Why was my job cancelled? What should I do now?

There are several reasons why editors cancel a job. Jobs can be cancelled to the queue, which makes them available to other editors again, or to the client, which means the job is no longer in the queue (and no longer visible to any editor). If a job is cancelled to the client, the client’s Wordy account is refunded. To claim a refund back to your card, please email support@wordy.com.

So, why do editors sometimes cancel a job?

At certain times of the day, we can have several editors, all hungry for work, monitoring the job queue. In theory, they are meant to review the document before claiming it. In practice, that can mean that the job is claimed by someone else and they lose out. So, some editors claim jobs and then review them. If they subsequently discover that they are not the right editor for the material, they will cancel the job and return it to the job queue. This seems to be the most common reason for jobs getting cancelled. When a job is cancelled back to the queue, the editor may leave a note to explain why or they may do so silently.

In most cases, this doesn’t taint the job and another editor will soon come along and claim it. However, if an editor leaves a negative comment about the job, that may deter other editors from working on it. When a job is tainted in this way, you have a couple of options. You can leave the job in the queue and hope for the best. Or you can cancel the job yourself, which refunds your Wordy account. At this point, you may want to address the editor’s comments by making changes to the document or to your brief. Whether you make changes or not, when you repost the job, it will have a clean edit history, making it more likely to be claimed.

There are several reasons why jobs are cancelled to the client. This can happen if the job is not doable, for example, if it’s not in English or if the text is embedded in graphics and not selectable. Making changes to the document or the brief may fix the issue, so that you can repost it. If you feel the editor has been unreasonable, you can post again without making changes or you can send it to support@wordy.com for them to review.

Here’s summary of why an editor might cancel a job that is doable:

• They are not familiar with the material. This usually applies to technical documents, such as theses. Some clients mention in the brief what the document is about, which can be helpful for editors reviewing the job.
• The document is  in a format that the editor doesn’t work with, such as LaTeX. Don’t worry, as another editor will be able to work with that format.
• The editor got confused. For some reason, they think the job is much harder than it actually is.
• The job needs more time than the editor expected. This may be because a rewrite is required. In any case, if the editor thinks that they cannot complete it within the estimated delivery time, they may cancel the job.
• Something unexpected has happened, and your editor is no longer available. This is a rare occurrence, but we are human, so please bear with us.

As noted above, a doable job cancelled to the queue with no negative comments will usually be quickly claimed by another editor keen to do the work.

Here are some reasons why an editor might cancel a job that is not doable:

• The job is not in English.
• The document has been corrupted.
• The text is embedded in graphics and not editable (especially with PDFs).
• The client’s instructions are confusing or don’t match what is in the document.
• The client is asking for something that is too difficult to achieve, especially in the timescale or for the price.
• The client has asked for a service that we don’t provide. We don’t translate. We don’t write content.

If a job is deemed not to be doable, then making changes to the document or the brief may fix the issue. If so, you can repost it.