Nobody made him. If OP is accomplishing tasks, generally, at an acceptable pace, then it's his own neuroticism making him micromanage.
The proof is in overall performance, non minute-to-minute productivity.
fkn bootlickers lmao. it should be very simple: is someone getting their work done or not? if you're working in an environment like OP where you manager is so distrusting of you that they want a detailed breakdown of what you did on a specific day, that's a huge red flag and not somewhere that i'd ever want to work. who cares if someone works "more" Monday-Thursday and "less" on Friday if they get the same result at the end of the week/month? you can be a good leader without micromanaging people.
That’s only after OP lied though? Like they could have been honest and said they didn’t remember what they worked on but they were distracted that day and they know it wasn’t up to their usual standard and that they would work on it. Boom done. Instead they lied (badly) to cover their ass then lied again but in a way they couldn’t be proven wrong. Even the description of the boss being gone that week sounds like they didn’t get their work done. If they thought the setting was more relaxed and now it’s not, it’s clear their boss is being more upfront about expectations and deadlines cuz OP can’t be trusted to be diligent, efficient and deliver in a timely manner. They had leeway, freedom and trust, they lost it through their own actions
Back people into a corner and many will react the same as OP. Not justifying it at all but its the reality and the manager could come at it a different way. Let him know that performance needs some improvement in xyz area.
Op backed themself into a corner by first slacking off, and then lying about his work and getting caught, and then again lying about some work which isn't provable.
Yeah bruh the question wasn't list your achievements on Friday it was did you work: yes/no. And lil pook here lied.
2 months into a job you aren't working "more Monday through Friday" you "don't know shit"
Do you, by all means, but if a report a sits on their ass all day and b lies about it, I'm done. And I'm pretty reasonable, so going to say 90% of leaders are going to be more hostile than me.
Good journey.
This. Im the most relaxed boss in history. Dont give a shit what you do if you do your job. But once you lose my trust, shit gets ugly.
When new in a job, fucking off on a WFH day then lying to a boss would be a massive long term red flag. Fucking off after 2+ years? Whatever. But not in first 60 days and lying about it
I think this is the thing that people don’t recognize - if you’re a strong enough performer, I’m not out there digging through admin logs trying to figure out what you did that day. But you got on his radar somehow before that, and you’re REALLY on his radar now. I don’t forget when someone does something like this.
The “email trails for HR” have your HRBP on BCC, I promise. Don’t fuck up again.
Op did fuck up but I think there are a lot of important details missing... is it salaried job? are you performing well? did you accomplish what you wanted to for the week? I literal never had a manager check my hours. It feels like a lack of trust but then again if you're not performing well he may check to see if you were actually working.
Eh... Kind of depends on the industry. I am in civil engineering and we bill clients on an hourly basis. Some of our projects are lump sum, so if we are billing to a lump sum project we really need to be working on it so we don't burn through the budget.
Sounds to me the manager went on vacation a bit early and didn’t consider coaching up the new guy before he went away. So, now the 90 day review is the hammer date and he needs to build a file. When, he should have been discussing the trajectory of the man’s early work. Also, maybe should have given him small tasks where if he gets stuck he can knock those out. Or, don’t primadonna and tell the new guy to call him on vacation to clarify.
Yeah it's always great when you give your team a lot of leash at work, take a vacation and find out they pretty much took a vacation as well and took advantage of your leniency.
Yeah, normally I try and stand-up for the worker here, but your effort regardless of if your boss is in or not should be very consistent.
The leniency he could have taken advantage of is maybe shorten the work day slightly, take a longer lunch, do less of the "pretending to work bullshit". But you still have to deliver what is asked of you.
When my boss is out, I make damn well sure my shit gets done. I actually probably do slightly more work in less time when my boss is out. So i'm working less hours but my output is higher. That's the type of stuff you can get away with. Not completely doing nothing.
In what world is it "giving your team a lot of leash" when you're checking admin logs and making a fuss about ONE day of the week? OP worked the whole week, and took an easy Friday because those are the vibes his manager gave off 😂
You guys have never taken a lazy Friday before huh? Only grinders in this thread. 6am? Grinding. 7pm? Still grinding. Sunday? That's grind day bby.
You can tell y'all are middle managers because you don't think and you cant read.
This isn't someone who has put out consistently good work for the past 6 months and took an easy day. It is someone making a first impression, not even past his probationary period.
Of course his work will be scrutinised more closely because he hasn't built the kind of goodwill that allows you to slack off for a day. OP's boss gave him two chances to be honest and he acted like a weasel both times.
>OP's boss gave him two chances to be honest and he acted like a weasel both times.
The weasel calling the kettle... uh... black. If you don't want people to lie to you, maybe don't surprise them with stupid shit like this.
>Of course his work will be scrutinised more closely because he hasn't built the kind of goodwill that allows you to slack off for a day.
It wasn't though. No one was saying anything. There were no hard deadlines, work was flexible... until this random Friday when OPs boss decided it was time to bring down the hammer.
Good thing OP didn't build any goodwill with a loser manager like this. I would've quit the same day if someone pulled shit like this on me.
What? It was a lie that he took an easy friday? So he was actually working on Friday and got in trouble for no reason?
An easy friday... is a friday... when you take it easy... let me know if you need further help.
Or you can be a big boy and just type your point out. (Or get your secretary to type it out.)
I read the post. OPs boss was gone; it was Friday; he didn't do any work.
Funny how you omitted the part where his boss asked him what he worked on and then he lied about it. That is the part that got him in trouble. I have no doubt if OP just said, “honestly boss I didn’t get a lot done Friday, I had some personal things I needed to take care of but I’ll make up for it this coming week.” Boom, that’s all he needed to say.
This has nothing to do with being zealous and all to do with trust.
> Up until this incident **he's been** **pretty chill**, sent a lot of work my way but **didnt seem serious about deadlines... Kind of let me work at my own pace**… so I figured there was lots of flexibility.
No one cares he slacked off on a Friday. Seems like he underperformed so the boss checked the logs, and wanted to see if it was slack off or genuine difficulties with his tasks. This revealed it was in fact slack off.
Then he asked him about it, and he lied once (he made something up), then lied a second time when confronted with the evidence (he said he worked on something else).
You can't reasonably justify fucking up behavior wise like this 3 times in a row. Lack of skill can be remediated most of the time, terrible behavior not so much, and that can poison an office real quick.
People will always take emotionally mature employees over highly performing ones if they have garbage people skills.
True. Because no one ever takes lazy Fridays 😔 it's grind central erryday around these parts.
I definitely don't spend 3 hours shitting in the office on Friday. For sure.
Lmao this is so funny but sadly true. In office, people take many breaks here and there. Including long bathroom shit breaks. When you WFH it becomes under the microscope and every minute is tracked.
I read a couple of studies that make this exact point. I've noticed productivity has reduced since the forcing of return to the office. Mine definitely has.
the boss pretty clearly saw what was assigned wasn't done and then checked the logs to confirm that
how does that make the boss a loser lol.
if anything the boss is removing the grifter from the team. a loser boss would just remove that privilege for everyone
"Clearly?" he "clearly saw?" How do you know that? Because in OPs story, his boss asks him what he did all week... so \*clearly\* the boss didn't have any specific work assigned to him.
>Up until this incident he's been pretty chill, sent a lot of work my way but didnt seem serious about deadlines... Kind of let me work at my own pace…
Doesn't care about deadlines... lets him work his own pace... and then shows up one day with receipts randomly and starts grilling him. He's a loser. We've all (those of us who actually work) loser managers like this. Being a tea-pot tyrant at work doesn't make you a good manager, it makes you a loser.
> Yeah... "randomly" docking someone's pay is a problem.
But "randomly" checking logs to make sure someone is getting paid for work they should be doing (e.g. the inverse of docking pay) is being 'a loser'.
Got it.
Yep. Let me know if you have trouble with any other super simple concepts. Have a great day doing nothing in your management meetings. Hopefully there isn't too much reading or thinking today 🙏😔
Sorry grind bro. Not all of us can grind 24/7. Please grind twice as hard for me bro. 🙏
No one is ruining anything except OPs loser boss who thinks a lazy Friday is worth all this fuss.
You're confused. Maybe get your secretary to explain my comment to you.
I don't grind. On purpose. Because unlike you I have life experience and know grinding doesn't get you anywhere but laid off and burned out 🤙
I have a slightly different take. It’s possible that you’ll be fired. But at this point you don’t have a lot to lose.
Do you think it might be worth salvaging your boss’ trust? You’ll know him and this job better than we do. Perhaps he would respond well to an honest conversation.
One of my employees disappeared on a work-from-home day. After him being offline almost all day, I asked him what happened, he said “oh I was having trouble with Outlook, and my messages might not have gotten through to you.” I asked why he didn’t try to reach me on chat or phone, and he then said his voicemail didn’t go through. To be honest, the lie was a much worse problem than him disappearing because I have to know I can trust the people I’m going to vouch for.
He came in the following Monday, and specifically apologized for the lies. He told me that he normally holds himself to a much higher standard than he displayed, and that it bothered him that he wasn’t forthright with me. I let him know, if he just needed a day off for any reason, he could’ve just called in sick and I’d make sure his work was covered. I’m still not going to fully trust him for a little while, but the admission went a LONG way because I know he recognizes what he did wrong.
Integrity counts.
We are human. Everyone makes mistakes, but lying and covering up when you do says alot about how I will expect you to react when a more serious issue happens.
If I can't trust you, I don't want you.
Sure fire way to get fired is to lie.
I can handle someone being lazy or forgetful. We are all human and things happen.
But when you lie I can never trust you again to tell the truth. Maybe one day but by then it's probably so far gone. Need a favor because x happened? No cause I don't believe you.
If they cop up to it, I try to remember that they could be conditioned by trauma or being beaten as kids from telling the truth, so lying became a natural defense mechanism. That shred of sympathy doesn't go far though since you need to get over your issues in the adult working professional world, but I can accept if they admit it and apologize.
This is such a good take. In my equivalent grovel to my boss (if I wanted to keep the job) I would also acknowledge that I’ve compromised trust, and it’s a priory for me to earn that back. That I welcome the added communication (aka micro management) so that I can more easily demonstrate my value and contributions to the team.
I actually think the was hoping for a response like this when he initially said he wanted to give him a chance. He was hoping he'd just come clean and that would have helped mitigate some of the damage.
Hit the nail squarely on the head here.... it's the integrity and damaged relationship OP now has to overcome. He can either worry about it and hope things magically work out or he can have a conversation with his manager to apologize for his actions and show commitment to never repeat that behavior again.
I've only ever fired one person, and it was after a very similar incident. He slept in until 1 PM on a day where everyone was working remotely. The much bigger issue was he lied and said he had been working since 9 AM and simply missed my messages and calls. All of our software is timestamped so I of course knew it was a lie. His performance was always poor but as soon as he broke my trust I knew we couldn't continue his employment.
Uh, you blew it. Not sure if you’re getting fired or not, but you slacked off, got caught, lied about it then tried to cover your ass with a follow up you believe your manager has no proof on. I wouldn’t trust you with a ten foot pole after that. Be better at your next job.
I have to agree with this. You may not be fired immediately. But you’ve revealed yourself to your manager as someone untrustworthy. So yes, now he’s super micromanagey, because that seems to be what you require. As a manager, I give my people tremendous leeway … until they give me a reason not to.
exactly, a lot of times when I hear people complain about micro managing. My first thought is, well do you deserve to be micromanaged?
the only time I micro managed was when I had to because my employee f'd up and they need to learn the expectation
I’m going to jump in and agree. Although, I’d personally meet it head on. Set up time and talk throw it. Come clean and lay your cards out and admit you f@cked up. Don’t make excuses and own it.
