward with an adoption things fell through. (I couldn't believe how hard it was to adopt in Portland! It is serious business.)

I was kind of poking around when I saw a new posting for a young female pup, and figured it wouldn't hurt to meet. I was actually at the NCAA regional tournament when I was trying to arrange a visit with her foster mother! I took my older male British lab Tuey, and within an hour I had this absurdly cute bundle of 5 month old puppy wiggling in my lap and teasing my older guy. It was magical.

I do think it's okay to explicitly ask for positive feedback (although maybe not in those terms)

Soooo... "Validate me! LOOOOOOVE MEEEEEEE!!!" would be the wrong tactic, then?

Do you have the same errors on every thing you do? Or is it new situations that come up that you have to learn how to handle?

A little bit of both. The AMA Style Manual is 400 pages, so it's a lot to commit to memory. Some things I just kept missing because it wasn't how I edited at my old job (where we did use the AMA style manual, but not exclusively), so I made a checklist of things to double-check before I return articles. And I add to that checklist every week.

(I don't mean I've been missing the same thing every single article for the past 6 months; I've edited about 100 articles so far, and some errors repeat, but they aren't in the same week, or often in the same month, but they do repeat. Hence, the checklist.)

Ah, the checklist of "Why do you always do that, Constance!" or the name of your choice.

I'm trying to write down my list of responsibilities and how much time they take, but it varies so wildly depending on reasons that I'm having a hard time. It doesn't help that I just don't want to do it because I want out of this role, and that right now I have so much work to do that I'm mad I have to take time to do this.

Where's the magical new job fairy when you need one?

Where's the magical new job fairy when you need one?

I think she lost a ton of money when the housing market collapsed in '08, so now she pretty much sits around getting stoned and watching cartoons.

If you see her, shrift, tell her she's slacking over here, too. I'm a little grumpy that the job I applied for with a deadline earlier this week hasn't contacted me to say "we want you to interview, right now!" I am tailor-made for that job and I wants it.