Context: I got told I was fired in July but the company didn't manage to fire me. My boss quit and now I have a new manager. They did not manage to legally fire me yet, so they tried offering me a settlement agreement to terminate my contract over mutual consent.
I did not agree with the settlement agreement. So my new manager called me last week and told me I had to show up the next day. He said because I didn't sign the agreement, I had to work like normal again. I agreed and started working for the company again for 3 days a week. It was a tough decision but I managed to set my mind to it and start work with fresh mind and new energy.
However, now my new manager is already angry with me and I don't know how to go about dealing with this. I feel they are using this to pressure me to quit my job myself, or they are using this in an attempt to create or collect evidence of me doing 'a bad job' to more easily fire me
What happened: I told them this Friday that there was something urgent that had come up that I had to solve right away. I told them I was sorry, but I would catch up the 2 hours this would take me in the weekend.
My manager mailed back saying that's not Ok. Which is something I can understand. However, he also states it appears “I didn't respond to my email for several hours during working hours” and that “my work output is mediocre.”
Because of that he is imposing a set of rules on me, which I haven't had before ever in these 5 years of working there:
- You announce the start and end of your working day via email
- Every 2 hours you send a short update of your work of the past two hours.
- You email during the beginning of your lunchbreak and the end of your lunchbreak
- You follow your work email inbox during your working hours in such a way that you can respond to an email within 45 minutes
I'm not used to working in corporate jobs and it is clear to me this manager is from the corporate world where these rules might apply. Our company was a not-for-profit with creative projects and it was built on mutual trust. I don't know how to reply to this email.
I can understand they did not like that I had an urgent situation that made me unavailable for two hours; and already saw coming it might be a problem but didn't know what else to do with it.
I do think the rules are really strict and it feels also very condescending / belittling (sorry, English isn't my native language). I also don't know why he says my work output is mediocre. Truth is I've been working just as hard and consistent as I did before they tried laying me off…
What would you advise me to do? How do I reply to this email without making the matter worse? I think they're trying to push me in a position where I am more leaning towards agreeing with being fired or quitting myself; which I don't want to.