I started a job in January in a big company in France directly managed by the head of one research team. Since three or four weeks, I've noticed a change in his behavior toward me. Having spent a lot of time in North America, I find this part of this new behavior a bit rude, and also I didn't notice this behavior before. It's worth noting that most of this actually came in the quarantine period we're facing, so from online discussions, including messenger and video calls. Here are some examples:
(1) We were talking about my probationary exams that's two weeks from now (in France there's a four month long probationary period for almost every new position). I got to know of the date 15 days ago and before contacting the HR, I sent him a message to check with him if he'd be okay to postpone it for a week or so, citing that I just got to know of it yesterday. He wrote on messenger: "It' a pretty lame reason to postpone an exam, you knew it months in advance". I wasn't expecting the word "lame".
(2) Today I asked on messenger a scientific question about the project we're working on, politely asking whether doing certain things is enough or not. He replied saying: "Why not if it's for free. But now we're talking about investing your time, which is not free, so there's to be a more interesting return", followed by "To be clear, if you do this and that, your work has no value for the company." I was shocked, because I was asking a scientific question, didn't expect such a return at all!
(3) I told him casually today on video call that "I didn't sleep last night well, so a bit tired, but otherwise good": he pretty much shrugged it off. Not that I was expecting a sympathy or anything but at least something, given that he told me about his insomnia problem two months or so ago, and we do talk a bit about non-work stuff while at work.
(4) In the quarantine period, I noticed that I'm often the last person to be asked "How are you?" and there isn't much follow-up after I say briefly how I'm doing, whereas for other people, there are some follow ups, not just "Okay, good."
Despite the above, he did reply to most of the emails carefully, read my reports and commented; but this behavior is concerning me, specially given that my probationary exam is approaching. I do know that sometimes I turn some people off without saying or doing anything, but for them I'd not care about it so much if it were not my work. I can't simply go ahead and ask him what's wrong, because I consciously didn't do anything wrong.
What do you think this is? Is there anything that I can do so that I don't end up making this worse? Thanks a ton!