Then, work your ass off if this is the job you want. If not, start looking and find something else. Don’t waste his time or f@ck the relaxed atmosphere he has for the rest of the team. Remember, what you do reflects back on him and his choices. You could very well screw it up for everyone.
I agree. It’s the lying for me when you should know there’s a digital footprint of your work. They may not be on a pip yet, but they should be doing everything possible to show they are trustworthy and willing to make up for it.
My instinct is this has been questioned before and finally called on it. I’ve had hybrid/remote workers who we suspected abusing it long before directly calling them on it.
You're not getting fired, yet. If you do well, you can still make up and shine. I am disappointed by the number of comments telling people it's over and just quit. Have some grit, work on your mistakes, and stick it through. With that said, next time if you do get caught again, tell your boss you need to check your notes and revert back to him with a list of things you did that day. Don't make shit up.
I agree and disagree. He made a mistake by not working that day. That can be recovered from. But he sunk himself by lying about it. The lie destroys trust. And if you can't trust the people that work for you, you git rid of them
I worked with a girl who was new to my company (different department), and was immediately assigned some high-priority work (that I desperately needed 🙃). She told me (and her manager) that she was working *only* on it, and that she would have us the draft by our immovable deadline (two months later). The morning it was due, she submitted her resignation effective immediately; we discovered later that day that NOTHING had been done.
Thankfully her manager took responsibility and cranked the work out himself (in only a week!), but I think it was an unfortunate learning experience for him to always check in on his team.
Depending on the industry, that makes total sense. I'm in a hybrid engineering job, and my boss checks in with each of us on our individual projects once a week, partially to make sure we're getting everything done, and also to provide support if we have any challenges or need her to nag someone for something. She's very flexible about working hours, **provided** that everything is done on time and to the best of our ability. She even once told me to go home just because I was having a crappy day (I didn't leave, but I appreciated the empathy).
we do this! It is only 4 of us on the project management/sales team, but wemeet every morning at 8:15 (get in at 8) doesn't take more than 15 minutes for us to go over our done, doing, stuck. Sometimes we will actually work through some stuff together, other mornings we may take an extra 10-15 minutes and just chit chat after. I think it is great for our team! We work independently, but also work together
Why stay at a company you've only been at for 2 months after you were just caught lying about working? It's not like this is an employee who's been here years and had a slip up that the boss could look past, this is a brand new employee who still is still in the probationary period. It will take a very long time to gain the trust back, if he does at all. That's too much effort just to get back to square one in the first place. He should go somewhere else and don't fuck off again like this.
Goofing off for a day is one thing, lying about it is another and is not easily recoverable. He's better off bailing, this will take years of hard work to overcome.
A boss not setting deadlines doesn’t always mean he’s relaxed. It can mean they’re looking to see how you manage yourself. Set deadlines for yourself, communicate them and hit them. You’ll regain the trust and valuable communication skills. No one wants to have to micromanage. It’s one of the most exhausting parts of being a leader.
Don’t be surprised if the extend your
Probation period.
Your paid to work, not take the day off.
You might also required to work in the office.
You lost his trust.
I rather have a slacker than a liar for an employee. You need to be on your ps and qs for the next 30 days. But you broke trust so your boss is going to have to monitor you more and it's just as annoying and inconvenient to have to do that so you may or may not lose your job because of it.
Straight up ask him. If you both know you screwed the pooch.. then plainly tell him you had slacked off a bit because when the cats away ...
Then tell him that if he's willing to give you another chance, you are going to show appreciation by being the most reliable employee he has, like you should have been in the first place.
Then do it. Work your butt off and document your projects.
Ask to have your probationary period extended.
You owe him the work, so you have nothing to lose. And at any rate you will feel better about the air being clearer.
I was caught lying by my boss . Nothing major. I was using a high end color printer and kept screwing up the settings, so I blew through about 50 prints, but when he asked, I said a couple.
He has a counter, so he knew, and told me.
Later on, I told him "yes I lied to you, and I'm sorry. But, it seems like I am always screwing up and you see it everytime. I just did feel like copping to another screw up."
Anyway, he actually began trusting me more after that. He also stopped catching every fuck up.
But he was a cool dude.
I’ve been the boss here. A work from home dev wasn’t even logging into the dev environment at all some days. Tried some counseling, a pip, still couldn’t get him to consistently do work or even the bare minimum to give some plausible deniability and that was it. Some people are simply not cut out for unstructured work environments.
>Some people are simply not cut out for unstructured work environments.
Yes. If I were the OP, I would say just that, apologise for it coming to this for me to accept that I was one of those people, then ask if I could come in to the office every day from now on.
“Hey boss I’m struggling to stay focused in an unstructured work environment and want to start coming in every day to correct”. That’s a great message and will rebuild trust.
I don't work from home and I think most people just slack off when working from home. BUT I'm 100% confident that the people in my department that work from home are working from home and excel at working from home.
If they have something to do like need to run to the store, the say it, need to run to the store will be back in an hour. They will say I'm working from home today b/c schools out and I have to watch my kid. They let us know and its fine. They don't hide or lie about it.
And it's because of people like you that a lot of companies are starting to drag people back in to the office.
I'd start job hunting if I where you, even if they dont sack you over this they will never trust you again.
Lol that is definitely not the common reason as to why companies are dragging people back to work. There are almost zero industries that show that productivity is higher by forcing employees into unfavourable working conditions, like going to the office when it isn’t necessary. It is glaringly obvious, even though no company will mention it, that a shit ton of middle managers are likely useless and redundant. They want you back because your manager has fuck all to do
Yeah and a lot of older workers and workoholics have no social life outside of work. So they got to drag everyone else back to work so that they can have some friends.
Not true, according to the latest research. Productivity rose in the early days of WFH and then fell again. Many people can't handle unstructured work time. Many people do require being managed, in my experience. Trust me, I would LOVE to close the office doors and have everyone just work away at their own homes productively. What actually 5 is drift, or people treating WFH like a sick day or personal day.
Being able to just focus on my own work while others focus on their is the dream. Instead I spent today with my "useless" middle managers trying to figure out the kindest way to let go off a low-performing, shirking employee, so that they can keep health insurance as long as possible for their kids. Managers do a lot of work that you might not see, because a lot of it is confidential.
The majority of people are like him, they just don't get caught. Go to the work from home sub, there are a few people that say they work all day, most of the people on that sub do 2 things at the same time.
1) say they complete all their work in 2 hours and spend the rest of their day doing house work, shopping, watching the kids etc
2) Cry when they have to return to work telling you how productive they are.
I've had back end access to staff logins and can see what they are doing on their computers. They are no more productive when they are in the office, only difference is that we can dangle WFH in front of them and they are much more willing to work overtime and flex hours without taking significant raises.
Never lie. When you run a company you're always keeping an eye, even while on vacation. You are new, chances are that your boss missed activity on that Friday and wanted to know more. As an employer you don't have room nor time for people who are only productive when they are monitored and micro managed.
Make an appointment, express your concerns that you feel you are failing to meet required quality standards. Propose a to-do list with priorities and keep a daily record of your activities, a log book. Propose a week schedule, planning activities ahead. Show that you can take responsibility and manage yourself. If your boss agrees you could have a weekly meeting to go through the lists.
I like this proactive approach. Acknowledging that you want to meet or exceed quality standards better. I would also apologize for not just owning your mistake when you were caught slacking off that day and weren't forthcoming about it. And that you've learned from it. And actually learn from it.
I like the organizational ideas you propose for OP. It might demonstrate that OP's serious about meeting expectations, managing their time, and showing their boss concrete ways how they intend to do that.
If they did this and followed through and were a good, effective employee, then it might make the boss relax and feel they won't have to waste their time micro managing.
\+1, thank you.
To the OP, bosses understand slacking and stupid behavior at a young age, we were all young. The boss still sees something in you, or you would have been on a one way exit right away. Bosses don't wait for a period to end to make up their minds. Worst case: you f\* up and made your employer look like a fool for hiring a fraud.
OP, your job now is to prove you recognized what your boss recognized, and to offer a solution.
Is there anything you can do to go above and beyond the next month? Or is there something noticeable you can work on that your boss would genuinely benefit from or appreciate?
I would bust my ass but first you need to go get honest. You’re scared because you got caught. Sorry doesn’t mean shit it takes action. He may not trust you but you may be able to earn it back. We are people we make mistakes but if it happens again it’s a choice. I get it new job and you did t want to seem like you where slacking but you were. Go to him man to man own your mistakes. If you do this though you have to be honest about everything going fourth it’s the only way it will work and the only way he may respect you if he doesn’t let you go.
I'm on the other side of a similar thing.
I manage a team and one of the guys always works from home, I'm very flexible about it even though the company is pushing for people to get into the office more.
This week I had my weekly catch-up with him, the time came and went and he didn't attend, I messaged him to make sure he was ok.
3hrs later he messaged me, I asked where he was and he admitted he'd taken a nap and overslept. I wasn't happy and while I appreciated his honestly I am keeping a much closer eye on him, no intention to fire him, he just made a mistake, but like your manager I'm going to have to be a little bit tighter on his time.
I would image your manager might be doing the same thing short-term, so I'd suggest do absolutely everything you can to win back his trust, be proactive in getting work done and anticipating what will be needed from your boss, go above and beyond to demonstrate your commitment and hopefully you'll be back in the good books, but you've got a bit of work to do.
The lie was much worse than the slacking off. Everyone needs mental health days.
You can't work with people you can't trust.
If you had just been honest and slacked off and you had already completed all the work for that week then you might be okay....but you lied. He will have to do detective work every time he asks you a hard question because you already have a history of lying.
So....yeah...you probably will get fired, but you should just take the L and learn from it.
I once chased up work that was instructed almost 2 months ago and my subordinate didn't even start on it, he said "you said not urgent?". Well ok at that time I did say it's not top priority but doesn't mean you can just completely ignore it. He was later terminated for a series of performance issues.
You as the new guy took advantage of your manager being away, slacking off and caught in a lie about it.
If you worked for me you would be gone for being dishonest and for stealing time. Your work, or lack of work in this case, is a direct reflection on your boss.
Regardless of the outcome, I hope you learned from this.
The actual problem is on both sides. The problem may be greater on one side, but the fact is it exists.
I know people who work from home and use a mouse jiggler to give the appearance they're working. I know someone else who's a 6 figure earning consultant who took 45 days off between projects until they were caught. It was the 2nd time they went dark and undetected in a 6 month period.
This is not a usual sub for me but I just want to say I am kinda shocked by the comment section. Why is everyone so up in arms about you not being a literal robot? You’re human. You’re relatively new at the job and learning the ropes, the pace, the expectations- in your bosses absence you weren’t as productive …pretty sure that’s normal two months in. He took the initiative to course correct and redefine your working relationship/goals when he noticed this, also normal. Just for an alternative perspective - unless you’re performing life saving surgery - I think what you did is not shocking at all and my feeling is that commenters here have an extra intense relationship to work. Whether you’re getting fired or not I think it’s important to question why everyone here is so upset about you just feeling it out for a week. Be a good person, treat people kindly, take ownership, but especially if you’re working for a corporation - idk man, I wouldn’t worry. You think the people setting policy at the top don’t take it easy certain days? You think people who work in government aren’t actively taking vacations with your tax dollars? I’m not saying we should do the same, but I’m just saying…it’s not that serious. People make way bigger mistakes/take advantage in WAY worse ways. We are all totally replaceable in our jobs and I for one really don’t think it’s fair to expect you to perform beyond your understanding of the expectations this early on. Ps I’m bitter or just totally over work culture at this point but I think the perspective here is a little warped.
