Should I be worried about my probation period?

Question

During my recent one-to-one, my manager told me I shouldn't be humble, I should be more confident and sometimes in a braggy way to show what I have accomplished during the evening standups. In the end, I asked her if I should be concerned about this, and she said no.

She told me it's okay if we don't manage to get something out but we communicate. It's ok if we got something out but don't communicate, but great if we communicate and also get something out. This is referring to a new project we are working on, that will impact the whole company.

I am only one month away from my probation meeting, should I be concerned? I've never had issues so far.

Answer 1

If you want to know how your manager thinks you're doing, ask them, not us. They have no reason to lie to you.

Answer 2

If an "evening standup" is a daily thing, I can imagine that being too frequent to have anything to talk about or for any significant task to have really moved from one step to another (unless the planning was already done, broken into daily or sub-daily granules, and the work completely routine and easy to articulate).

I once worked in a job with daily standups, and it just essentially wasted 30 minutes and a good deal of energy and attention, as the work was too subtle for anything to ever progress daily for anyone, and explaining anything in a form that would be edifying to others (none of whom were working on the same technical problems) would have required slides and hours of preparation.

As a result it just became a blather session.

That anecdote may or may not resonate, but it may be that your manager is just trying to emphasise the importance of communication.

It certainly doesn't sound like your manager is expressing dissatisfaction of a kind that would bear on your probation, just encouragement to talk more.

It might also be useful to think about whether your manager's remarks correspond to your own views. Do you have something you'd like to say but lack confidence in saying? Or are you being forced to talk when you have nothing to say and can't see a purpose?