Ok I'm really sorry for how long this is but please stay with me, I'm feeling really nonplussed and unsettled and need to know whether I'm overreacting and being paranoid or whether I should be worried. I also don't want to drip feed so I've included as much info/background as poss. Sorry if its too long. BIG BIG thanks to anyone who gets through it!
Anyway...
I work from home, Monday to Friday 9-5, doing admin/contact centre type work on a temporary contract. I currently work in a small team of just four of us including the team leader/manager of this project. We have a group chat on gmail that is used for questions/discussions about work and just general chat throughout the day.
Today at 16:30 the manager sent a message to the group chat saying:
'You can log off for today PinkStar. Thanks for your help this week.'
This has never happened before. There's been the odd occasion where he has told ALL of us that we can log off 10 mins early because he's feeling generous, but never just me and never half an hour early. It also seems strange to me as he's only recently been saying that we have a massive backlog of work to get through, so I wouldn't think we could afford for any of us to finish early.
I replied with 'oh, are you sure? I still have quite a few references to get through'. There was no reply.
One of the other colleagues (who is more senior and kind of like the boss's right hand man) had added 'byeee' to the chat almost as soon as the boss had told me to log off. I don't know whether I'm being paranoid about this bit but it seemed very fast of her, almost like she knew he was going to tell me to log off.
After a few moments when neither of them had replied to my response, I put 'I hope I've not done anything wrong'.
I put this because the only time I've ever known someone being told to log off early was when this same manager did it to one of my colleagues on another project, and it turned out she had made a mistake that the client had complained about and she needed to stop work until it was sorted and she had been spoken to about the mistake.
Still no reply from anyone. I stayed sitting there for a bit, feeling confused. The manager and the other colleague were both shoeing as 'online', as usual, but saying nothing. After a bit longer, maybe 16:45, they both showed as 'idle' and then 'away'. This is unusual before 5pm.
Eventually I finalised the admin I was doing, updated my admin tracker and logged off. I checked back later after 5pm to see if there were any messages or emails. Nothing.
Background info:
I started the job at the beginning of January this year, on a temporary contract. They have extended the contract twice since then. My current extension officially ends on 8th August. They usually leave it quite late to tell us they want to extend it more - like a week before the contract end date. From what others have said, most of their employees are on contracts that are temporary but are on a rolling basis, and I've heard they tend to keep renewing everyone and haven't let anyone go in ages. There are people who have been there almost a year on a temp contract that keeps getting extended. I was hoping this would be the case for me.
The company does a lot of different work for various clients. I've worked on various projects since Jan but for the last couple of months I've been moved permanently to a small team working on behalf of a local authority, a mixture of admin and calling clients to discuss their applications. It's always been talked about as a long term project with lots of work now and in the future, as there is a massive backlog of work that they have outsourced to our company.
It's a small team that I'm on - the manager of this project, a girl who has been working on the project since it started and so is more experienced and is his unofficial 'right hand man' and then me and another girl who are new to the project and still learning. So just the four of us doing this particular work. We have regular meetings on google meet and have become friendly with each other, although I think I'm less close to them than they are to each other due to my social anxiety - I do chat to them and we're on good terms. I tend to have better/more lively chats one on one, which I have had with all of them over the last few months. I worked under the same manager for a different project and when he put me onto this one he told me I had been the best worker on that team and I got the impression he liked me as a person. (That was a few months ago though so his opinion may have changed).
I am still learning the systems and policies for this new project and getting my head around everything. I don't think I get through as many client references each day as I should be doing, but I find each one takes me a while and some take longer than others depending on the client, how complex the case is, getting passed from person to person and having to make multiple calls/send multiple emails for the same reference. This means although I'm working, I end up recording less 'completed' references for that day iyswim. Added to that I'm a naturally slow person when doing complex things and doubt myself a lot so spend longer on tasks than others might. I've been worrying that I'm not performing well enough but there have been no complaints from the manager and in my last 1:1 with him (16th June) he was very positive and said he was happy with my progress, said not to worry about my speed and that it will all come with time. That is a whole month ago though and I think I've only slightly improved my number of references done per day since then.
Also, since the last 1:1 I've had two late mornings and one full day off due to anxiety. I explained this at the time. The first time I was half an hour late logging on he said it was fine but I just need to stay half an hour late to work the time back, which I did. The second time I was late and I went into more detail about my anxiety and how it affects me he just said things like 'I'm so sorry I had no idea are, are you ok?' and then 'do you want to take the whole day off?' I worked the rest of that day but was off the next day due to the anxiety. He has said nothing about this, no comment, no back to work meeting, no concerns expressed. He's always been a pretty laid back boss.
So in one sense my mind is jumping to various reasons why he may have decided to end my contract early, but in another sense its been quite unexpected and a bit random. Also find it strange that he didn't reply after my response. I would have thought if he was going to fire me he would do it in work hours - maybe tell me to log off at 16:30 and then call me to fire me, send an email, call a zoom meeting. But there's been nothing.
So now I'm left to feel uncertain and worried all weekend.
I do find the boss a bit difficult to work out sometimes. He has a dry humour and will be sarcastic a lot of the time, will say something deadpan that is meant to be a joke. The girl who's been working with him a lot longer gets his humor and they have constant banter going on, they are quite close. I struggle to tell when he's being serious or joking. He sometimes comes across serious when it's actually not or when its actually good news. Last time he extended my contract I got a message out of the blue saying 'Hi, are you OK?' When I replied he said 'do you have a few minutes please.' and told me to join a google meet with him. I thought I was going to get fired then but instead he said, in a very serious voice with a frown on his face, that he was really happy with my work and wanted to extend my contract. So, he's a bit hard to work out if you get what I mean?
In this instance though I feel a bit unsettled to just be told to log off early with no reason, and then no contact even after I've asked and said 'I hope I've not done anything wrong.'
I feel like my weekend is ruined a bit now, and I'm dreading Monday morning.
Sooo sorry for the long post. I'm just looking for thoughts on this and actually maybe a bit of a handhold because I'm really worried and upset now. I've had temporary contracts ended before due to being off too much due to my anxiety. It's really hard making people understand what it's like and how it affects me. I'm worried I've lost this job now too.