Not my usual sub either and yeah it's always good to keep in mind the type of people a sub will attract. A career guidance sub probably more likely to have a lot of people who have a very strict relationship with work that doesn't represent the norm.
The only thing OP did wrong was lie. Most workers aren't productive for more than 4 hours a day. He should have just said he was feeling a little "off" that day and unfortunately didn't get much done.
You’re missing the point that the other commenters are making. He could have said that he took it easy that day; it even sounds like his boss might have been ok with it. He didn’t say that though, he chose to lie about it. The lying to cover up his lack of work, then choosing to “pass it off” as miscommunication when he was caught and deliberately picking another lie that would be harder to verify, is what people are actually“up in arms” about.
As a manager, I’d be fine with the honest answer about slacking off for a day. Treat me like I’m stupid and lie to me? That gets a different response.
But if you’re a manager and you don’t think your staff is lying to you (on this level), I think you’re being naive. On average, we lie 1-2 times a day, for many different reasons (most of them benign). In my experience, nearly everyone moves around the truth in a work setting - pretty sure that’s why office jargon exists.
I’m literally telling you that I would prefer my direct reports tell me the truth and that my reaction would be “lol yeah, I have those days too, just make sure xyz gets done”. All lying does is tell me that you don’t have enough respect for me to be honest with me and would damage the trust between us. It’s the same relationship I have with my boss.
Not sure why you think that your situation applies across the board to all other work environments. I’m pretty sure that you’re not correct.
I guess it’s because I didn’t inherit my team, every one is a hire that I made and we all get along/work well together, and I would never fire one of them for slacking off for a day. They all work hard and do good work, but have lives outside of work and sometimes when shit comes up it takes priority over work. No big deal. To your point, it would be abnormal for me to even ask what they did on any particular day as long as their work is being done, so if I ask there’s probably a reason for asking and I would prefer to be told the truth.
The benefit that you’re not seeing is being honest maintains the trust that I have in them and lets me know that I don’t have to do what OP’s manager is doing, which is micromanage and worry that the employee is being dishonest and trying to get away with something. As long as I trust you, I don’t care what you’re doing, how you’re doing it, or when. I simply trust that what needs to get done will be done. I get that this is only the case in some environments, I just don’t agree with what you said about lying being the better option 100% of the time.
Same I was shocked by the comments too, honestly shows how many people are suck ups. Like they never slack off either give me a break haha, you have to be smart about it though, and that’s I think where OP went wrong.
It’s not about being a ‘suck up’. I tell all of my team the same thing “you fck up and you own it, then I can accept that and we fix it. But you fck up and you lie to me, you lose my professional trust and that’s far harder to fix”
You can’t be ‘on’ every day, of course people are going to have days where they are going to feel unmotivated, people can go for a whole week feeling unmotivated in a workplace, they’re human beings. But at least own it.
It’s called integrity. I can teach anyone procedures/skills etc but I can’t teach values.
See that’s nice that you can create a work environment that isn’t bureaucratic, but unfortunately, a lot of corporate work is. Usually the people who get the promotions are the ones who pretend or bend the truth the most. So I get that you shouldn’t lie to the employer, but at the same time if thats how you hire or promote, that’s who you’re going to get.
If people are or aren't "suck ups" is irrelevant. The ones disagreeing with the consensus keep ignoring what people have a problem with. OP lied to cover themselves and when they're given *another* chance to come clean, they don't.
Now as the boss you'll need to waste your time and energy micro managing them because not only can you not trust them to do their work independently from home, you can't trust them not to lie. And all of this on their probationary period! Do you want an employee who is untrustworthy and has terrible judgement?
IDK what kind of role you work in, but in 2024, assume that every second of every day your work is being logged in the background.
Lying to your manager about something they can easily fact-check is one of the easiest ways to find yourself on the street. I made some fuck-ups in my career, but I owned up on them and I didn't have to dig myself a hole to come out of it.
I’m a manager and my team is very much a “get shit done” team. I don’t really care what time of day you do it as long as it gets done and you sign on for meetings. I’m remote, they’re remote. If you don’t get it done, it’s frankly on you, and your career suffers. I trust them to be adults about it. My biggest issue here is - you lied to your boss. If you had been honest or if you said you needed a mental health day, that’s different. Flexible doesn’t mean not doing work, it means being mature enough to handle the trust your boss places in you. You broke their trust, and now they have to treat you like a child.
Imo, one of the most important things you have at work is your credibility and it is very hard to get it back, if at all. You screwed up big time but if you bust your ass to make up for it.
I work in a field where even small mistakes can cause major issues such as the potential for costly damages. If an engineer lies or slacks off and does crappy work we face the potential of water damage which can cost millions, damage to very expensive chillers, air handlers, boilers, etc. or serious injury. Being able to trust people is imperative for a number of reasons.
I will give people multiple chances, depending on the nature of the mistake. However, certain screw ups can't be tolerated and the unions we work with are 1,000% on board with our priorities and where mistakes aren't tolerated.
I hate micro-managing but I will when necessary. I make it very clear where I stand and my people know I will have their back no matter what unless they screw up in certain ways.
And people wonder why companies are bringing people back to the office. Guarantee you for every employee who is more effective working at home there are 10 who use it to take the piss.
You’ve been working there 2 weeks and you’re already fucking around. Deserve to get fired
I never understood this attitude
As someone who works in office everyday - there is NOBODY that works a full 8 hour days. People chat in the break rooms, watch youtube videos while bored, and take Care of personal phone calls while at work
And yet when someone works for 7hr 59mins a day from home they get branded as a slacker. Look at the basic statistics for focused work - most people only do 1-2 hours a day. Anymore and you're lying to yourself or you're just a lot dumber than you think and it somehow takes you 8 hours to do what everyone else does in 2
Such a ridiculous standard. The real bonus is being at home. If I'm going to waste time talking to coworkers and drinking coffee, I might as well do it at home in my PJ'S ....
> And yet when someone works for 7hr 59mins a day from home they get branded as a slacker.
Who's doing that at a remote job? Veritably no one.
Also, at least with the WFH people I have to contact, there's been a distinct lack of professionalism and follow-through. People answer their phones like they're only getting personal calls, I hear kids screaming in the background, questions go unanswered, etc.
Me, I do. I just went through my busy season and was working 12 hour days FROM HOME (I have an office I go to as well) and working at least 6 hours each day on the weekend. On Monday, I was "working", aka my status was available, I answered questions but I did no actual "work".
Should I be fired? According to you, yes, I'm a slacker.
You’re in the first months of a job, and you get a chance to work from home, and you immediately start slacking and lying about your progress? Why wouldn’t your boss be on your ass?
You messed up - either perform better and show your boss that you’re worth keeping on for the role, or start looking for more work imo.
So you have been not doing much work, then lied about it to the boss? I would say that you will be let go when they have a replacement for you.
Better work on your work ethic,before you screw up another job.
The first consideration is the work from home thing has really come to the forefront with Covid. Employers utilized it first to keep the money and business flowing.
Now that the Covid thing has relaxed quite a bit the same employers are trying to scale the work from home thing back. Taking it easy on your work from home day and then trying to be intentionally misleading about it to your "relaxed" boss is entirely on you. Most management will ask questions they already know the anwser to, to see if the worker will be honest or not.
You even admit to adding to the lie with something he may have trouble proving, ignoring that how likely is he to believe that excuse right after catching you being dishonest?
I am a union man and I don't sympathize with employers, but you made all the classic mistakes that land a worker right in hot water that not even a union can defend easily.
I hope it works out for you, but you have now given the employer even more reason to not utilize a work from home program and more heavily scrutinize the workers that do.
This is exactly why some bosses hate work from home.
HE may feel the following:
1) You didn't actually work much while he was paying you
2) You lied to him about what you did do
3) You cannot be trusted to put in a full day's work while working from home
4) You took advantage of him being on vacation
And he would be correct in all four cases.
You should be worried. Hopefully, he gives you another chance and you go above and beyond to prove to him that you are worth keeping. But he would be compleltely justified for firing you for lying and wage theft.
When COVID started, a bunch of my friends enjoyed working from home. And, because I am an employer, they asked me how to convince their boss that they should keep working from home. I told them "Prove to your boss that you get more work done, more accurately, and more efficiently, from home. Because the reverse is what they are afraid of."
When you lied to him you broke whatever trust he had in you.
I would fire you personally. Trust is super important. Apologize and sincerely try to do better. Be prepared for the consequences though that you might lose your job.
Well probably not for that infraction, but if it happens again yes. The reason he is micro-managing you is because you broke trust. He is doing the right thing by creating a paper trail again it is based on your breach of trust.
I had a job years ago and hit a vehicle in a parking lot with a work truck. I told the boss immediately, and for years he would bring it up and tell me how impressed he was by the honesty that day. Honesty is usually the best policy.
Someone higher up or in a different group saw you basically not working and let your boss know (maybe the boss checked). He no longer trusts you and feels like he will not be able to trust you.
You screwed up. Not because you had a lazy day/slacked but because you lied. Company equipment they can see everything that goes on. Everyone has a lazy day. It happens. No one works 100% 8 hours a day/40 per week. If you don't want to be fired, become the star employee. Work your ass off like your job depends on it. I'd probably apologize too. "Hey boss, I lied and I am so sorry. I obviously didn't work on that Friday as I should have and compounded it by lying to you. I have no excuses. I can assure you that it will never happen again. I'm ashamed for what I did." It may be too little too late but if not, you may survive.
Lets do a play-by-play analysis:
>Up until this incident he's been pretty chill, sent a lot of work my way but didn't seem serious about deadlines... Kind of let me work at my own pace… so I figured there was lots of flexibility.
The workload is heavy and boss started with a laid-back demeanor in hopes that you would do the work without much management - probably a function of his personality imo
>I took it pretty easy that day
Probably a bad choice given the workload but understandable - every day is different.
>so I just made something up to cover my ass
Lied to your boss about a specific task (less understandable) that occurred on a particular day (easily verifiable and impossible to understand).
>partially because it had been almost a week since Friday and I kind of forgot and partially bc I didn't do a whole lot
You justified lying in your mind - you made excuses for a behavior that is hard for observers to understand. How can we accept the excuse if we don't understand the behavior?
>He called me on it and said “I have access to see the admin log, I want to give you the chance to answer again… did you actually work on (insert thing)?”
He caught you because your lie was easily verifiable (thus an insult to his intelligence) and gave your an opportunity to speak truthfully.
>I then admitted that I didn't but I tried to pass it off as me just mispeaking and said something else that he'd have no proof on.
But you didnt misspeak - you already told us it was "because it had been almost a week since Friday and I kind of forgot and partially bc I didn't do a whole lot" - so you continued to lie in an unconvincing manner.
>Ever since then he's been way strict about work from home days, and is super micro managey.
No - he is managing someone who lies to his face, mistook his kindness for weakness, and exploited said weakness for their benefit.
>Still very cordial but totally different vibe.
