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At places I've worked, they've had to give you three warnings before they fire you. And that meant actual documented write ups, not just the boss verbally warning you.
Talk to people in the company about how they are about firing people. If it's been done before, and for what reasons.
At the same time, once you get on someone's bad side to that extent at work, I would almost say you are not a fit for the job. I would start reassessing your organization and work ethic and how they compare to what your supervisors want or job hunting. Sorry, but being warned by the boss is a very bad sign IMO.
Jobs are not about what you bring. They are about what your company wants.
I totally agree that at this point you MUST have perfect attendance and voluntarily work overtime. Come in earlier than required, leave later. It's obviously expected as part of your job and has become business-as-usual in many American workplaces these days. Like it or not, the 40-hour workweek in a start, not an end.
Make sure your boss knows you are at your desk. Eat lunch at your desk unless that is forbidden. As other people have said, do not take personal phone calls and do not use your computer for anything other than work. Your situation is not unusual. If you have too much to do in nine hours, ask your manager to prioritize your tasks. Make sure you are doing the things in the order she wants them done.
Keep a list of everything you do every day and include what time you arrived and left if you don't punch a time clock. If you take a lot of phone calls, keep a list of the callers so no one thinks you were on private calls. If anyone asks what were you doing all day, you can tell them very specifically. And if she tries to fire you again, you can present HR with your log of daily activities.
She isn't happy with a monthly report she has me work on. The last few months I have fallen behind because of multiple other things I have been asked to do. Now today she is throwing this warning in my face because the report wasn't done. In the warning was also a concern for my attendance. The way the warning is written is very biased and reads very accusatory.
Sandra, let's talk about this report.... You can bet this report goes up the chain above her. Therefore, it is logical to assume she is worried you will make her look bad by not getting it done on time. If she works monster hours, like you say, then I can see why it would be particularly irritating to her that you aren't getting your work done, making her suffer for it. And the attendance issue only exacerbates the irritation. Look at it from your boss' perspective. She's not working killer hours so you can take off lots of time and not get your reports done.
Is there anyway you can speed up the reports? Formatting, pre-formatting, setting up a template? Maybe you can drastically cut down the worktime on that issue?
Is the warning untrue, or is it true? What do you mean by "biased"? Facts are facts, or not facts.
I totally agree that at this point you MUST have perfect attendance and voluntarily work overtime. Come in earlier than required, leave later. It's obviously expected as part of your job and has become business-as-usual in many American workplaces these days. Like it or not, the 40-hour workweek in a start, not an end.
Make sure your boss knows you are at your desk. Eat lunch at your desk unless that is forbidden. As other people have said, do not take personal phone calls and do not use your computer for anything other than work. Your situation is not unusual. If you have too much to do in nine hours, ask your manager to prioritize your tasks. Make sure you are doing the things in the order she wants them done. .
Good advice, and I'd add another piece of advice. Should you regularly email reports, do some outside of regular business hours, especially if your boss is copied, and if you are exempt. It would help erase the attendence issues, if on your own to comply with the requirements of the position, you were doing this.
At my last position a colleague in a different department was on the chopping block, and I knew while he had some of your issues, he was worth keeping. I told him to not only email folks beyond normal hours, but to use the date formating in EXCEL when distributing (hard copies of stuff) to higher ranking folks o/s department, and I "casually mentioned" while collecting mine with someone who was all for getting rid of him "Oh, glad to see this already here. Wow, John did this Sunday afternoon. I needed this ASAP.". Now that alone didn't keep his job for him, but he is still there, and it is all about doing stuff which will erase the image of time and attendence issues of the past.
I suspect as a newbie, that along with the report not done, are your two biggest things to overcome.
Bottom line is start looking for another job or look for a transfer. Today in 2013 it's CYA. if they fire you who knows how long it could take for you to find another one. CYA and keep it to yourself. Yet if you decide to stick it out watch for signs that the hammer is coming down.
I would look for a new job, your boss sounds like a total witch that wants the moon from you and nothing less. She wants you to do your job description and then some. In the future with any future boss, make sure you know and remember the job description. If you get these extra assignments and know it will eat into work with the others, ask what is more important for the company and get that IN WRITING. That way, should this come up because you didn't do something that is our isn't a typical job tasks and complains that you didn't do it, you have her written word that it wasn't required.
I don't know why nobody else seems to have pointed this out but when you sign a warning notice you're signing acknowledgment of its receipt, not agreement to its contents. This situation is highly unusual in that your manager has given you a few days to sign it which is not normal procedure. Typically a warning letter has a space at the bottom of it where you sign your name and the date acknowledging receipt. Normal procedure is also to give you two copies of the letter to sign, one original for your employer and one for you.
The procedure is otherwise simple. If the letter has no acknowledgment space for you to sign it, sign it and add, "I acknowledge receipt of this letter on (date)". Make a copy for your own records. Then write your response setting out your rebuttal of the negative comments with the facts as you've described them here. Be professional and stick to the issues, leave the emotions out of it.
You may well not be in a "no win" situation here. In this case it's unlikely that your manager can fire you without going through HR and this is why it's so important to respond to the warning so that it's on the record. Good luck.
This 'no win' manager sounds like one I had: no matter how nice I was, or what I great job I did, she was never satisfied and constantly belittled me. Every year on my performance review she would write that coworkers complained about my bad attitude. . . yet, she would never substantiate those claims. And even more confusing was the fact that I frequently received direct compliments from coworkers about my positive and friendly personality.
One day, a new employee joined our dept and she immediately began her brown nosing and it paid off; she was treated as a queen by our manager; given rave reviews and very high salary increases (part of my job was processing paperwork for raises so unfortunately I saw first hand).
Not being a suck-up, I remained at the bottom of the list.
One day we ended up with a new manager, and lo and behold no longer was I treated poorly, and my annual reviews never again contained slanted and erroneous comments.
Sometimes there is nothing one can do with an ineffective and biased manager other than finding a new job.
Now that you've had time to process it, make a strategy and then discuss it with her. If you really want to keep this job, and she really doesn't want to fire you, then work together at achieving that goal. If she sees that you are serious about your commitment, then get her buy-in on how you plan to make it work.
Tell her that obviously you've made some bad choices in prioritizing your work and you want to improve. Ask for her input on what things absolutely need to take top priority no matter what.
It doesn't sound like an easy task - many bosses never learned how to be a good manager (and then wonder why their employees fail) so look at it as an attempt for both of you to improve.
I'll just add one thing. If you have multiple things on your plate and you aren't sure which takes priority you should talk with your boss. Let her decide what doesn't get done if you don't have time to finish everything.
For example, what would have happened if you went to your boss before the report was due and said to her that you don't have time to complete the report and help with the new office? Based on what happened it seems like she would have told you to make sure the report gets done.
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