I'm 23(M) working at a smaller but established company and I got this job directly out of college. I was enthusiastic and even had a 2 week training period where we needed to pass a test to land the role permanently.
I had been warned about by hearsay this one subhuman reporting manager who everyone fears being under. After being assigned under this reporting manager, I was afraid but I knew if i did well I wouldn't have to be worried about her.
I blame my anxiety from being under her in the first month, i did 2-3 silly mistakes that were not costly to the organization, but which really made her angry and question my competency. She even mentioned how trainers had bragged about me to her.
Within the first 3 weeks after these 2-3 mistakes, she extended my probation on the basis of “I donot perform well” when my score had not dropped under the 88%. And it was my first month in this role as a fresher.
Every person i told this said it is very odd to have probation extended in the first month since my performance was on par with some of the seniors in this company! It is rare for someone to have a score above 90% only if they've come across easy client requests.
Regardless i accepted it and worked harder to improve my score and for the next 2 months i did! 98%!
Anyways, on my fourth month with this company my direct reporting manager had still not lifted the probation extension which was 3 months long and she has the power to if she deemed i was doing well…
My performance was infact so good, my work came up on “top 10” in the company. She did not congratulate me or even acknowledge it.
She kept piling on work on me that even seniors require alot of discussion/guidance since client requests can be something not taught in training. But i managed to do all the work with minimal guidance. She never acknowledged my effort or thanked me. Towards the end of the fourth month, my performance dropped a bit again and immediately she latched onto it and started berating me on phone calls regarding how i need to maintain a high score(that she set) else she will extend my probation again.
Everyone i knew from other departments came to me for help and direction and we're very wary of how my direct manager was extending my probation despite being one of the top newbie performers.
Her threats got to my head and made my anxiety horrible. I decided to approach management and they were unaware she had extended my probation and immediately told her to close it. They also seperated me from her and put me under another reporting manager but they never fired her still….
I'm so mad that management have given power to reporting managers to play such games with people's career with minimal damage to their own.