To be worried that I'm going to be fired on Monday?

[777jj]

I started a new job 3 weeks ago, and the senior director has put in a 20 minute 'catch up' for Monday. I'm worried that they are going to fire me, I've heard that 'bad' meetings always get scheduled for Mondays.

I just feel like I've not made the best first impression. I got given a big project to do and have 95% finished it, but then got given another task to prioritise which means that original project has not been seen by my manager yet as it's been left by the way side. Then I told a colleague I had capacity to take on another project this week (that needs to be prioritised over my original project), but I think she thought I had time straight away and sent me work to do the very next morning - I had to then go back to her and say I didn't have time until towards the end of the week. I worried a lot about replying to her (with everyone copied in) saying this, so I tried to rush through my original project but within a few hours I realised I couldn't work any quicker and would not have time until Friday, and I had a few meetings which all in all meant I replied to her at lunch time to an email she sent out first thing...

I'm not sure how frequently I should be checking in with colleagues on the progress of work. For example, this week I've had 2 days to do a project and they checked in with me this morning (1-day in) - should I have been more proactive and checked in with them first? I'm also due to finish something for tomorrow morning and I've not finished it - they did say they expect I won't finish it all in time (as I'm new) but I feel awful...

Unless this is a terrible organisation, which you wouldn't want to stay at anyway, then I suspect you're overthinking this.

3 weeks is very early to be thinking about binning you off, but it's a reasonable time to have a chat about how things are going - for both of you.

I'm sure I'll have booked catch-ups on a Monday morning with my reports many times over my career, if I had a suitable slot available and wanted to get it done before things stack up throughout the week.

Honestly OP I’d try not to worry about it being on a Monday - they might just have a busy diary and not want to leave it too long to check in, like PP says.
Maybe they’ve seen the volume of work headed your way and are worried you’re being overburdened when you’ve only just arrived? Perhaps the organisation (or even individuals??) have form for ~~dumping~~ delegating work to new people and swamping them?
If you feel able, maybe take the opportunity to ask them about how the company typically prioritises things (certain customers might always get bumped up the queue, etc) and what the culture’s like in terms of checking on progress etc - it’ll help you understand (and subsequently manage!) expectations, of yourself and others!! Obviously if they’re not your line manager it might be worth having the same conversation with your LM, for transparency.

Hope everything goes ok, in the meantime try not to worry. Lots of grounding exercises to prevent thoughts spiralling!

More likely just a quick check in to see how you are getting.

Yep agree with all above. Most likely a catch up but if it is to get rid of you, then they sound awful.

I would think it perfectly normal that your managers would want to check in with you a couple of weeks after you started a new role to see how you are getting on . Im surprised they haven't already done this TBH.