Reinventing the wheel would be an improvement....

My workplace woes continue. I've been there almost 10 months now, and don't feel much more capable than I was on my first day. Still not too clear about most of my duties. Sometimes it feels like some really boring, unamusing game at a party that you never wanted to attend. I need to do X, I'm told to do Y, only find that doesn't work, so I need to try to find the name of anothr type of report from this other person, who responds after a few hours. But in the end, I'm still not sure how the report helps with my objective. I would say we re-invent the wheel every day, but that's giving way too much credit since having a wheel would actually be useful. This is more like trying to understand the concept of shapes everyday and choosing a rhombus.

Longtime readers [if any exist] know this is not a new problem for me, and it makes me think of the saying about how if you run into one asshole, you ran into an asshole, but if you run into assholes all day long the asshole is you. If you continue having issues getting started in job after job, and having communication issues with your boss, maybe the problem lies with me.

I've enjoyed a couple of my jobs since changing careers---I enjoyed working at the medical clinic in Oklahoma though I had a similar case where I never quite understood some of the things I was supposed to be doing. And I liked my job at the nonprofit, though I had similar issues with a noncommunicative boss. But I felt like I was supporting valuable work, and felt like I knew what I was doing at least half of the time. Since I had to leave the nonprofit a few years ago, it's just been a lot of uncertainty. I think I was happiest in my first full time job after college, as a data entry clerk for the Post Office. I'm lucky that I've been able to return to the federal system, so I should be in a position to retire in not too long now. But it's weird to be heading into the last decade or so of my career and to still feel so unsure of myself, and still trying to find my footing.