Staying afloat when a job is completely wrong for you

[suckered]

I have been in my current position for nearly a year. It was a job that I took to escape a difficult boss and I just took the first way out.

Now in this job, the boss and the team are nice, no interpersonal issues at all. The nature of work doesn't suit me at all. While it's similar profession, I am more of a big picture/ideas/problem solver type of person. A the same time, I will forget my keys, forget to attach a file in an email or make typos without noticing. My current position doesn't have any complicated problems to solve, so it's all based on following correct procedures to a T, having ordered and pretty documents with zero mistakes of any kind.

I work with clients and they are very nitpicky. As a result, I never had a single client that was happy with my work. Usually, they would find a list of minor errors in the final submission of my work, I would apologize, promptly fix them, we would go like this for a few rounds. My boss has never really criticized me but he is conflict avoidant so who knows what he was thinking.

This brings me to my current client. After I submitted a draft copy of my work, and all through our earlier meetings, he had no comments so I went ahead and sent him the final version (300 page document). A week went by with nothing and then he started sending me emails every day that he has found another "terrible mistake" in my work. Instead of a list of things to fix, he seems to review a page at the time and send a new email every time he discovers something. None of these things are major and they don't take a long time to correct. It's more of a psychological torture of getting a new email every day starting with something like "WOW another mistake!!! Your company is doing poor work" etc. He has started CCing all of the management. Sometimes the emails would arrive at hourly intervals. This has been going on for over a month. I am falling behind on all my other work.

Management is not doing much. They keep asking me after each email if I can guarantee that there are now no more mistakes which I said I can't given the level of nitpicking. Sometimes the terrible mistake is an extra space somewhere (to make it clear I am not a writer, I am an engineer). I have asked this client to take a week and make a list of all the changes he wants me to make and I will do it all in one go. He ignored this and continued the daily emails.

I don't know what to do - I don't have a good track record at this company already. This is an important client with possibility of future work. I would look for another job but I am dealing with some health problems and with COVID, it's not the best time to change jobs. I don't know if I will get fired due to this

Any advice on how to make this client go away?
 

 

[d0nnivain]

Since you now have a flavor of what makes this client upset, go through your 300 page document with a fine tooth comb & fix all additional mistakes you find on the pages the client hasn't yet scrutinized.  Then submit  the update, with a table of every mistake you corrected / change you made.   CC your management so they can see you taking initiative for the client.  

[introverted1]

Agree with the above. But also - you took this job and your choices now are to either do it at the required level of detail OR find another job.  Perhaps you don't mean it this way, but your OP comes across as though it's not your fault you've made these errors; rather you are not a detail-oriented person (you prefer the big picture) and the client is too picky anyway. But the reality is that this job does require attention to detail and the cliche that the client is always right is almost always true. So while you may have taken this boss to escape a situation you felt was untenable, you now need to do the job you accepted...  or move on.

[suckered]

I think the problem here is that the client hasn't followed our processes. We specifically have points where we allow review time by the client and allow time for corrections. Client did no review at all. He has signed documents without reading them.

The problem now is that my time is tightly scheduled, I have moved on to 4 new projects with new demands. It would honestly need 2 weeks of review to check every nuance of the document and even then I would probably not catch 100% of typos. The client is demanding a perfect document immediately.

To complicate things further I am going on medical leave to take my son to have major surgery in 2 days. I am worried that I won't have a job when I come back.

Edited December 5, 2020 by suckered

[ShyViolet]

15 hours ago, suckered said:

Now in this job, the boss and the team are nice, no interpersonal issues at all. The nature of work doesn't suit me at all. While it's similar profession, I am more of a big picture/ideas/problem solver type of person. A the same time, I will forget my keys, forget to attach a file in an email or make typos without noticing. 

You need to work on this problem of having poor attention to detail and making lots and lots of careless mistakes, or you are going to have a hard time being successful in jobs in the future.  You are deflecting blame a lot in your post, suggesting that it's not your fault (this client is just being nitpicky), but other things you've said point to the fact that this has been a pattern for you.  You need to take more responsibility for doing what is expected of you in this job.  You say "I am not a writer, I'm an engineer".  Well that excuse isn't going to fly.  Writing with accuracy clearly is a requirement of this job.

[suckered]

I am not deflecting the blame and I don't need to work on my attention to detail when it comes to writing. I have been in a workforce for 20 years and this is the first job where I had this problem. In fact, I have been promoted in every job I had. The only thing that I need to work on is finding a job that caters to my strength.

My attention to detail when it comes to writing is not perfect but for an engineer it's good enough. When it comes to solving difficult problems that few people can solve, nobody cares about typos - you solve it, you are a hero. Now in this job, the team and clients are much less intelligent than what I am used to so they all focus on irrelevant details. Also, there are no difficult problems to solve.

Why should I invest a lot of time to work on a skill that's irrelevant to me when I have so much more to offer? Obviously as I said this job is wrong for me. I still don't have an option in COVID times but to stay here for at least another 6 months. I was looking for advice on how to do that.

[d0nnivain]

You're right you have to stay while you look for a new job that you like better.  That is why I suggested you address what you consider the "irrelevant" details being raised by this client.  They are clearly not irrelevant to the client.  I want to help you keep this job while you search for a new one.  If you get fired that will tarnish your reputation & make it harder to get a new position so get to that edit.  

[ShyViolet]

With Covid and our horrible economy, who knows how long you will really be stuck in this job.  These things may be irrelevant to you, but to them it's not irrelevant.  You have no choice right now but to adapt to how they expect things to be done.  Just show them that these issues will be fixed going forward.