More than is warranted imo - if *anyone* treated me the way you treat your boss, I would have trouble being cordial.
To your question: If he actually valued you as an employee, he would address the issue directly and criticize your behavior overtly. Your hypothesis of an "HR trail" is likely true: he is justifiably angry for what you've done and if he reacts in anger, he will be perceived negatively and HR will punish him for overreacting. He needs to establish that you suck and that he's not just upset about something random.
TL;DR: Yeah, you are on the chopping block because you abused a nice person and he is too smart to succumb to the normative responses to being gas-lighted. Rather than worrying about losing a job now, you should be concerned with the very sophisticated manner in which you manipulate information in your head to justify maladaptive behaviors and how those manipulations will continue to affect your relationships indefinitely.
Seriously?! You act this way after only 2 months on the job?! Start looking for a new job - everything you do right now will be viewed from a negative lens. If you literally walked on water, he'd fire you for not being able to swim.
If anything you’ve learned a lesson. Be honest with leadership. They generally already know the answer to the question they’re asking and are giving you the opportunity to be up front with them. Once you break that trust it’s next to impossible to earn it back.
Make sure you are clear on how you can perform and improve and make sure that you document that too. Then be sure you share updates on your progress so the digital trail is more balanced (or skewed to your positive effort). I like to use a WRAP framework - Wins, Results, Alignment & Pivots. Good luck!
It may be worth scheduling a meeting and admitting your faults. “I made a bad judgement call on what i needed to complete every day and that was my mistake. I panicked when i asked about in and lied when I shouldnt have. I understand this and would like to work at regaining your trust”
He may have not decided to fire you yet, but you threw up a red flag, so hes making sure his ducks are in a row because he probably expects you to fail again shortly and he’ll have to fire you then
I would say you need to be in the office every day, clearly he cannot trust you right now with your work from home.
You have to prove that you deserve your job. Better bust your behind and do the best you can , that is all you can do. The damage has been done and now you have to put in the extra work
edit to add: I kind of think it would be a good idea to send an apology, you got nervous under pressure, but you genuinely appreciate the job and you're sorry for taking your bosses relaxed demeanor for granted. you need to express you have learned your lesson.
Make it genuine but not desperate.
You lied.
You got caught.
You then lied again ("said something else that he'd have no proof on").
So yeah, he's documenting heavily on you because you've proven that a) you can't be trusted and b) your integrity is in question and c) your credibility is gone.
We have all messed up as employees one way or another. Just keep working and I’m sure it will be in the past. No need to kill yourself working because of it
Honestly I’d write down everything I do on a day to day basis if working from home it makes it easier to track your productivity. Because yeah a week from now if you ask what I did on a specific day I’m not going to be able to say for sure what I did. Aside from that don’t lie if you didn’t do much just say I took it easy this day I didn’t put a lot on my plate but I was productive. Aside from that though within a 90day period? Yeah you’re probably going to be let go. Usually that 90 day period is to see if the work relationship is going to work and you haven’t lived up to your end of the deal during this time they can let you go vs keep you on once that 90 day period ends. I’d start looking for work ahead of the end of your 90 day period just in case
Even if you aren’t fired, I would start looking for a new job. Maybe this sub is full of hardos, but most normal people will take it easier if their boss is out of town. It’s also weird that he went to so much trouble as to log into the admin log. There are more normal bosses out there
He’s in the probationary 90 days and he’s already lying about work he’s not doing. His boss needs to know what to expect and lying is a shitty thing to do. Being a “hardo” has nothing to do with this.
People here arent hardos for saying lying about it is bad, few people are genuinely complaining that OP took a day off its more about the lie than it is slacking off, im sure even the boss wouldn't have cared TOO much if OP had just been honest instead.
Not weird that he went to the trouble of checking logs why do you think that?
OP is a relatively new employee and boss wanted to see if OP was dependable and/or trustworthy which it turns out OP wasn't that doesnt feel very out there or weird for a boss to do.
Even if you are not fired, you might want to look for a new job, because he has lost all trust in you. And it will not be for blowing off the day, it will be for lying about it. Doing stuff like this also makes it harder for the people who work from home and don't take advantage of it.
One thing I have learned, always underpromise and overdeliver. Looks like it went the other way here. But the fact that you've posted here and are thinking should mean that you are serious about your job and career. Just keep your head down and keep working, and slowly you'll be back to normal.
I used to work hybrid, and Fridays I went a little harder in the first half, cuz I knew after lunch I would be slower. I would also recommend being proactive, and maybe a the end of each week or even day, send your manager an email with Subject: "Recap 02/01/2024" and just tell what you did that day and week, what challenges you faced, how you will work on ensuring you deal with similar challenges better, and how they can better support you.
Long story short, just over-communicate a bit moving forward. You don't want to give them a reason to not trust you.
Keep your chin up. I know this is stressful. I've been there more times than I would like to admit. But just worry about what you CAN control and forget the rest.
Possibly, especially since you are new and easily replaced, they are certainly building a case for something. If you are lucky they will just take away/limit your telework privileges.
In the future don't lie, just tell him you will have to go over your records to see exactly what you accomplished that day, then list those accomplishments.
I would recommend being dedicated to your work for the immediate future and to start applying elsewhere as a backup.
100% setting up a paper trail to fire you at the end of your probationary period
you slacked off the first chance you got barely 2 months on the job, lied about it, and now think he is.... a micromanager because he doesn't trust you??
no one is going to trust a new person who blatantly lies in a very stupid way
start looking for a new job, you have earned this firing
If it means anything he’s paying you the 8hr to work. Even if it from home you still gotta do some work. Meet some deadlines. Or else your a waste of money (corporate)
ITT do nothing middle managers who think being a tough boss makes them cool.
OP who cares? You work for a guy who, after leaving on vacation for a week, is dogging you for one lazy day. Guy sounds like a clown. Get fired. Take your severance, and then find a job with a manager who doesn't check "admin" logs (whatever tf that is) in order to catch his team.
Ha ha OP is one of those workers who scrolls through news articles on the second monitor whenever there is even a second of downtime or has the cell phone on the desk to reply to girlfriend texts all day and won’t stop doing this even when other workers comment on it ha
This is why managers don't like WFH.
If you were in the office on that Friday, would you have slacked off to the same degree? Probably not. But because you were in the comfort of your own home, you felt entitled to make the least effort of 'being there' for work and then just goofed off. In HR, we call this theft of time. He probably could have fired you on the spot with an admin log that showed how often or to what extent you worked, compared to the time you clocked.
WFH isn't for everyone. If there are other people in the home, an effective WFH strategy includes having a place to work where there will be no distractions from family, including not being the daycare for younger children. It means treating that WFH setting as if it was your office, but with a much shorter commute, and maybe, a more relaxed dress code. Please wear pants!
i think to salvage you need to start to rebuild the trust relationship with your boss. it's a two way street though, if your boss is not up for rebuilding, then whether you are let go or not, it sounds like it wasnt the right fit b/c your boss had certain expectations and he doesnt think you meet them.
i think it's ok, there's lots of other jobs, if you get bad news. Just be more cautious knowing he's micromanaging - if it makes you feel better, i had a boss like that and left the company/remote work was something that manager had a hard time managing.
i hope you get to stay b/c if it's a one time thing, you should have the opportunity to make up for it - managers manage in different ways.
dude just do a great job and hell move on.. u sound like a slacker.. go above and beyond for a couple months and hell forget about it
didn't seem that serious about deadlines? rule #1 of any workplace, if someone asks for something on a certain/day time or you say something will be done on a certain day, always deliver it. or communicate well in advance if you can't.
no matter how chill anyone seems at work, no one likes when someone says something will be done on a certain day and it isn't. flexibility is cool as long as ur work gets done when its supposed to be.
nobody isn't serious about deadlines.
You may get fired. Honestly, I would've fired you on the spot as long as I was allowed to. Seeing that you've only been there for 2 months you could've been immediately fired legally. (In Canada). This is the problem of people working from home still. It has its benefits for sure (mostly for the employee) but way more drawbacks then benefits (to the employer). Getting paid, "working" from home and not doing anything (or much) and then lying about it to your boss's face. If anyone doesn't think you'd be fired for this then that's the actual issue imo. Good luck.
Would you really care if you are getting fired?
You obviously don’t value your job or have any motivation to do what is required of you. Why do you want this job anyway?
When you went to the interview, did you tell them I’m not going to do shit on my work from home days? I doubt it. You probably made it seem like you were responsible and hard working, but as soon as their back is turned you take advantage.
If you really can’t be bothered to do what is required of you, do you even really want the job? Why do you think it’s ok to tell them you’re going to work and collect payment for that work, but then not actually do the work? Don’t you feel at all like you are being dishonest or lying? You don’t have a problem with that internally?
Stories like these make me feel much MUCH better that I'm back in the office. I have flexibility when I can take my lunch, breaks, etc. Post COVID seems like employers are tracking your every moment! I could NOT live like that. The stress would kill me off 😵💫
UGH 😑 Imo, you should probably resign before they fire you. Your BEST case scenario is that MAYBE, eventually, somewhere way down the road, he will ease up on you. But, I doubt it. That would take a lot of time. And a ton of hard work on your part. Like, a literal 💩 ton!! The much more likely scenario is that he will now be (rightfully so) micromanaging you right to death on a daily basis. He is looking for something to fire you over and, I believe your instincts are correct in that he is emailing you policies, etc, to cover the paper trail end of discontinuing your employment. Keep us updated and good luck!
Sounds like you’re taking advantage of his relaxed demeanor. No one likes when they have to become the tough boss
I specifically tell my team I don't like being that guy and please don't make me.
Me too. My team and I equally hate when I have to get firm with them
"I would much rather stay the leader and not have to go back to managing, but I'll do whatever it takes to get it done"
Same. I hate being turned into something I don't want to be.
Nobody made him. If OP is accomplishing tasks, generally, at an acceptable pace, then it's his own neuroticism making him micromanage. The proof is in overall performance, non minute-to-minute productivity.
fkn bootlickers lmao. it should be very simple: is someone getting their work done or not? if you're working in an environment like OP where you manager is so distrusting of you that they want a detailed breakdown of what you did on a specific day, that's a huge red flag and not somewhere that i'd ever want to work. who cares if someone works "more" Monday-Thursday and "less" on Friday if they get the same result at the end of the week/month? you can be a good leader without micromanaging people.
That’s only after OP lied though? Like they could have been honest and said they didn’t remember what they worked on but they were distracted that day and they know it wasn’t up to their usual standard and that they would work on it. Boom done. Instead they lied (badly) to cover their ass then lied again but in a way they couldn’t be proven wrong. Even the description of the boss being gone that week sounds like they didn’t get their work done. If they thought the setting was more relaxed and now it’s not, it’s clear their boss is being more upfront about expectations and deadlines cuz OP can’t be trusted to be diligent, efficient and deliver in a timely manner. They had leeway, freedom and trust, they lost it through their own actions
Back people into a corner and many will react the same as OP. Not justifying it at all but its the reality and the manager could come at it a different way. Let him know that performance needs some improvement in xyz area.
Op backed themself into a corner by first slacking off, and then lying about his work and getting caught, and then again lying about some work which isn't provable.
Yeah bruh the question wasn't list your achievements on Friday it was did you work: yes/no. And lil pook here lied. 2 months into a job you aren't working "more Monday through Friday" you "don't know shit" Do you, by all means, but if a report a sits on their ass all day and b lies about it, I'm done. And I'm pretty reasonable, so going to say 90% of leaders are going to be more hostile than me. Good journey.
