Miscommunication, or non-communication?

Yesterday got entirely derailed and now I feel out of sorts, like my plans are in ruins and I don't know how to get back on track.

See, yesterday I had planned on finishing reading a theory book, and making significant headway on one of the novels.

But my boss called at 10 am. And he had a huge list of things to do. He's been in Hong Kong for the last three weeks, so we've really only communicated by email. I had a clear idea of what he wanted me to get done before he left, and I did all those things, but when he called he seemed disappointed that I hadn't done more.

Now, I hadn't failed to do more because I was lazy or just didn't think it was important. I'd done everything I knew he wanted. I had also sent him an outline that he wanted to forward to our client. I sent it twice. But when he called, he told me he needed it to be more detailed. Which confused me, because I didn't see how I could get much more detailed without actually starting to create the content, which we didn't want to do until the client approved the outline. And then he was disappointed that I hadn't created the outline for another project. I was under the mistaken impression that we hadn't even secured funding for that second project, so I didn't work on it (if we don't have money for the project, I won't get paid for doing the work, right?)

After he told me we did have funding, I got on the outline right away, but I was still puzzled by the request to expand the other outline. Luckily I wasn't puzzled for long because he called back and told me he'd found it in his inbox. He just wanted some minor notation changes, which were easy enough to do.

All in all, it was only a few hours of work, but I have mixed feelings about it because I think he's disappointed in my lack of work while he was gone, whereas I feel like I wasn't given a clear indication of what he wanted. It's a little frustrating.

Actually I think it all comes down to email. I'm fairly comfortable with email, and although sometimes I don't exactly get my point across right away, I keep trying. I feel comfortable having an extended conversation over a series of emails, but his are generally very short and often don't directly answer the questions I've asked. So when he goes away again next month, I'm afraid we're going to have the same problem. All I can hope is that our projects are well enough established that I'll have a better idea of what they need for us to pull them off and I'll need to rely on his email communication less. But I'm still a bit concerned that miscommunication or lack of communication might make this ideal job less than ideal.

Maybe that's why today it feels hard to shift gears and get back into my own work. But I've got to find a way to shift back and forth more effortlessly, or this kind of thing will keep on happening. And I've got to figure out my boss's communication style before he leaves town again.