One of my friend recently started a job as a senior software engineer for a small place. They had lied to him about his pay and what he would be going but he needed the job so he stayed. I thought that was a big red flag already.
The first few weeks he was not able to work because IT couldn't give him access. They didnt really seem to care. When he started working everything seemed fine but since few weeks now, every week his bosses are lecturing him for his time sheet. It has been 4 times now so he worries they gonna fire him for misconduct.
At first they said we dont round it up by 15min here, which he was only doing because there was nothing to do. Then they lecture him again saying it was still not good enough. He has no idea how they came up with that, since he stays about 8h. Now they want him to work 8hours exactly. They also wanted him to keep count of what he was working on and for how long, to the minute. He tried to do his best without stressing over it too much but they were still unhappy and gave him a timer app.
He used the app but since it was on his computer, when he would have to restart his pc, well the timer gets f*cked. Also apparently the app crashes too. He mentioned that to one of the boss and he seemed fine, saying yeah no worries its ok just do your 8h but then, complained again that he had left early of a couple minutes.
Today they complained because the description of what he was doing during the day on his time sheet were not descriptive enough…. lol, he told them that he used all the space he was allowed to use to type those things on the software but they said he just had to try better.
I also wanna mention that my friend barely has any work to do during the day, the tasks they give him are so easy for someone with as much experience as him that he completes them very quickly, even trying to be slow.
I personally never heard of a place having those kind of rules. If they are so particular about time, why not having a machine at the door to track time?
He also mentioned that he thinks they only do that to him because he is a contractor. He also think they are looking at the log on his computer and that they want this to be 8h so the walk from the front door to his office doesn't count?
Any tips on how to handle this? is this a common thing? He is looking for a new job but no luck so far.