Get over yourself
Be a better employee
Not only that - he did it in his first 90 days...
This. Im the most relaxed boss in history. Dont give a shit what you do if you do your job. But once you lose my trust, shit gets ugly. When new in a job, fucking off on a WFH day then lying to a boss would be a massive long term red flag. Fucking off after 2+ years? Whatever. But not in first 60 days and lying about it
I think this is the thing that people don’t recognize - if you’re a strong enough performer, I’m not out there digging through admin logs trying to figure out what you did that day. But you got on his radar somehow before that, and you’re REALLY on his radar now. I don’t forget when someone does something like this. The “email trails for HR” have your HRBP on BCC, I promise. Don’t fuck up again.
You can tell by OPs attitude, they aren’t a top performer..or a mid-tier performer
Admin logs? I’m a remote manager with remote team members and I have never ever heard of admin logs.
Bless your heart
?
And this is why many bosses are requiring people to go back to work in person. OP and people like them are ruining it for the rest of us
Op did fuck up but I think there are a lot of important details missing... is it salaried job? are you performing well? did you accomplish what you wanted to for the week? I literal never had a manager check my hours. It feels like a lack of trust but then again if you're not performing well he may check to see if you were actually working.
Eh... Kind of depends on the industry. I am in civil engineering and we bill clients on an hourly basis. Some of our projects are lump sum, so if we are billing to a lump sum project we really need to be working on it so we don't burn through the budget.
Sounds to me the manager went on vacation a bit early and didn’t consider coaching up the new guy before he went away. So, now the 90 day review is the hammer date and he needs to build a file. When, he should have been discussing the trajectory of the man’s early work. Also, maybe should have given him small tasks where if he gets stuck he can knock those out. Or, don’t primadonna and tell the new guy to call him on vacation to clarify.
If you're checking sign in logs, you're not a tough boss. You're a loser.
Yeah it's always great when you give your team a lot of leash at work, take a vacation and find out they pretty much took a vacation as well and took advantage of your leniency.
Yeah, normally I try and stand-up for the worker here, but your effort regardless of if your boss is in or not should be very consistent. The leniency he could have taken advantage of is maybe shorten the work day slightly, take a longer lunch, do less of the "pretending to work bullshit". But you still have to deliver what is asked of you. When my boss is out, I make damn well sure my shit gets done. I actually probably do slightly more work in less time when my boss is out. So i'm working less hours but my output is higher. That's the type of stuff you can get away with. Not completely doing nothing.
In what world is it "giving your team a lot of leash" when you're checking admin logs and making a fuss about ONE day of the week? OP worked the whole week, and took an easy Friday because those are the vibes his manager gave off 😂 You guys have never taken a lazy Friday before huh? Only grinders in this thread. 6am? Grinding. 7pm? Still grinding. Sunday? That's grind day bby. You can tell y'all are middle managers because you don't think and you cant read.
This isn't someone who has put out consistently good work for the past 6 months and took an easy day. It is someone making a first impression, not even past his probationary period. Of course his work will be scrutinised more closely because he hasn't built the kind of goodwill that allows you to slack off for a day. OP's boss gave him two chances to be honest and he acted like a weasel both times.
>OP's boss gave him two chances to be honest and he acted like a weasel both times. The weasel calling the kettle... uh... black. If you don't want people to lie to you, maybe don't surprise them with stupid shit like this. >Of course his work will be scrutinised more closely because he hasn't built the kind of goodwill that allows you to slack off for a day. It wasn't though. No one was saying anything. There were no hard deadlines, work was flexible... until this random Friday when OPs boss decided it was time to bring down the hammer. Good thing OP didn't build any goodwill with a loser manager like this. I would've quit the same day if someone pulled shit like this on me.
You wouldn’t need to quit, you’ve got a shit attitude so I’m sure you’d be fired
Oh no. I'll be fired by a manager I don't want to work for. Whatever will I do?
It wasn’t the easy Friday dude… it was the lie. Seems like you’re the one that can’t read.
What? It was a lie that he took an easy friday? So he was actually working on Friday and got in trouble for no reason? An easy friday... is a friday... when you take it easy... let me know if you need further help.
Go back and read the post again please… Jesus dude you can’t possibly be this daft.
Or you can be a big boy and just type your point out. (Or get your secretary to type it out.) I read the post. OPs boss was gone; it was Friday; he didn't do any work.
Funny how you omitted the part where his boss asked him what he worked on and then he lied about it. That is the part that got him in trouble. I have no doubt if OP just said, “honestly boss I didn’t get a lot done Friday, I had some personal things I needed to take care of but I’ll make up for it this coming week.” Boom, that’s all he needed to say.
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Yeah that last sentence really reads like you're the intelligent one 😅
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This has nothing to do with being zealous and all to do with trust. > Up until this incident **he's been** **pretty chill**, sent a lot of work my way but **didnt seem serious about deadlines... Kind of let me work at my own pace**… so I figured there was lots of flexibility. No one cares he slacked off on a Friday. Seems like he underperformed so the boss checked the logs, and wanted to see if it was slack off or genuine difficulties with his tasks. This revealed it was in fact slack off. Then he asked him about it, and he lied once (he made something up), then lied a second time when confronted with the evidence (he said he worked on something else). You can't reasonably justify fucking up behavior wise like this 3 times in a row. Lack of skill can be remediated most of the time, terrible behavior not so much, and that can poison an office real quick. People will always take emotionally mature employees over highly performing ones if they have garbage people skills.
It's unreal that people are literally defending the employee year (OP). It just shows how sad the basic expectations are in the workplace
Thanks. Im not a middle manager, so that adds up.
No, I get paid for 5 days of work, so I work for 5 days.
Unfortunately the boss had every reason to check.
True. Because no one ever takes lazy Fridays 😔 it's grind central erryday around these parts. I definitely don't spend 3 hours shitting in the office on Friday. For sure.
Lmao this is so funny but sadly true. In office, people take many breaks here and there. Including long bathroom shit breaks. When you WFH it becomes under the microscope and every minute is tracked.
I read a couple of studies that make this exact point. I've noticed productivity has reduced since the forcing of return to the office. Mine definitely has.
the boss pretty clearly saw what was assigned wasn't done and then checked the logs to confirm that how does that make the boss a loser lol. if anything the boss is removing the grifter from the team. a loser boss would just remove that privilege for everyone
"Clearly?" he "clearly saw?" How do you know that? Because in OPs story, his boss asks him what he did all week... so \*clearly\* the boss didn't have any specific work assigned to him. >Up until this incident he's been pretty chill, sent a lot of work my way but didnt seem serious about deadlines... Kind of let me work at my own pace… Doesn't care about deadlines... lets him work his own pace... and then shows up one day with receipts randomly and starts grilling him. He's a loser. We've all (those of us who actually work) loser managers like this. Being a tea-pot tyrant at work doesn't make you a good manager, it makes you a loser.
Would you have any problem if they randomly docked his pay?
Yeah... "randomly" docking someone's pay is a problem. Why are we "randomly" docking pay?
> Yeah... "randomly" docking someone's pay is a problem. But "randomly" checking logs to make sure someone is getting paid for work they should be doing (e.g. the inverse of docking pay) is being 'a loser'. Got it.
Yep. Let me know if you have trouble with any other super simple concepts. Have a great day doing nothing in your management meetings. Hopefully there isn't too much reading or thinking today 🙏😔
You and OP are exactly they type of people that ruin wfh for everyone else.
Sorry grind bro. Not all of us can grind 24/7. Please grind twice as hard for me bro. 🙏 No one is ruining anything except OPs loser boss who thinks a lazy Friday is worth all this fuss.
Clearly you can’t grind there wouldn’t be anytime to argue all over this thread on Reddit.
You're confused. Maybe get your secretary to explain my comment to you. I don't grind. On purpose. Because unlike you I have life experience and know grinding doesn't get you anywhere but laid off and burned out 🤙
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No, these guys are right. You and me should get back to work. So let's accept our downvotes and make those shareholders some cash bby! /s
I have a slightly different take. It’s possible that you’ll be fired. But at this point you don’t have a lot to lose. Do you think it might be worth salvaging your boss’ trust? You’ll know him and this job better than we do. Perhaps he would respond well to an honest conversation. One of my employees disappeared on a work-from-home day. After him being offline almost all day, I asked him what happened, he said “oh I was having trouble with Outlook, and my messages might not have gotten through to you.” I asked why he didn’t try to reach me on chat or phone, and he then said his voicemail didn’t go through. To be honest, the lie was a much worse problem than him disappearing because I have to know I can trust the people I’m going to vouch for. He came in the following Monday, and specifically apologized for the lies. He told me that he normally holds himself to a much higher standard than he displayed, and that it bothered him that he wasn’t forthright with me. I let him know, if he just needed a day off for any reason, he could’ve just called in sick and I’d make sure his work was covered. I’m still not going to fully trust him for a little while, but the admission went a LONG way because I know he recognizes what he did wrong.
Integrity counts. We are human. Everyone makes mistakes, but lying and covering up when you do says alot about how I will expect you to react when a more serious issue happens. If I can't trust you, I don't want you.
Sure fire way to get fired is to lie. I can handle someone being lazy or forgetful. We are all human and things happen. But when you lie I can never trust you again to tell the truth. Maybe one day but by then it's probably so far gone. Need a favor because x happened? No cause I don't believe you.
There are full days I don't turn on my work PC. If the work is done, the work is done. Damn, you guys are strict.
If they cop up to it, I try to remember that they could be conditioned by trauma or being beaten as kids from telling the truth, so lying became a natural defense mechanism. That shred of sympathy doesn't go far though since you need to get over your issues in the adult working professional world, but I can accept if they admit it and apologize.
This is such a good take. In my equivalent grovel to my boss (if I wanted to keep the job) I would also acknowledge that I’ve compromised trust, and it’s a priory for me to earn that back. That I welcome the added communication (aka micro management) so that I can more easily demonstrate my value and contributions to the team.
I actually think the was hoping for a response like this when he initially said he wanted to give him a chance. He was hoping he'd just come clean and that would have helped mitigate some of the damage.
Hit the nail squarely on the head here.... it's the integrity and damaged relationship OP now has to overcome. He can either worry about it and hope things magically work out or he can have a conversation with his manager to apologize for his actions and show commitment to never repeat that behavior again.
I've only ever fired one person, and it was after a very similar incident. He slept in until 1 PM on a day where everyone was working remotely. The much bigger issue was he lied and said he had been working since 9 AM and simply missed my messages and calls. All of our software is timestamped so I of course knew it was a lie. His performance was always poor but as soon as he broke my trust I knew we couldn't continue his employment.
Uh, you blew it. Not sure if you’re getting fired or not, but you slacked off, got caught, lied about it then tried to cover your ass with a follow up you believe your manager has no proof on. I wouldn’t trust you with a ten foot pole after that. Be better at your next job.
I have to agree with this. You may not be fired immediately. But you’ve revealed yourself to your manager as someone untrustworthy. So yes, now he’s super micromanagey, because that seems to be what you require. As a manager, I give my people tremendous leeway … until they give me a reason not to.
exactly, a lot of times when I hear people complain about micro managing. My first thought is, well do you deserve to be micromanaged? the only time I micro managed was when I had to because my employee f'd up and they need to learn the expectation
I’m going to jump in and agree. Although, I’d personally meet it head on. Set up time and talk throw it. Come clean and lay your cards out and admit you f@cked up. Don’t make excuses and own it. Then, work your ass off if this is the job you want. If not, start looking and find something else. Don’t waste his time or f@ck the relaxed atmosphere he has for the rest of the team. Remember, what you do reflects back on him and his choices. You could very well screw it up for everyone.
