As to whether anyone else on the planet matches your boss's communication style, I would speculate, no and good luck to her finding someone who can do better than you.

Well, there's a freelance staff of more than just me, so apparently some people have figured this stuff out. I don't know. Not everybody can be equally good at everything, and I guess I've found my limit.

If you can afford to leave a job you are unhappy in, then do.

Yeah, and so I need to figure out what to do next. I'm back to not knowing what I want to do or even how to go about finding that job even if I knew what I wanted to do.

I used to think I was good at stuff, but I really don't have that kind of confidence any more. I'm convinced I'm completely unemployable. Which is probably not true. But in addition to thinking I'm completely unemployable, I'm paralyzed by not knowing what to do next.

Good news, Maria!

Is there virtue in staying at a job that makes me cry, just so I can prove I'm not a quitter?

Nope. The reason to stay in a job that makes you cry is because you need the money.

You're completely employable. You're employed now! Just because you hate it doesn't make you not employable.

My only other thought here is about how long it takes to get comfortable. When I was in my 20s, a friend said to always give a job four months before you decide if you like it. Now I realize it actually takes me a year to get my head around a new complicated job. Not that I'm not doing the work, and looking fine to my boss and stuff, but it's really a year before I feel deeply that I get it.

I have been walking around with my sweater on backwards all day. Just noticed.

My only other thought here is about how long it takes to get comfortable. When I was in my 20s, a friend said to always give a job four months before you decide if you like it. Now I realize it actually takes me a year to get my head around a new complicated job. Not that I'm not doing the work, and looking fine to my boss and stuff, but it's really a year before I feel deeply that I get it.

Yeah, my boss told me more than once that it usually takes a new editor 18 months to get fully up to speed. I've only been editing 7 months. I don't know if she realizes it's only been 7 months, because I'm the only editor who was a copyreader first. (Meaning, I keep wondering if she thinks my time as a copyreader should count in those 18 months. And maybe she does, but that would be crazy.)

But I don't know if I really want to put up with 11 more months of this (where "this" means "I will tell you one thing that sounds reasonable and then later point out how you are not meeting standards because you have been doing the thing I told you to do" [which happened again today]).

Have you been able to give her documentation that she told you to do the thing she's complaining about? Couch it as "These are the instructions you gave me, can you point out where I misunderstood them?"

That's fantastic news, Maria! Damn, BoA did the right thing.

Short answer - you don't have to justify leaving a job that makes you miserable. Making you miserable is sufficient reason to bail.

In a nutshell, that.

"I will tell you one thing that sounds reasonable and then later point out how you are not meeting standards because you have been doing the thing I told you to do" [which happened again today]).

Fuck that noise. The problem isn't you. You've gotten lots of positive feedback, from your boss and from people not your boss; you have evidence that you are capable of doing a perfectly fine job at this. If you are consistently unhappy, and the thing that makes you unhappy is unlikely to change, then forget this crazy-making "never be a quitter!" cultural philosophy and make your plans to GTFO.

We've noted before that your boss sounds a lot like my boss, who cannot communicate clearly to save her life or mine. In the first year I worked here, I thought about quitting often because she was driving me mad. I finally got a level of autonomy from her, which is what allowed me to stay. Still, about once a year she gives me an assignment that stresses me the fuck out because of her inconsistent instructions. If that were my total job experience, I'd have to leave.

Couch it as "These are the instructions you gave me, can you point out where I misunderstood them?"

I did that today, as a matter of fact. She told me I was not editing enough pages per hour based on my invoice, and that I need to be editing at least 3 pages an hour. The invoice is set up to break out time spent editing, and time spent contacting the authors and then making all the authors' changes (because the editors handle that). Sometimes the administrative stuff adds more than 2 hours to the total time on an article.

So she looks at total pages and total hours, and tells me I'm not editing enough pages per hour. I pointed out that if she looks at the breakdown (i.e., Article XYZ, 9 pages, 3.0 hours editing, 0.75 hours administrative), that's still 3 pages an hour of editing. And then I asked if I misunderstood, and total "editing" time is meant to include all the administrative crap.

Her reply was "Thank you for pointing out the misunderstanding. I am confident you will continue to improve. The experienced editors average 3.5-4.2 pages an hour."

But I'm not an "experienced editor" (in AMA tenure, at least). I'm so frustrated with not knowing what's expected of me.

Though I wonder if today's email was meant to be understood as "you need to bill us less," not "you need to work faster". I guess it doesn't matter to them, as long as I'm billing at a faster rate.

Steph, can you arrange for a sit-down when you're in Chicago? Sometimes a lot of this can be worked out with 30 minutes of F2F contact.

And when she thanked you for pointing things out, she didn't reiterate the 3 pph goal, she assumed that you would eventually reach the higher goal, because she knows you can since you just showed here you had already reached the 3 pph benchmark.

Try to get out of your head. I know it's easier said than done, and overthinking things is a hazard for a lot of us.

Try to get out of your head. I know it's easier said than done, and overthinking things is a hazard for a lot of us.

That's very true. I just get caught off guard feeling like I was being set up to fail (which makes no sense rationally, because they are a business and can't afford that kind of nonsense).

And when she thanked you for pointing things out, she didn't reiterate the 3 pph goal, she assumed that you would eventually reach the higher goal, because she knows you can since you just showed here you had already reached the 3 pph benchmark.

Seriously, I *really* appreciate your perspective on this. Because I read it and just thought, "...okay? Are we on the same page? Or am I still failing here?"

And when she thanked you for pointing things out, she didn't reiterate the 3 pph goal, she assumed that you would eventually reach the higher goal, because she knows you can since you just showed here you had already reached the 3 pph benchmark.

Also how I read that. You are improving, and will continue to, for at least the next 11 months.