AIBU to feel set up to fail in a hybrid role?

It does sound very oppressive OP, I’m just confused why you think that not getting your 1 day a week wfh is the thing making you fail. If 50% of your role is in teams calls/meetings then even a day at home won’t resolve that. I might be misunderstanding. Regardless you have my sympathy, such a shame to start a new job and find the culture or expectations are mental. Many of us have experienced similar. On the bright side, you’ll be able to find something else soon and you can easily explain the blip on your CV because I’ll bet there will be rumours about your current employer in the industry already.

If you were hired as a hybrid and your contract says so, they need to let you.

My short term suggestion is that all the PMs book a room to have a 3 hours face to face meeting in which each of you makes calls to your teams. The situation you are all in is nuts!

This is what I cannot get my head around 🙄🙄 What taf 🤣

I have read all the thread and it is nuts and I am sorry you have to put up with this as life is so short! But you don’t have the service for constructive dismissal. The qualifying period is still 2 years. You are in probation and they can end it at any time. Although the new employment laws are in and have reduced the time employers can dismiss this doesn’t help you. Get that new job an move on. The glass door them!

Oh man

If PMs have not allowed to be present on meetings for the past 3 months… how come you were allowed to for the first fortnight?

You’ve made it to Reddit!

🧀

The lack of insight is just shocking.

The founder and owner of this company knows his business. This is a very successful business. Presumably established years ago.
You have been there a few weeks.

All these meetings have been allowed to go ahead as normal. The one change - you’ve been banned. Most people would look inwards. Not blame the incredibly successful business owner 😆

You said the PMs have not been allowed in on meetings for 3 months. Ie before you arrived

OP - after a fortnight you have been effectively shut out of meetings that are still thriving and going ahead. Surely that tells you that people have complained… surely??

The OP has said that all these meetings were in the diary before she joined.

I agree it sounds like a lot but this is typical for agile working.

So for the first fortnight you were allowed free reign and implemented

We have stand up every morning (which I'm supposed to run). Each week I do 4-5 meetings called "3 amigos" where we discuss the specifics of the work each person is going to be doing, they ask questions about it etc. I do 3 fortnightly meetings with the whole team. I do demo meetings a few times a week, 1:1s monthly with each member of my team and "leads catch up" once a week with all the leads of all disciplines and a once weekly planning meeting with my team. A weekly design meeting.

and then the big boss stopped it?

My guess - your team complained about all the meetings being rammed in to their diaries. I have to say… your meetings plan sounds like something out of the 1990s.

I honestly cannot believe some of the advice on this thread.
OP please ignore all these people who have clearly never worked in tech or done project management. Trying to PM agile development teams without being able to actually talk to them or attend the stand-ups etc is not possible. This owner is ridiculous and doesn't understand what he's asking you to do. Having people present in a silent office banning calls is just weird.
At least you know you're not going mad and the others think so too!

Sad to say I know a few companies like this. One is a huge international big 4 accountancy firm. I was told by my neighbour after I’d left and he’d left that he hated it there and would never have joined (as a contractor) had he known what he was getting himself into). It’s not even just that, in some internal depts of large international companies there are serious flaws, yet they’re all brushed under the carpet at interviews and when you start it all becomes clear. They keep employees on who are a liability and in the real world in one case, would have been fired/disciplined etc. One female senior lawyer had such anger issues she broke her own desk and had been know to throw things at people. Yet she still worked there! And basically then you’re supposed to tiptoe round these psychos and placate them and unwind with a team lunch in the staff canteen (god I hated those!) or at a local bar. Gin is a cure all! Joke.

OP, I’d get out and leave. Sadly in these organisations nothing changes or doesn’t for years and they just have unhappy employees. I’ve seen it time and time again in contracts. It’s actually worrying how so many companies get away with treating their staff like this.

I'd love to live in the rainbowland so many posters on this thread clearly live in, where employers never do anything wrong and probation periods come with great qualifications

But back in the real world, OP, I suggest continuing as your colleagues were and doing enough to keep getting paid, while mainly focusing your attention on finding somewhere better.

What do you think a probation period is?

This post has attracted so many people who are completely out of touch… and yet still insist on giving the OP useless, mad and condescending advice! Very frustrating for the OP.

Anyway, even if it wasn’t for the ban on calls, I can’t see how anyone could be happy working in the place you describe. The culture is absolutely toxic. Hope you find something (much) better soon.

At this stage I would be putting everything in writing (email) that they are asking you to do or not do, emailed to the person copying in x y z peron as appropriate.

It sounds toxic and very poor practice. However there has to be company policies underpinning their actions. Often orgs forget the company policies. so id say time to start exploring them to find out what the company says within its policies. Get clarification from HR on your contract wording and how that applies in practice then state whats happening. You need to start gently calling it out. If nothing else you are starting an evidence trail that could be useful if you are dismissed. If its as ridiculous as you say then you could claim for 'constructive dismissal' if they have made your job impossible. Get advice from ACAS who provide free advice on employment related matters.