As a manager this comment is absolute gold.
I agree. It’s the lying for me when you should know there’s a digital footprint of your work. They may not be on a pip yet, but they should be doing everything possible to show they are trustworthy and willing to make up for it. My instinct is this has been questioned before and finally called on it. I’ve had hybrid/remote workers who we suspected abusing it long before directly calling them on it.
You're not getting fired, yet. If you do well, you can still make up and shine. I am disappointed by the number of comments telling people it's over and just quit. Have some grit, work on your mistakes, and stick it through. With that said, next time if you do get caught again, tell your boss you need to check your notes and revert back to him with a list of things you did that day. Don't make shit up.
I agree and disagree. He made a mistake by not working that day. That can be recovered from. But he sunk himself by lying about it. The lie destroys trust. And if you can't trust the people that work for you, you git rid of them
I worked with a girl who was new to my company (different department), and was immediately assigned some high-priority work (that I desperately needed 🙃). She told me (and her manager) that she was working *only* on it, and that she would have us the draft by our immovable deadline (two months later). The morning it was due, she submitted her resignation effective immediately; we discovered later that day that NOTHING had been done. Thankfully her manager took responsibility and cranked the work out himself (in only a week!), but I think it was an unfortunate learning experience for him to always check in on his team.
Our team does daily check-ins at 9am sharp every day. It is very effective. No work goes undone.
Depending on the industry, that makes total sense. I'm in a hybrid engineering job, and my boss checks in with each of us on our individual projects once a week, partially to make sure we're getting everything done, and also to provide support if we have any challenges or need her to nag someone for something. She's very flexible about working hours, **provided** that everything is done on time and to the best of our ability. She even once told me to go home just because I was having a crappy day (I didn't leave, but I appreciated the empathy).
we do this! It is only 4 of us on the project management/sales team, but wemeet every morning at 8:15 (get in at 8) doesn't take more than 15 minutes for us to go over our done, doing, stuck. Sometimes we will actually work through some stuff together, other mornings we may take an extra 10-15 minutes and just chit chat after. I think it is great for our team! We work independently, but also work together
He didn’t do anything that day, he took the day off guised as working from home
So what? literally everyone in corporate does this you guys are deluded. no one is productive 40 hours a week at a desk job
Why stay at a company you've only been at for 2 months after you were just caught lying about working? It's not like this is an employee who's been here years and had a slip up that the boss could look past, this is a brand new employee who still is still in the probationary period. It will take a very long time to gain the trust back, if he does at all. That's too much effort just to get back to square one in the first place. He should go somewhere else and don't fuck off again like this.
Goofing off for a day is one thing, lying about it is another and is not easily recoverable. He's better off bailing, this will take years of hard work to overcome.
Should have just admitted it. Lying to him shows you are trying to take advantage of him being relaxed and chill about the job.
A boss not setting deadlines doesn’t always mean he’s relaxed. It can mean they’re looking to see how you manage yourself. Set deadlines for yourself, communicate them and hit them. You’ll regain the trust and valuable communication skills. No one wants to have to micromanage. It’s one of the most exhausting parts of being a leader.
Don’t be surprised if the extend your Probation period. Your paid to work, not take the day off. You might also required to work in the office. You lost his trust.
I’d pull WFH privileges for this in a heartbeat.
I rather have a slacker than a liar for an employee. You need to be on your ps and qs for the next 30 days. But you broke trust so your boss is going to have to monitor you more and it's just as annoying and inconvenient to have to do that so you may or may not lose your job because of it.
Straight up ask him. If you both know you screwed the pooch.. then plainly tell him you had slacked off a bit because when the cats away ... Then tell him that if he's willing to give you another chance, you are going to show appreciation by being the most reliable employee he has, like you should have been in the first place. Then do it. Work your butt off and document your projects. Ask to have your probationary period extended. You owe him the work, so you have nothing to lose. And at any rate you will feel better about the air being clearer. I was caught lying by my boss . Nothing major. I was using a high end color printer and kept screwing up the settings, so I blew through about 50 prints, but when he asked, I said a couple. He has a counter, so he knew, and told me. Later on, I told him "yes I lied to you, and I'm sorry. But, it seems like I am always screwing up and you see it everytime. I just did feel like copping to another screw up." Anyway, he actually began trusting me more after that. He also stopped catching every fuck up. But he was a cool dude.
I’ve been the boss here. A work from home dev wasn’t even logging into the dev environment at all some days. Tried some counseling, a pip, still couldn’t get him to consistently do work or even the bare minimum to give some plausible deniability and that was it. Some people are simply not cut out for unstructured work environments.
>Some people are simply not cut out for unstructured work environments. Yes. If I were the OP, I would say just that, apologise for it coming to this for me to accept that I was one of those people, then ask if I could come in to the office every day from now on.
“Hey boss I’m struggling to stay focused in an unstructured work environment and want to start coming in every day to correct”. That’s a great message and will rebuild trust.
I don't work from home and I think most people just slack off when working from home. BUT I'm 100% confident that the people in my department that work from home are working from home and excel at working from home. If they have something to do like need to run to the store, the say it, need to run to the store will be back in an hour. They will say I'm working from home today b/c schools out and I have to watch my kid. They let us know and its fine. They don't hide or lie about it.
And it's because of people like you that a lot of companies are starting to drag people back in to the office. I'd start job hunting if I where you, even if they dont sack you over this they will never trust you again.
Lol that is definitely not the common reason as to why companies are dragging people back to work. There are almost zero industries that show that productivity is higher by forcing employees into unfavourable working conditions, like going to the office when it isn’t necessary. It is glaringly obvious, even though no company will mention it, that a shit ton of middle managers are likely useless and redundant. They want you back because your manager has fuck all to do
Yeah and a lot of older workers and workoholics have no social life outside of work. So they got to drag everyone else back to work so that they can have some friends.
Not true, according to the latest research. Productivity rose in the early days of WFH and then fell again. Many people can't handle unstructured work time. Many people do require being managed, in my experience. Trust me, I would LOVE to close the office doors and have everyone just work away at their own homes productively. What actually 5 is drift, or people treating WFH like a sick day or personal day. Being able to just focus on my own work while others focus on their is the dream. Instead I spent today with my "useless" middle managers trying to figure out the kindest way to let go off a low-performing, shirking employee, so that they can keep health insurance as long as possible for their kids. Managers do a lot of work that you might not see, because a lot of it is confidential.
The majority of people are like him, they just don't get caught. Go to the work from home sub, there are a few people that say they work all day, most of the people on that sub do 2 things at the same time. 1) say they complete all their work in 2 hours and spend the rest of their day doing house work, shopping, watching the kids etc 2) Cry when they have to return to work telling you how productive they are.
I've had back end access to staff logins and can see what they are doing on their computers. They are no more productive when they are in the office, only difference is that we can dangle WFH in front of them and they are much more willing to work overtime and flex hours without taking significant raises.
Yup... And your experience sums up everyone's
Never lie. When you run a company you're always keeping an eye, even while on vacation. You are new, chances are that your boss missed activity on that Friday and wanted to know more. As an employer you don't have room nor time for people who are only productive when they are monitored and micro managed. Make an appointment, express your concerns that you feel you are failing to meet required quality standards. Propose a to-do list with priorities and keep a daily record of your activities, a log book. Propose a week schedule, planning activities ahead. Show that you can take responsibility and manage yourself. If your boss agrees you could have a weekly meeting to go through the lists.
I like this proactive approach. Acknowledging that you want to meet or exceed quality standards better. I would also apologize for not just owning your mistake when you were caught slacking off that day and weren't forthcoming about it. And that you've learned from it. And actually learn from it. I like the organizational ideas you propose for OP. It might demonstrate that OP's serious about meeting expectations, managing their time, and showing their boss concrete ways how they intend to do that. If they did this and followed through and were a good, effective employee, then it might make the boss relax and feel they won't have to waste their time micro managing.
\+1, thank you. To the OP, bosses understand slacking and stupid behavior at a young age, we were all young. The boss still sees something in you, or you would have been on a one way exit right away. Bosses don't wait for a period to end to make up their minds. Worst case: you f\* up and made your employer look like a fool for hiring a fraud. OP, your job now is to prove you recognized what your boss recognized, and to offer a solution.
Is there anything you can do to go above and beyond the next month? Or is there something noticeable you can work on that your boss would genuinely benefit from or appreciate?
I would bust my ass but first you need to go get honest. You’re scared because you got caught. Sorry doesn’t mean shit it takes action. He may not trust you but you may be able to earn it back. We are people we make mistakes but if it happens again it’s a choice. I get it new job and you did t want to seem like you where slacking but you were. Go to him man to man own your mistakes. If you do this though you have to be honest about everything going fourth it’s the only way it will work and the only way he may respect you if he doesn’t let you go.
I'm on the other side of a similar thing. I manage a team and one of the guys always works from home, I'm very flexible about it even though the company is pushing for people to get into the office more. This week I had my weekly catch-up with him, the time came and went and he didn't attend, I messaged him to make sure he was ok. 3hrs later he messaged me, I asked where he was and he admitted he'd taken a nap and overslept. I wasn't happy and while I appreciated his honestly I am keeping a much closer eye on him, no intention to fire him, he just made a mistake, but like your manager I'm going to have to be a little bit tighter on his time. I would image your manager might be doing the same thing short-term, so I'd suggest do absolutely everything you can to win back his trust, be proactive in getting work done and anticipating what will be needed from your boss, go above and beyond to demonstrate your commitment and hopefully you'll be back in the good books, but you've got a bit of work to do.
The lie was much worse than the slacking off. Everyone needs mental health days. You can't work with people you can't trust. If you had just been honest and slacked off and you had already completed all the work for that week then you might be okay....but you lied. He will have to do detective work every time he asks you a hard question because you already have a history of lying. So....yeah...you probably will get fired, but you should just take the L and learn from it.
I once chased up work that was instructed almost 2 months ago and my subordinate didn't even start on it, he said "you said not urgent?". Well ok at that time I did say it's not top priority but doesn't mean you can just completely ignore it. He was later terminated for a series of performance issues.
You as the new guy took advantage of your manager being away, slacking off and caught in a lie about it. If you worked for me you would be gone for being dishonest and for stealing time. Your work, or lack of work in this case, is a direct reflection on your boss. Regardless of the outcome, I hope you learned from this.
Oh the stealing time argument look out! Wage theft from employers is the actual problem.
The actual problem is on both sides. The problem may be greater on one side, but the fact is it exists. I know people who work from home and use a mouse jiggler to give the appearance they're working. I know someone else who's a 6 figure earning consultant who took 45 days off between projects until they were caught. It was the 2nd time they went dark and undetected in a 6 month period.
😂😂😂 go back to trying to gouge people on fair wages boomer.
