I am currently an apprentice as a developer in a German company (25 employees). The job started well, but in the last two months things soured.
Background:
My contract states, that I have to bring a doctors notice to work if I'm sick even a single day, and a Dr's note is required on the first day back.
I have some health problems which frequently cause me to miss a day of work. In the beginning I always brought a Dr's note, but one day I forgot to bring one and no one said anything about it, so I assumed it was not an issue.
This happened a few times so I assumed I don't need to bring one for single days. I always got one for 1+ days!
Company Structure:
I'm a developer. My logical should be the manager of the devs, Which will be the case once I finish the apprenticeship. However, for now the secretary is my manager as she manages all interns.
She is demanding, non-technical, and insists on controlling things she has no idea about. She assigns tasks the devs, not knowing who they are or what they do. The result was a mass exodus, her demotion, and her being reassigned.
Recently, I had to do a few things for her since she was in home office such as the post, dishes, and writing a motivation sentence on a board in the entrance to the office. I did everything except for that sentence and I got yelled at, called stupid and incompetent for that.
A few weeks later on the first day after the Christmas holidays I meant write her in the morning asking for a extra vacation day since we had visitors. Usually it's ok to ask for a day off in the morning of that day. I messed up and didn't send a mail but I didn't think much of it since I knew that her and the devs manager (who I could have told I'm not coming) were still on vacation.
I came to work the next day to find a email from her saying that I'll get an unexcused sick day for that day. I realise that I messed up here and I think that this is deserved, it's just for more context since it's kinda dumb since I ould have been alone anyway.
Prior to these incidents, the rules weren't strictly enforced, but now she takes every opportunity to insult me, and to demonstrate who is in charge. She also demanded a doctors note for all sick days I had the prior month. I don't have those so she marked them as unexcused, and warned me that the next time I do not bring in a Dr's note the first day back to work.
Since I'm near the end of my apprenticeship I have to do a project on my one from start to finish.
So far,She rejected my plan for the project 3 times for:
- estamating too much time (not the case)
- having someone's name in the plan (the person knew about that)
- Saying "code review with trainer,I meant the "dev manager".
Every time she rejected it I corrected it asap, but was determined to find new mistakes. In the end I nearly missed my deadline to hand in my plan for the project which would have made me fail my apprenticeship.
tldr
Rules weren't enforced in the beginning but later when management soured towards me they were, and even enforced retroactively.
Management is rude to me and frequently insults me, and engages in petty demonstrations of power.. I feel like I am being set up to fail my apprenticeship.
Is this common? Unfair?
While I know that I'll have to strictly follow the rules from this point forward, I feel like running over a minefield at work. Everything I do might be twisted and used against me. Which is insanely stressful for me. I tried to contact the officials, but they didn't respond yet (2 weeks).
Edit: The Dev team is really happy with me, it's just the secretary.
Edit2: I didn't expect rules to be important if they are not enforced. I wasn't aware that you can choose when to enforce them and when not. Sounds unfair to me.
I wasn't aware that you can choose when to enforce them and when not. Sounds unfair to me.
That's why you don't assume things which are beyond your control. It will now sound unfair to you as you're no longer able to abuse the lenient behavior. Let's agree: you should have never tried to abuse / bend the rules in first place. Now once the rules are enforced, at least do not repeat the previous mistakes please.