I work as a programmer in a small company and a small team. I am currently working under a senior supervisor/architect. The problem I face is:
The architect assigns work to individual programmers in his cabin. The programmers submit their work at end of the day and have a quick chat about it. Now, about once in 2 weeks during the end of day meeting with him, he says he never asked me to code what I coded! It could range from an entire feature to a field on a form/database. Assuming I was at fault, I started writing everything down from then on. This still continues. When I show him what I had written down about the days work, he says I wasn't paying attention and I got it wrong. After which I started paraphrasing everyday what he wants me to do, but this still goes on.
There is no documentation to code against. And there are no requirements. All the tickets/work requests that are created are advisory only. It's a small shop that does repetitive government web systems, so whatever the architect says is usually the law.
What can I do in these situations to politely bring the facts to light (without offending my supervisor) ?
At the moment it's just me and my supervisor working on a project. Right at the moment he says "I never asked you to do this" I am dumbfounded - what are some of the ways that I could deal with this situation ? It's almost impossible to refute him and if things flare up it will be his word against mine.