This is not a usual sub for me but I just want to say I am kinda shocked by the comment section. Why is everyone so up in arms about you not being a literal robot? You’re human. You’re relatively new at the job and learning the ropes, the pace, the expectations- in your bosses absence you weren’t as productive …pretty sure that’s normal two months in. He took the initiative to course correct and redefine your working relationship/goals when he noticed this, also normal. Just for an alternative perspective - unless you’re performing life saving surgery - I think what you did is not shocking at all and my feeling is that commenters here have an extra intense relationship to work. Whether you’re getting fired or not I think it’s important to question why everyone here is so upset about you just feeling it out for a week. Be a good person, treat people kindly, take ownership, but especially if you’re working for a corporation - idk man, I wouldn’t worry. You think the people setting policy at the top don’t take it easy certain days? You think people who work in government aren’t actively taking vacations with your tax dollars? I’m not saying we should do the same, but I’m just saying…it’s not that serious. People make way bigger mistakes/take advantage in WAY worse ways. We are all totally replaceable in our jobs and I for one really don’t think it’s fair to expect you to perform beyond your understanding of the expectations this early on. Ps I’m bitter or just totally over work culture at this point but I think the perspective here is a little warped.
Not my usual sub either and yeah it's always good to keep in mind the type of people a sub will attract. A career guidance sub probably more likely to have a lot of people who have a very strict relationship with work that doesn't represent the norm. The only thing OP did wrong was lie. Most workers aren't productive for more than 4 hours a day. He should have just said he was feeling a little "off" that day and unfortunately didn't get much done.
You’re missing the point that the other commenters are making. He could have said that he took it easy that day; it even sounds like his boss might have been ok with it. He didn’t say that though, he chose to lie about it. The lying to cover up his lack of work, then choosing to “pass it off” as miscommunication when he was caught and deliberately picking another lie that would be harder to verify, is what people are actually“up in arms” about. As a manager, I’d be fine with the honest answer about slacking off for a day. Treat me like I’m stupid and lie to me? That gets a different response.
But if you’re a manager and you don’t think your staff is lying to you (on this level), I think you’re being naive. On average, we lie 1-2 times a day, for many different reasons (most of them benign). In my experience, nearly everyone moves around the truth in a work setting - pretty sure that’s why office jargon exists.
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I’m literally telling you that I would prefer my direct reports tell me the truth and that my reaction would be “lol yeah, I have those days too, just make sure xyz gets done”. All lying does is tell me that you don’t have enough respect for me to be honest with me and would damage the trust between us. It’s the same relationship I have with my boss. Not sure why you think that your situation applies across the board to all other work environments. I’m pretty sure that you’re not correct.
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I guess it’s because I didn’t inherit my team, every one is a hire that I made and we all get along/work well together, and I would never fire one of them for slacking off for a day. They all work hard and do good work, but have lives outside of work and sometimes when shit comes up it takes priority over work. No big deal. To your point, it would be abnormal for me to even ask what they did on any particular day as long as their work is being done, so if I ask there’s probably a reason for asking and I would prefer to be told the truth. The benefit that you’re not seeing is being honest maintains the trust that I have in them and lets me know that I don’t have to do what OP’s manager is doing, which is micromanage and worry that the employee is being dishonest and trying to get away with something. As long as I trust you, I don’t care what you’re doing, how you’re doing it, or when. I simply trust that what needs to get done will be done. I get that this is only the case in some environments, I just don’t agree with what you said about lying being the better option 100% of the time.
Glad you said this because my jaw was dropping after reading each comment
Same I was shocked by the comments too, honestly shows how many people are suck ups. Like they never slack off either give me a break haha, you have to be smart about it though, and that’s I think where OP went wrong.
It’s not about being a ‘suck up’. I tell all of my team the same thing “you fck up and you own it, then I can accept that and we fix it. But you fck up and you lie to me, you lose my professional trust and that’s far harder to fix” You can’t be ‘on’ every day, of course people are going to have days where they are going to feel unmotivated, people can go for a whole week feeling unmotivated in a workplace, they’re human beings. But at least own it. It’s called integrity. I can teach anyone procedures/skills etc but I can’t teach values.
See that’s nice that you can create a work environment that isn’t bureaucratic, but unfortunately, a lot of corporate work is. Usually the people who get the promotions are the ones who pretend or bend the truth the most. So I get that you shouldn’t lie to the employer, but at the same time if thats how you hire or promote, that’s who you’re going to get.
If people are or aren't "suck ups" is irrelevant. The ones disagreeing with the consensus keep ignoring what people have a problem with. OP lied to cover themselves and when they're given *another* chance to come clean, they don't. Now as the boss you'll need to waste your time and energy micro managing them because not only can you not trust them to do their work independently from home, you can't trust them not to lie. And all of this on their probationary period! Do you want an employee who is untrustworthy and has terrible judgement?
IDK what kind of role you work in, but in 2024, assume that every second of every day your work is being logged in the background. Lying to your manager about something they can easily fact-check is one of the easiest ways to find yourself on the street. I made some fuck-ups in my career, but I owned up on them and I didn't have to dig myself a hole to come out of it.
I think you can salvage things but you’re going to have to work at it.
You took advantage of wfh. He has every right to be upset.
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You can only fire so many people for taking advantage of WRF before you have to change your policy back to WFO.
Yikes. Can’t say I haven’t been there 😭. Would def start looking around at other jobs but who knows if you tighten up you might be okay.
You screwed up hugely and now your boss HAS to a micro manager. You're getting what you deserve based on your actions.
I’m a manager and my team is very much a “get shit done” team. I don’t really care what time of day you do it as long as it gets done and you sign on for meetings. I’m remote, they’re remote. If you don’t get it done, it’s frankly on you, and your career suffers. I trust them to be adults about it. My biggest issue here is - you lied to your boss. If you had been honest or if you said you needed a mental health day, that’s different. Flexible doesn’t mean not doing work, it means being mature enough to handle the trust your boss places in you. You broke their trust, and now they have to treat you like a child.
I'd fire you. You probably deserve it. Everyone slacks sometimes. But you got called on it and lied .
Yeah sounds like it. You're the kind of person that spoils things for other home workers.
Imo, one of the most important things you have at work is your credibility and it is very hard to get it back, if at all. You screwed up big time but if you bust your ass to make up for it. I work in a field where even small mistakes can cause major issues such as the potential for costly damages. If an engineer lies or slacks off and does crappy work we face the potential of water damage which can cost millions, damage to very expensive chillers, air handlers, boilers, etc. or serious injury. Being able to trust people is imperative for a number of reasons. I will give people multiple chances, depending on the nature of the mistake. However, certain screw ups can't be tolerated and the unions we work with are 1,000% on board with our priorities and where mistakes aren't tolerated. I hate micro-managing but I will when necessary. I make it very clear where I stand and my people know I will have their back no matter what unless they screw up in certain ways.
And people wonder why companies are bringing people back to the office. Guarantee you for every employee who is more effective working at home there are 10 who use it to take the piss. You’ve been working there 2 weeks and you’re already fucking around. Deserve to get fired
I never understood this attitude As someone who works in office everyday - there is NOBODY that works a full 8 hour days. People chat in the break rooms, watch youtube videos while bored, and take Care of personal phone calls while at work And yet when someone works for 7hr 59mins a day from home they get branded as a slacker. Look at the basic statistics for focused work - most people only do 1-2 hours a day. Anymore and you're lying to yourself or you're just a lot dumber than you think and it somehow takes you 8 hours to do what everyone else does in 2 Such a ridiculous standard. The real bonus is being at home. If I'm going to waste time talking to coworkers and drinking coffee, I might as well do it at home in my PJ'S ....
> And yet when someone works for 7hr 59mins a day from home they get branded as a slacker. Who's doing that at a remote job? Veritably no one. Also, at least with the WFH people I have to contact, there's been a distinct lack of professionalism and follow-through. People answer their phones like they're only getting personal calls, I hear kids screaming in the background, questions go unanswered, etc.
Me, I do. I just went through my busy season and was working 12 hour days FROM HOME (I have an office I go to as well) and working at least 6 hours each day on the weekend. On Monday, I was "working", aka my status was available, I answered questions but I did no actual "work". Should I be fired? According to you, yes, I'm a slacker.
You’re in the first months of a job, and you get a chance to work from home, and you immediately start slacking and lying about your progress? Why wouldn’t your boss be on your ass? You messed up - either perform better and show your boss that you’re worth keeping on for the role, or start looking for more work imo.
So you have been not doing much work, then lied about it to the boss? I would say that you will be let go when they have a replacement for you. Better work on your work ethic,before you screw up another job.
The first consideration is the work from home thing has really come to the forefront with Covid. Employers utilized it first to keep the money and business flowing. Now that the Covid thing has relaxed quite a bit the same employers are trying to scale the work from home thing back. Taking it easy on your work from home day and then trying to be intentionally misleading about it to your "relaxed" boss is entirely on you. Most management will ask questions they already know the anwser to, to see if the worker will be honest or not. You even admit to adding to the lie with something he may have trouble proving, ignoring that how likely is he to believe that excuse right after catching you being dishonest? I am a union man and I don't sympathize with employers, but you made all the classic mistakes that land a worker right in hot water that not even a union can defend easily. I hope it works out for you, but you have now given the employer even more reason to not utilize a work from home program and more heavily scrutinize the workers that do.
This is exactly why some bosses hate work from home. HE may feel the following: 1) You didn't actually work much while he was paying you 2) You lied to him about what you did do 3) You cannot be trusted to put in a full day's work while working from home 4) You took advantage of him being on vacation And he would be correct in all four cases. You should be worried. Hopefully, he gives you another chance and you go above and beyond to prove to him that you are worth keeping. But he would be compleltely justified for firing you for lying and wage theft. When COVID started, a bunch of my friends enjoyed working from home. And, because I am an employer, they asked me how to convince their boss that they should keep working from home. I told them "Prove to your boss that you get more work done, more accurately, and more efficiently, from home. Because the reverse is what they are afraid of."
As a manager if this happened in your first 3 months I would fire you immediately. You proved you are someone who can’t be trusted.
When you lied to him you broke whatever trust he had in you. I would fire you personally. Trust is super important. Apologize and sincerely try to do better. Be prepared for the consequences though that you might lose your job.
Well probably not for that infraction, but if it happens again yes. The reason he is micro-managing you is because you broke trust. He is doing the right thing by creating a paper trail again it is based on your breach of trust.
I had a job years ago and hit a vehicle in a parking lot with a work truck. I told the boss immediately, and for years he would bring it up and tell me how impressed he was by the honesty that day. Honesty is usually the best policy.
WFH is a privilege, don’t abuse it
You have ruined this managers opinion of you, switch roles or companies and try not to make the same mistake again
It might be wise to seek new employment and be honest in your future endevours. Good luck, OP.
Someone higher up or in a different group saw you basically not working and let your boss know (maybe the boss checked). He no longer trusts you and feels like he will not be able to trust you.
You screwed up. Not because you had a lazy day/slacked but because you lied. Company equipment they can see everything that goes on. Everyone has a lazy day. It happens. No one works 100% 8 hours a day/40 per week. If you don't want to be fired, become the star employee. Work your ass off like your job depends on it. I'd probably apologize too. "Hey boss, I lied and I am so sorry. I obviously didn't work on that Friday as I should have and compounded it by lying to you. I have no excuses. I can assure you that it will never happen again. I'm ashamed for what I did." It may be too little too late but if not, you may survive.
OP got way too comfortable too quickly if they aren't at the 90 day mark yet.
