I worked as a contractor for almost a year and loved it. I loved my colleagues. We all worked well together. Almost to the day of becoming a direct hire, my previously very nice manager turned into a horror show. I was forced back to the office due to the new CEO FB. My entire team, including my boss, were spread throughout the US. I came to work to be in video calls. The rest of my team were allowed to wfh since no offices were near them.
You'd think me busting my bu-t to be in the office would get me extra points wouldn't you? Suddenly nothing was good enough. No matter what I did, I was always being chewed out by my boss for something completely out of left-field. I was always the quiet one who followed the rules, but her rules were a constant moving target now.
Being lectured like a child with absolutely no positive feedback ruined my mental health. I would start shaking before meeting with my this person. She spent over 2 hours telling me how exactly she wanted me to write my weekly status reports in a specific font and style, as well as how I should version every document I create. Her suggestions were stupid and a time waster. Clients were angry we couldn't finish requirements documents on time. But check out this psychotic process this woman created:
After completing 1 document, we had to send it to 10 people within the company for their comments. Then we update it each time based on their comments. None of them were on the project, so their comments weren't useful. I would then create a new version after making their changes. THEN after all those people hiving their approval, I was finally allowed to present the document to the client. The client would then tell us to rewrite the whole thing because everything we were told internally from those 10 people not even on the project was wrong. It was like writing thesis after thesis while in he-l.
I'm so glad I'm gone from there. It's getting steadily worse.