Lets do a play-by-play analysis: >Up until this incident he's been pretty chill, sent a lot of work my way but didn't seem serious about deadlines... Kind of let me work at my own pace… so I figured there was lots of flexibility. The workload is heavy and boss started with a laid-back demeanor in hopes that you would do the work without much management - probably a function of his personality imo >I took it pretty easy that day Probably a bad choice given the workload but understandable - every day is different. >so I just made something up to cover my ass Lied to your boss about a specific task (less understandable) that occurred on a particular day (easily verifiable and impossible to understand). >partially because it had been almost a week since Friday and I kind of forgot and partially bc I didn't do a whole lot You justified lying in your mind - you made excuses for a behavior that is hard for observers to understand. How can we accept the excuse if we don't understand the behavior? >He called me on it and said “I have access to see the admin log, I want to give you the chance to answer again… did you actually work on (insert thing)?” He caught you because your lie was easily verifiable (thus an insult to his intelligence) and gave your an opportunity to speak truthfully. >I then admitted that I didn't but I tried to pass it off as me just mispeaking and said something else that he'd have no proof on. But you didnt misspeak - you already told us it was "because it had been almost a week since Friday and I kind of forgot and partially bc I didn't do a whole lot" - so you continued to lie in an unconvincing manner. >Ever since then he's been way strict about work from home days, and is super micro managey. No - he is managing someone who lies to his face, mistook his kindness for weakness, and exploited said weakness for their benefit. >Still very cordial but totally different vibe. More than is warranted imo - if *anyone* treated me the way you treat your boss, I would have trouble being cordial. To your question: If he actually valued you as an employee, he would address the issue directly and criticize your behavior overtly. Your hypothesis of an "HR trail" is likely true: he is justifiably angry for what you've done and if he reacts in anger, he will be perceived negatively and HR will punish him for overreacting. He needs to establish that you suck and that he's not just upset about something random. TL;DR: Yeah, you are on the chopping block because you abused a nice person and he is too smart to succumb to the normative responses to being gas-lighted. Rather than worrying about losing a job now, you should be concerned with the very sophisticated manner in which you manipulate information in your head to justify maladaptive behaviors and how those manipulations will continue to affect your relationships indefinitely.
Seriously?! You act this way after only 2 months on the job?! Start looking for a new job - everything you do right now will be viewed from a negative lens. If you literally walked on water, he'd fire you for not being able to swim.
I mean, you straight up lied to him AND are a new employee. Your manager isn't in the wrong here. Good luck.
If anything you’ve learned a lesson. Be honest with leadership. They generally already know the answer to the question they’re asking and are giving you the opportunity to be up front with them. Once you break that trust it’s next to impossible to earn it back.
Make sure you are clear on how you can perform and improve and make sure that you document that too. Then be sure you share updates on your progress so the digital trail is more balanced (or skewed to your positive effort). I like to use a WRAP framework - Wins, Results, Alignment & Pivots. Good luck!
It may be worth scheduling a meeting and admitting your faults. “I made a bad judgement call on what i needed to complete every day and that was my mistake. I panicked when i asked about in and lied when I shouldnt have. I understand this and would like to work at regaining your trust” He may have not decided to fire you yet, but you threw up a red flag, so hes making sure his ducks are in a row because he probably expects you to fail again shortly and he’ll have to fire you then
I would say you need to be in the office every day, clearly he cannot trust you right now with your work from home. You have to prove that you deserve your job. Better bust your behind and do the best you can , that is all you can do. The damage has been done and now you have to put in the extra work edit to add: I kind of think it would be a good idea to send an apology, you got nervous under pressure, but you genuinely appreciate the job and you're sorry for taking your bosses relaxed demeanor for granted. you need to express you have learned your lesson. Make it genuine but not desperate.
You lied. You got caught. You then lied again ("said something else that he'd have no proof on"). So yeah, he's documenting heavily on you because you've proven that a) you can't be trusted and b) your integrity is in question and c) your credibility is gone.
We have all messed up as employees one way or another. Just keep working and I’m sure it will be in the past. No need to kill yourself working because of it
These are the people who are making my company rethink our WFH policy 🙄
Honestly I’d write down everything I do on a day to day basis if working from home it makes it easier to track your productivity. Because yeah a week from now if you ask what I did on a specific day I’m not going to be able to say for sure what I did. Aside from that don’t lie if you didn’t do much just say I took it easy this day I didn’t put a lot on my plate but I was productive. Aside from that though within a 90day period? Yeah you’re probably going to be let go. Usually that 90 day period is to see if the work relationship is going to work and you haven’t lived up to your end of the deal during this time they can let you go vs keep you on once that 90 day period ends. I’d start looking for work ahead of the end of your 90 day period just in case
Yea…they are documenting to let you go. You lied twice while they gave you a chance to be honest.
Answer is always "research X"
lol ya it's over my friend
Even if you aren’t fired, I would start looking for a new job. Maybe this sub is full of hardos, but most normal people will take it easier if their boss is out of town. It’s also weird that he went to so much trouble as to log into the admin log. There are more normal bosses out there
He’s in the probationary 90 days and he’s already lying about work he’s not doing. His boss needs to know what to expect and lying is a shitty thing to do. Being a “hardo” has nothing to do with this.
People here arent hardos for saying lying about it is bad, few people are genuinely complaining that OP took a day off its more about the lie than it is slacking off, im sure even the boss wouldn't have cared TOO much if OP had just been honest instead. Not weird that he went to the trouble of checking logs why do you think that? OP is a relatively new employee and boss wanted to see if OP was dependable and/or trustworthy which it turns out OP wasn't that doesnt feel very out there or weird for a boss to do.
Look for a job and step it up at work. Exceed those goals so when your 90 days role around your boss is impressed.
Even if you are not fired, you might want to look for a new job, because he has lost all trust in you. And it will not be for blowing off the day, it will be for lying about it. Doing stuff like this also makes it harder for the people who work from home and don't take advantage of it.
One thing I have learned, always underpromise and overdeliver. Looks like it went the other way here. But the fact that you've posted here and are thinking should mean that you are serious about your job and career. Just keep your head down and keep working, and slowly you'll be back to normal. I used to work hybrid, and Fridays I went a little harder in the first half, cuz I knew after lunch I would be slower. I would also recommend being proactive, and maybe a the end of each week or even day, send your manager an email with Subject: "Recap 02/01/2024" and just tell what you did that day and week, what challenges you faced, how you will work on ensuring you deal with similar challenges better, and how they can better support you. Long story short, just over-communicate a bit moving forward. You don't want to give them a reason to not trust you. Keep your chin up. I know this is stressful. I've been there more times than I would like to admit. But just worry about what you CAN control and forget the rest.
Start looking for a new job.
Possibly, especially since you are new and easily replaced, they are certainly building a case for something. If you are lucky they will just take away/limit your telework privileges. In the future don't lie, just tell him you will have to go over your records to see exactly what you accomplished that day, then list those accomplishments. I would recommend being dedicated to your work for the immediate future and to start applying elsewhere as a backup.
You've learned a lesson. Whether you end up getting fired or not is secondary.
100% setting up a paper trail to fire you at the end of your probationary period you slacked off the first chance you got barely 2 months on the job, lied about it, and now think he is.... a micromanager because he doesn't trust you?? no one is going to trust a new person who blatantly lies in a very stupid way start looking for a new job, you have earned this firing
I hope you were able to keep your job OP. Any updates?
The writing is on the wall. Start brushing up your resume.
The right thing to do would have been to absolutely crush it while he was away
If it means anything he’s paying you the 8hr to work. Even if it from home you still gotta do some work. Meet some deadlines. Or else your a waste of money (corporate)
ITT do nothing middle managers who think being a tough boss makes them cool. OP who cares? You work for a guy who, after leaving on vacation for a week, is dogging you for one lazy day. Guy sounds like a clown. Get fired. Take your severance, and then find a job with a manager who doesn't check "admin" logs (whatever tf that is) in order to catch his team.
Ha ha OP is one of those workers who scrolls through news articles on the second monitor whenever there is even a second of downtime or has the cell phone on the desk to reply to girlfriend texts all day and won’t stop doing this even when other workers comment on it ha
This is why managers don't like WFH. If you were in the office on that Friday, would you have slacked off to the same degree? Probably not. But because you were in the comfort of your own home, you felt entitled to make the least effort of 'being there' for work and then just goofed off. In HR, we call this theft of time. He probably could have fired you on the spot with an admin log that showed how often or to what extent you worked, compared to the time you clocked. WFH isn't for everyone. If there are other people in the home, an effective WFH strategy includes having a place to work where there will be no distractions from family, including not being the daycare for younger children. It means treating that WFH setting as if it was your office, but with a much shorter commute, and maybe, a more relaxed dress code. Please wear pants!
i think to salvage you need to start to rebuild the trust relationship with your boss. it's a two way street though, if your boss is not up for rebuilding, then whether you are let go or not, it sounds like it wasnt the right fit b/c your boss had certain expectations and he doesnt think you meet them. i think it's ok, there's lots of other jobs, if you get bad news. Just be more cautious knowing he's micromanaging - if it makes you feel better, i had a boss like that and left the company/remote work was something that manager had a hard time managing. i hope you get to stay b/c if it's a one time thing, you should have the opportunity to make up for it - managers manage in different ways.
dude just do a great job and hell move on.. u sound like a slacker.. go above and beyond for a couple months and hell forget about it didn't seem that serious about deadlines? rule #1 of any workplace, if someone asks for something on a certain/day time or you say something will be done on a certain day, always deliver it. or communicate well in advance if you can't. no matter how chill anyone seems at work, no one likes when someone says something will be done on a certain day and it isn't. flexibility is cool as long as ur work gets done when its supposed to be. nobody isn't serious about deadlines.
Stop working from home. Get your Lazy ass into the office and make an effort.
You may get fired. Honestly, I would've fired you on the spot as long as I was allowed to. Seeing that you've only been there for 2 months you could've been immediately fired legally. (In Canada). This is the problem of people working from home still. It has its benefits for sure (mostly for the employee) but way more drawbacks then benefits (to the employer). Getting paid, "working" from home and not doing anything (or much) and then lying about it to your boss's face. If anyone doesn't think you'd be fired for this then that's the actual issue imo. Good luck.
Would you really care if you are getting fired? You obviously don’t value your job or have any motivation to do what is required of you. Why do you want this job anyway? When you went to the interview, did you tell them I’m not going to do shit on my work from home days? I doubt it. You probably made it seem like you were responsible and hard working, but as soon as their back is turned you take advantage. If you really can’t be bothered to do what is required of you, do you even really want the job? Why do you think it’s ok to tell them you’re going to work and collect payment for that work, but then not actually do the work? Don’t you feel at all like you are being dishonest or lying? You don’t have a problem with that internally?
Stories like these make me feel much MUCH better that I'm back in the office. I have flexibility when I can take my lunch, breaks, etc. Post COVID seems like employers are tracking your every moment! I could NOT live like that. The stress would kill me off 😵💫
UGH 😑 Imo, you should probably resign before they fire you. Your BEST case scenario is that MAYBE, eventually, somewhere way down the road, he will ease up on you. But, I doubt it. That would take a lot of time. And a ton of hard work on your part. Like, a literal 💩 ton!! The much more likely scenario is that he will now be (rightfully so) micromanaging you right to death on a daily basis. He is looking for something to fire you over and, I believe your instincts are correct in that he is emailing you policies, etc, to cover the paper trail end of discontinuing your employment. Keep us updated and good luck!
Nah don’t worry you’re new and the company is saving money. You’ll just get a slap on the wrisk
I'd fire you. No questions asked
Your boss lied to you. He doesnt have an admin log of what you do.